Sarah Silverman explains how to get around Republican voter suppression tactics: register to get a gun! (NSFW. But of course, all you workers are working at work, so you’re not going to see this anyway.)
I wonder if the media will pay any attention to the outraged minorities and students who discover they are disenfranchised on election day? I know Fox News won’t, but there’s a possibility the other networks…nah, who am I kidding?
I can’t think of anything to say except I love this woman.
that was good
*Boggles*
It’s true, Nanna.
It’s true.
It would certainly make Election Night more interesting if the media reported numbers of voters disenfranchised in each state, along with the vote tallies.
I’m supposed to be working while I’m at work?
Ah ha ha ha ha ha HA! It’s a beeautiful Friday and I’m quitting in 2 weeks. I ain’t working. *toodles off to watch the video*
Hippies, please do come to Canada. We want you. We need you. (Unless you want to vote for us as president, of course, which might be an even better idea. Just imagine if Florida was full of Canucks. I mean, not just the crotchety retired ones who don’t tip worth a shit.)
Once here, we can all hippie the fuck out of this place. It’s gonna be awesome. (We’ll even pass some ‘no patchouli in the workplace’ laws if the smell bothers you.)
Now, you might be worried that some of your ex-countryfolk might get it into their heads that you belong with them and come knockin’ around with their A-10 Abrams Stealth-Hogs or whatever. Well, we gotcha covered.
See, when you all get here, we can severely curtail the oil sands operations. Sure, it’ll mean teaching Albertans how to read enough to get non-primary resource extraction jobs, but look at me: I’m Albertan, and I’m mostly literant an’ shit. So it won’t be to hard at awl.
Then, once they’re cut off, your psycho exes’ll have to find a better way to get along with their suppliers in the Middle East, or learn to power their war machine with Happy Meals and Chuck Lorre sitcoms (assuming he’s not already moved here to produce Deux gardiens de but et demi or something like that.)
We’re happy. You’re happy. They’re happy. It’s win-win. Er, win-win-win.
(And don’t worry about the cold and the lack of sun. You’ll get used to it, much like you get used to mosquitoes in the summer, or scabies in the groin-area.)
So, let me be the first to say—in a terrible accent because, y’know, Albertan whose redneck parents wouldn’t send him to French immersion classes here—Bienvenue au Canada!
Holy crap. When I joked way back in that older thread that the US should make gun ownership mandatory and use the gun license as photo ID and proof of citizenship I didn’t mean that to be taken literally!
Cross-posting some voter suppression comments from the older Romney campaign thread:
Yet another Republican has condemned “lazy” Americans, this time in defense of Pennsylvania’s stupid, Republican-imposed state-ID law that is designed to disenfranchise eligible voters most likely to vote Democratic.
“I don’t believe any legitimate voter that actually wants to exercise that right and takes on the according responsibility that goes with that right to secure their photo ID will be disenfranchised,” Metcalfe said. [State Representative Daryl Metcalfe, member of the American Legislative Exchange Council, ALEC]
“As Mitt Romney said, 47% of the people that are living off the public dole, living off their neighbors’ hard work, and we have a lot of people out there that are too lazy to get up and get out there and get the ID they need. If individuals are too lazy, the state can’t fix that.”
Metcalfe also claims to have been “a Tea Partier before it was cool,” and he is infamous for introducing birther legislation. Oh, yes, Metcalfe is also linked to right-wing anti-immigrant hate groups. But he has plenty of hate to go around, and has been called the legislature’s “most prominent critic of gays.”
Just for the sake of being thorough, here’s a link to text and video showing Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Mike Turzai candidly outing the true purpose of state-ID laws:
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/06/25/12402854-accidental-candor-about-voter-id?lite
“Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.”
Cross-posted from the Romney campaign thread:
In the September 27 issue of The New York Review of Books, Andrew Hacker takes a look at this issue and other issues related to Romney’s efforts to garner a majority of the vote.
Excerpts below:
There are ways to suppress the vote other than requiring new state-issued ID. One example is North Carolina, where a True the Vote group (VIP, Voter Integrity Project) submitted 30,000 names that they thought should be removed from the voter rolls because those listed were purportedly dead.
