Why do Republicans hate liberty?!?!?

Richard Posner (Credit: Reuters/John Gress)

I don't get it. I have many friends that are Republicans, and to a person they all cite a dedication to individual liberty as one of the reasons they identify as such.

So, why do Republicans want to use the power of government to restrict voting rights through implementing Voter ID laws. They cite voter fraud as justification, but on such weak evidence? I mean, to place any restriction voting rights you'd expect people - with such a dedication to keeping the power of government from limiting free exercise of all individual liberty - to only do so with proof positive that it was needed. They haven't. They haven't because they can't. It hardly ever happens. As conservatives love to say, "If it ain't broke. Don't fix it."

"I believe there are thousands of illegal votes that cancel out legitimate ones." a GOP friend tells me. Well, believing in something, and proving something is real are entirely different things. Or, to paraphrase my father the sailor; "Believe in one hand, and shit in the other. See which one fills up first." I really don't give a shit what you believe. What can you prove, because that's what matters?

Let's see there's the recent James O'Keefe wannabe conservative muckraker video in which, while disguised as a liberal activist, he conversationally gets other voting activists to admit if they did such and such (with early ballots, or absentee ballots which I'm not sure how Voter ID prevents that anyway) they could stuff the ballot box with fraudulent votes. They never do, but for some reason this is "proof" that voter fraud is rampant.

There's the video of the Arizona man dropping off early ballots that he has collected - which is legal in AZ (not that I think we should bring this practice to WI) - as a Republican poll watcher says "What are you doing?" If he's a poll watcher, he knows damn well what the guy is doing. Again, these are signed ballots in sealed envelopes that need to be inspected by poll workers before they're counted. Another conservative friend - OK brother's friend - says "How do you know those are all legitimate votes Dave?!" To which I reply, "You need to prove they're illegitimate. That's how the law works dumbass."

But go ahead, insist that Voter ID is not a solution in search of a problems. Tell us that fraud is rampant while GOP Atty Generals DON'T prosecute any cases while calling for the law. Tell us how you need an ID to do dozens of other things like buy beer (to show age), or cigarettes (again, age), or a bank account (not the law, a bank policy), or cash a check (another business policy, not state law); none of which are Constitutional rights. Insist it's not voter suppression. People are just too lazy to get the IDs, (or pay the poll tax, or take the literacy tests, or not have ovaries, or not be black, or whatever else conservatives have done in the past to try to hold back demographic shifts). Please, insist all these things are really the reason. It's just so precious.

One of your own, Judge Posner, says it's bullshit. When the guy who upheld Indiana's Voter ID law says it's a pile of poo, it's a pile of poo.