Micah brings up voting in this episode (eventually), and Phil entertains the idea. K Sera is not buying what he is selling. In this episode we discuss: Voter rights, laws, prison, constitutional originalism, and the psychology of entitlement versus an earned privilege.

 

Show notes:

Originalism

Voting rights for prisoners

Voting rights already under attack

And another example of voting rights already under attack, again

Visit us a www.iiopodcast.fm, just for fun!

 

K Sera’s After Thoughts:

- Just because you choose not to exercise your rights doesn’t mean they should be taken away. Just because you can’t or don’t work shouldn’t exclude your say in the laws and policies that impact your quality of life. Phil makes a lot of good arguments for how pretty much all efforts to make voting dependent on “contributions to society” can (and almost certainly will) be manipulated and abused.

- I am not in favor of voting disenfranchisement of citizens, period. While I do think there are plenty of people who I wish would abstain or would at least think more critically before they cast their ballot, I would still say they have a right as citizens for their voice to be heard and an opportunity to advance their interests.

- Micah is wrong. AS USUAL. He may or may not be shoved into a vat of nope sauce in the near future… and I will watch him flail while consuming deconstructed nachos with olives on the side.

 

Phil’s After Thoughts:

-I think that the basic premise is how do we encourage our voters to actually care about the issues instead of tuning out (and leaving the voting to just the extremes that are energized to a boiling point). The last election about half the eligible voting population decided to skip the polls.

-I also want to point out that while I understand why current prisoners should have their voting rights temporarily restricted, I want to say that it’s weird that for “population/census” reasons that prisoners count for redistricting purposes (so they count for gerrymandering) but they legally cannot vote. These types of shenanigans are ultimate why I believe that the current politicians have even more incentive to ”lock undesirable voters” in record numbers while also benefiting from their incarceration. And anyone who will argue with me that justice is blind will only fall upon deaf ears.

-Also, just because people do vote in the polls, it doesn’t mean that they are well informed voters. As we have seen, more people voted for GOP agenda in 2020, despite all the chaos we have endured. I can no longer relate to a large swath of the American Electorate.