Nope, not all dead. Tea Partiers screw up again.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#49112935
Nobody, not even a single voter, cast a vote in the name of a dead person.
Zero problem voters, but hundreds of hours were spent to prove this.
Don’t hold the gun sideways. You can’t see what you’re shooting at.
Hippies, please do come to Canada.
Find me two jobs and a school that can deal with dyslexia and I’m all yours.
Two jobs? When are you going to find the time to learn how to curl?
I so wish I could. I already love hockey, Tim Horton’s, Kids in the Hall, and Sloan, so I should fit in fairly well, eh?
Lynna, I don’t know if anyone has ever told you this, but I gotta say…I always look forward to your comments, because they’re always so useful and informative, with the links and everything. Thanks!
@14: I come with two bonus people. One needs a job. How’s the astronomy in Canada? Also, about this curling requirement…I don’t have to be good at it, do I? Because my athletic ability is…well, I’d like to call it questionable, but there’s really no question that I’m pretty bad at it.
there is a great potential for a major upheaval if there is a feeling that the election was a fraud regardless on who wins.
I for one can’t wait I’m from Compton I’ve seen upheavals before, it should be interesting.
uncle frogy
Fighting an imaginary problem by creating actual problems: Standard Republican operating procedure.
anteprepro – isn’t this more a case of them fighting a genuine problem (for them – they’re going to lose) by creating an imaginary problem (voting fraud)?
The other day I lost my old, worn-out Costco card. I went to Member Services and within five minutes had a shiny new one.
Law says you need ID to vote? No problem! When you check in at the polls, state your name for the precinct worker. They take your picture, laminate a card for you on the spot, and you can use it to vote immediately. It’s not good for anything but voting, and no other form of ID is acceptable at the polling place.
I guarantee the rate of “voter fraud” won’t go up significantly, and it gets around those pesky laws. Sure, it’ll waste taxpayer money, but so do those “pee in the bottle before you get food stamps” laws, so I don’t see a problem.
Sarah Silverman is hot, and you’ve gotta love a girl willing to open with “fuck you in your assholes.” More proof that “classy liberal” is an oxymoron.
Unfortunately, like so many cool liberals, the truth is not on Sarah’s side. If she was ugly, I’d shout SHE’S LYING TO YOU, but we all know that beautiful people, especially those willing to talk about non-consensual anal sex in their PSA, don’t ever lie.
Here are some actual facts, and for those of you standing by with the “citation please” comment, I want to direct you to a really neat website called http://www.google.com where lots of information is available. Sadly, not all of it’s true though, so you’ll need to exercise some discernment and some judgment as you noodle around.
FACT:
In the 2008 Presidential election, the Democrats carried 17 of the 21 states without any kind of voter ID laws; the Republicans carried only 4 states without any voter ID laws.
OBSERVATION:
That seems remarkably skewed to me, indicating that some type of bias or fraud seems plausible. It doesn’t prove fraud or bias, but it certainly suggests it as a possibility.
FACT:
By contrast, the Republicans carried 18 of the 30 states that require some form of voter ID, while the Democrats carried 12 states with some form of voter ID.
OBSERVATION:
Again, the data don’t prove that voter ID laws produce more balanced election results, but the data hint at that possibility.
FACT:
43.9% of the electoral votes were cast in states with NO VOTER ID LAWS WHATSOEVER.
FACT:
32.3% of the electoral votes were cast in states that do not require a photo ID.
FACT:
11.9% of the electoral votes were cast in states that DO require a photo ID
FACT:
11.9% of the electoral votes were cast in states that strictly enforce photo ID by only allowing certain types of photo ID.
CONCLUSIONS I HAVE DRAWN:
Sexy Sarah’s video really only applies the black people, poor people, old people and students who are about to get fucked in their assholes in states accounting for 23.8% of the electoral votes, so the asshole fucking pandemic will not be as widespread as Sarah suggests.
Asshole fucking is probably illegal in many of the states that make up this subset, but no, I didn’t waste my time to research that point so it qualifies as an assertion rather than a fact.
The assholes of the black people, poor people, old people and students in states accounting for 76.2% of the electoral votes are safe.
Asshole fucking is probably not illegal in many of the states that make up this subset, but again, I didn’t waste my time to research that point so this also qualifies as an assertion rather than a fact.
Glad we cleared that up.
Since rape is such a sore subject (!) in this blog, I would like to report PZ Myers to the moderators for starting a thread involving a video in which a comedian uses anal rape as a metaphor for the purposes of humor. If it was Dane Cook talking about anal rape, would it have been less funny and more offensive? Is it okay because the joke came from a female comedian instead of a guy?
Or, more logically, Republicans like voter ID laws, and so states that skew Republican tend to pass them.
FACT: you seem to conflate correlation with causation.
CONCLUSION: You’re not very bright.
We’re liberals, we don’t work.
Yeah, we’re the 47%, baby.
It’s offensive from her, too.
When Pharyngulars are insensitive about rape, I think the term PZ has coined for them is “Rape Apologists.” Posters be warned, be very careful how you attack Comment #23 or you might step into the same logic void as PZ.
SS is not making a JOKE. She is using an ANALOGY of losing your right to vote to being anally raped to make a POLITICAL POINT.
As such, it’s not offensive (it’s infuriating and outrageous), except perhaps to Republicans passing voter-suppression laws who are annoyed at being called out.
It’s the least I can do.
Sometimes I overdo it. You might want to think twice about encouraging me.
Oh noes! Raymond Crapsell has set a trap! Everyone be afraid!
@24 No Nigel, I didn’t “conflate correlation with causation,” I made a single observation from the data set and distinguished it from fact. Observashun is a purdy impart- impord- impartint port of the scientific method, yes? Dont’cha gots to make a few observashuns in order to formalate a hypoteneuse, no hypothesis?
It’s not a trap if there’s a flashing light next to it, unless of course you’re an idiot
I know how to handle Raymond Crapsell’s cunning trap! I’ve put him on automod!
I’ll let you know if he says anything worth reading. If not, obvious troll gets obviously thrown into the dungeon.
You were attempting to draw causation from a correlation. So, yeah. Sure, you gussied it up as if you were not claiming anything for certain, but your entire premise was that Sarah Silverman was wrong. Which pretty much indicates that’s the conclusion about causation you wish to draw from the correlation.
Raymond: Spell out your hypothesis, as derived from your single data set. Cites and evidence will be scrutinized.
Terrible. We have all these damn lights in the way.
I’ve actually never curled. I understand that the primary draw is that it’s played with a beer in one hand and a cigarette dangling from the lips, though the latter are no longer permissible in most arenas.
Oh noes! We can’t handle the truth.
Oops, I mean THE TRUTH.
The stupidest thing about Raymond’s little FACT and CONCLUSION statistical fapping is simply this: there are methods of detecting voter fraud that don’t rely on confusing correlation with causation. And those methods have turned up an effective voter fraud rate of 0.0%.
Large-scale voter fraud is difficult.
Voter suppression, on the other hand, is quite easy.
Also, his stupid statistical analysis relies on the concept that it’s a close race. It seems the Republican party is shedding people faster than a mangy dog sheds its hair, so this is a questionable assumption.
My interpretation of the data suggests that Obama would’ve won by a much larger margin had Republican states not been successful at voter suppression.
(I’m not really serious about that, but it’s yet One More Flaw in our less-than-intelligent statistics fapper.)
Damn, chew toy gone. Always happens right after one asks for evidence. Dammit! When will I learn?
Brownian, you’re from Alberta, you know we don’t really lack for sun. It’s often sunny out in the winter — at -20 C!
@36: That’s ok. Second potential Canadian is a theorist. He doesn’t need dark, just a big computer.
Right. During the season where five out of seven days it’s dark when I leave for work and dark when I leave to go home.
But yeah, those beautiful high pressure days come with a price tag in Kelvins, all right.
@Raymond, I’m the gullible one so I’ll believe you didn’t know – a poll on Christina Rads blog clearly demonstrated that while some say rape jokes, analogies, imagery etc are never funny the consensus was it is sometimes funny. The butt (oo-eer!) of the joke is everything and as long as it is not the victim you will be ok.
https://proxy.freethought.online/cristinarad/2012/07/26/just-a-quick-poll/
… And if you are not convinced, more of PZ sponsored rape videos for you to froth at the gash over …
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2012/08/21/its-a-republican-approved-rape-video/
Anyway… I was going to say why are UK elections so dull? I’ve never laughed so much at any political video over here…
Raymond, just to clarify:
When you make a claim like the truth is not on Sarah’s side, and then back it up with a bunch of statistics concerning voting patterns (that is, correlation), you’re drawing a conclusion. The only way you can say the truth is not on Sarah’s side is if you are assuming the cause of your statistical analysis is widespread voter fraud.
That’s how you conflated correlation with causation — a fairly common, and fairly egregious, logical fallacy.
Then when you say stupid shit like
you display your vast ignorance. You didn’t make an observation, at least in any kind of scientific sense. You get a little closer to the heart of it when you called it an hypothesis (though your spelling was atrocious). But you cannot claim the truth is against Sarah Silverman based on an unsupported hypothesis, especially when there are other, more logical hypotheses out there.
I just wanted to clarify where you went wrong in your logical chain. Your claim that voter fraud could account for the statistics you presented was perfectly valid. Where you went wrong is in jumping to the conclusion that the truth was against Sarah Silverman. It was at that point you were asserting voter fraud was the cause of the statistics you presented, and committing your logical fallacy.
You can make a hell of an abacus out of a play-off calendar and a box of Timbits.
What, no vacuum tubes? How primative!
Ah, but Brownian, you’re a liberal (non-big-L) and so I assumed you were clearly not working during the day and so enjoying the sun. {/s)
You reminded me of one of my favourite Canadian commercials. It is for Hawaiian vacations. Some poor slob is working at a desk in December; tagline is: Edmonton. Clock reads 4:15. Slob looks out window at buildings in utter darkness, bursts into tears. Following by couples frolicking in the tropic sun. Take a vacation today.
I don’t like the heat, so I am inured to such messages, but I did appreciate them portraying Edmonton at 4:30pm in December.
Don’t be silly. It’s American liberals who don’t work. Canadian liberals work for the bloated and inefficient government.
I remember that commercial. It was great.
BTW, in the winter Hawaii can be quite pleasant, and not all that hot. Even when it is, there’s usually a bit of a cooling ocean breeze.
No need for ’em. When your igloo floor gets dirty, you just pack another layer of snow down.
Poor Raymond is still ranting away in the moderation queue. He thinks this is all about “hot sexy girls” being allowed to joke about rape in a way that men are not, and asks this question:
No. Nothing is funny coming from Dane Cook.
Lynna:
Never. I really appreciate your posts too. ♥
Seriously. The guy is terrible. I mean, check out his Twitter feed. You’ll see why he’s got a reputation as a joke thief; if you’ve ever laughed at a joke of his, it’s not a joke of his.
Brownian:
Hey, it worked for Denis Leary. Though admittedly, Leary stole from the best.
Dianne @41
That’s one o’them terr’ists but with chocolate, right?
If it suited his discursive purposes Craporama would have called Silverman an ugly whore. It’s all depressingly predictable.
Personally, I think Raymond does a nice job providing evidence that voter ID laws disproportionately suppress the demographic groups that tend to vote for the Democrats. Lacking any evidence that individual voter fraud is any sort of real problem, he makes a clear case that the voter ID laws are the real fraud.
Nice job, Raymond.
Rachel Maddow, who anchors MSNBC’s evening news coverage, has been hammering away at this issue every single night for weeks.
Shorter Raymond: Democratic votes are, by definition, fraudulent.
Just as I said in one of the other threads, their kind actually consider any Democratic votes to be defined as fraudulent–because only “Real” Americans have the legal right to vote, and no one from “Real” America would ever vote other than Rethug, THEREFORE all Democratic votes are by default fraudulent, being cast by “Fake” Americans who are not legally allowed to vote.
What’s sad is that I wasn’t joking.
Since we’re doing links, it might be worth pointing out that there are next to no verified cases of voter fraud. It’s just not a problem.
P-Zed @ 50:
Was he not around when there was a post (not on Pharyngula, but on FtB) about “here are some ways to make non-victim-blaming, non-sexist jokes involving rape”? There was at least one video by a male comedian; the joke was, essentially, “Dude, if you’re male you really need to pay attention to whether your actions might make you look like a creepy-as-hell potential rapist; and if you accidentally give that impression, the appropriate response to that realization is to feel bad about it and not do it again, possibly while poking fun at yourself for your mistake.” There are jokes that can be made by men involving rape culture as a context; shockingly (just shockingly!), these might not be the same jokes that women are in a position to make.
Wow. For all the “FACTS” that Raymond Crapsell needed to bring up in his first post, he sure didn’t make any fucking significant point. At least not by using the “FACTS” themselves.
Yes, but that’s not what they’re going to say in the press releases. But you have a point.
And on that note: I was unfair in my initial post. Republicans don’t just fight fake problems by creating real ones. They often create imaginary problems as bugbears to create the excuse to fight, and regularly ignore genuine problems in order to continue exacerbating same genuine problems. There. That’s a bit more thorough description of RSOP.
I thought that his first Comedy Central stand-up routine was pretty funny. That has been the one exception and it happened before he was ever notably famous. So yeah.
MISANDRY!
What does being funny have to do with being offensive or misogynistic?
If a blackface routine is the funniest thing on the planet that makes it not one whit less offensive or racist – in my opinion, at least.
Can someone explain how being funny makes something not bigoted?
Or, if it doesn’t, why is ‘but it’s funny!’ always raised as relevant?
I don’t know if there are any legal or technical problems against a general citizen ID card in the USA, but this system works quite well in Germany.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_identity_card
But as much as I have learned about USAmericans yet, there would be a massive uproar of “Evil Big Government is surpressing us!” about such an idea.
For damn good reason. I don’t want to have to carry a piece of plastic just to prove my right to exist, and I damn sure don’t want to give law enforcement yet another way to track me. If you think I’m being paranoid I suggest you look into the way our government has been spying on and persecuting activists in the Occupy movement. For even more stark examples look at the measures used against the environmental and animal rights movements, where special laws have been passed (pre-911 even,) allowing even completely nonviolent civil disobedience to be prosecuted as terrorism.
Regardless, voter ID is a still a solution in search of a problem. Unless you can come up with some kind of evidence that in person voter fraud actually happens at a rate we should be concerned about?
Freodin,
As I understand it some of the American Religious Right would object to such a card because they are afraid of being tagged with the ‘Mark of the Beast’. Somehow it would mean that they would go directly to Hell without passing the Pearly Gates, or something.
Some of them have decided that ‘Obamacare’ has a provision where they will be forced to accept an imbedded id capsule like the ones used with dogs and cats, with amongst other things, the above ‘go directly to Hell’ as a result.
It’s scary to think such people vote in a nuclear power that can’t say no to war.
@Brownian: I’d emigrate to canada but the wife-to-be hates your spread out, Meriken-style cities. Well, maybe not entirely Meriken-style, she can still walk to places.
Dysomniak,
from the wiki-link I posted:
“It is compulsory for all German citizens age 16 or older to possess either an identity card or a passport but not to carry one.”
If you don’t want to be identified, you don’t have to do it with this card. But if you want and see the need, you have it. I never carry mine with me (though I have my drivers license to identify me, which I am required to carry when driving.)
I don’t say that this system is ideal, but it (and some other little things in the German voting system) make problems like the american seem rather… wierd. I’m sure they have their reasons and traditions for the system they use… but it still seems rather ridiculous to see such problems arise in the “Land of the free”.
However, it’s been my experience that there’s usually no interest in actually looking at one of those at the voting booth.
I think rather more relevant is the Meldegesetz which means that everyone must be registered at the place of his or her primary residence. Consequently, the city can (and does) send everybody an invitation to vote, and at the booth, they have a list of everybody who can vote there (presumably minus the people who have asked to vote by mail), and simply mark off who has – no double voting.
Then again, over here, we think it’s perfectly reasonable, in case a court thinks there was something wrong with the vote, to just ask everyone in the relevant area to go again. Or even just to count the votes again.
Raymond uses Critical Thinking
Raymond rolls a 1
It’s completely ineffective
@nms
SHAME ON YOU! That is two separate references
I should probably point out that PZ would’ve gotten a lot more hits had he not put Raymond in the moderation queue. So in the future, should anyone like to claim that PZ will do anything for the clicks, all they need to do is point to this single event to disprove that assertion.
Also, nms nails it.
(Severe trigger warning for this post for examples of offensive rape jokes)
@62 Anri:
When the socially-disadvantaged group is the one being polled, the humor in a joke can be seen as a weak proxy for how inoffensive it is. But in general, you do make a good point; humor and offense are quite different animals. It’s quite possible for a joke to be simultaneously funny and offensive (which probably applies to quite a number of jokes made by Sarah Silvenman, in fact).
But the main point is the same when it comes to rape: How offensive a rape joke is depends on who is the butt of the joke. If the person being raped is used as the butt of a joke (“Haw haw, you got raped!”), it’s likely offensive. If the rapist is the butt of the joke, it might be inoffensive (but some rape survivors may still be triggered or find it unfunny). In short, see the flowchart here.
In the video in question here, rape is used as a metaphor (and possibly hyperbole) for “inflict bad things upon.” There is an argument that could be made that this metaphor serves to inadvertently diminish the horror of rape by comparing it to voter ID laws, and it’s offensive on that basis, but I sincerely doubt that Raymond had that in mind.
No. Nothing is funny coming from Dane Cook.
plus eleventy.
You have got to be…
…
-_-
If you haven’t renewed your driver’s license lately, you will be in for a bit of a shock. The Real ID Act (passed by Bush & Co) went into effect on July 1st that requires you to provide 4 pieces of ID – a proof of identity, 2 proofs of residential address, full social security number, and U.S. citizenship or proof of lawful presence in the United States. You must get a new photograph. No online renewals unless you have per-registered as Secure ID compliant.
Proofs of address are a toughy – the DMV lady suggested I use a utility bill and was taken aback when I told her our utility bills were in my husband’s name. I used my bank statement and a summary of benefits earned statement from Social Security.
An 18 year friend of mine tried to take his driver’s test and was told he needs two proofs of residence. Where does an 18 year old kid who is hunting for his first job get two “official” proofs of his address?
This act is selectively disenfranchising members of the same family – dad may get water bills or have a W2, but mom, the kids and granny might not.
To go back even farther, a previous law requires your DL to have your full, complete name as on your birth certificate (or changed by marriage or a court) – even if you have never legally used it. Your voter registration must also be in this name – if it doesn’t match your DL, you can be denied a ballot. (Some of this happened in the last election.)
So, if you were christened Maximillian John Doe, but used Max or John Doe on everything, including your bank accounts, SSN, credit cards and DL (up to that date), you would have to get a DL with Maximillian John Doe or no vote. Now your DL doesn’t match the name on your credit card & bank account. OUCH!
I actually have a good friend who had her name legally changed to the one she uses, because the state of GA refused to issue her a license except in her birth name.
It used to be you could use any name you chose as long as you weren’t using it to commit fraud or a crime. Not any more.
The state wants to be able to track you from cradle to grave. Courtesy of our conservative brethren, those famous freedom fighters who support individual liberty. NOT.
Is it beginning to smell like Big Brother around here?
And to add, you might casually use the name Max Doe when you register to vote (cause you always use Max Doe) and be refused a ballot when you go to vote because the name on your DL (Maximillian John Doe) doesn’t match the Max Doe on the voter roll. Sneaky, eh?
It doesn’t sound like Big Brother because none of this information is used to track you – merely to confound you. You’re mixing up your dystopian bureaucracies, that’s all.
.
Fuck, #22 is easily the dumbest thing I’ve read all weekend.