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I am a firm believer that we all know ourselves and decide to undertake certain actions, or said another way, we decide how we are going to live everyday. I know I am not going to commit a crime when I wake up, as also I know I am not going to commit a crime in the future. How can I say this? Easily.
I may not have what you have, but I also do not want it. OK, there is theft, and I am not tempted. I have personally held and had over $20,000.00 in my hands, and I knew who it belonged to, and who it was from. Never did I fail in protecting my friends interest, nor the involved parties.
I may dislike you, but unless you attack me and I fear my or my families safety, you are safe around me. I know this as fact in my life. I will defend myself and those around me. I have taken oaths my entire life to do for the good of all through treating each other right. You do need to fear me if you break our laws. I, as well as most others will call the police, or deal with you. This is fair, as well as protected under the law. As long as I do not violate your rights, I am fine.
I also will never betray my country or its people, and hate anyone who would.
Why am I saying this? Because, some in our nation wake up with the intent on hurting you, robbing you, betraying you, and with no regard for anyone but themselves. Those who are deemed as one of these unwanted, untrusted people have shown they cannot handle our world.
In courts they are labeled felons. Felon is a label which is earned. You do not just become one, nor are you suddenly made one. It is a label only by ones actions does one deserve to wear it.
So, part of our punishment for those deemed felons is the revocation of the right to vote. This is only fair. Now, think honestly, do you want every criminal that is a felon to decide your future? They already did something so bad that the courts sent them to prison, and stripped them from that point forth of many of the rights you and I enjoy every day. These are good things for all of us whom do not want to be a victim to their disregard for our own rights.
I support this. Hell, it should scare the hell out of anyone who cares about those around them if the idea a rapist could go buy a gun without any checks. Imagine your true and worthy fear, and then empower these people to do to you what they please. Would you be safe? How about your loved ones and friends.
So, there are people who want to restore these and other rights to felons. I see them as either naive or with perhaps ill will to those of us enjoying our lives as we live them. You decide. Vocal supporters of many democrat presidential candidates, Soros had the following to say. This is from a cashed file online posted originally by Open Society Institute.
Page Link
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:UOjpCDYcQCcJ:www.soros.org/initiatives/justice/events/disenfranchise_20060620/summary+How+many+felons+in+US&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=us
Copied on June 17th, 2008 from the above link. No items were changed.
The following is a summary of the forum "Felon Disenfranchisement: Costs and Consequences," held at the Open Society Institute's New York office on June 20, 2006.
Moderator Kirsten Levingston, director of the Criminal Justice Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, began by noting the following statistics:
5.3 million people in the United States are denied the right to vote because of felony conviction.
Nearly 600,000 veterans are denied the right to vote.- Thirteen percent of African American men cannot vote due to a felony conviction.
- Eighty percent of those polled in a national survery supported restoring voting rights for people who have completed a felony sentence.
- Five states still permanently disenfranchise people who have been convicted of a felony unless the government approves restoring an individual's right.
Levingston asked author Sasha Abramsky how he became interested in the topic of his book, CONNED: How Millions Went to Prison, Lost the Vote and Helped Send George W. Bush to the White House (The New Press). Forty or fifty years ago, Abramsky said, felon disenfranchisement wasn't a big practical question; there simply weren't that many people in prison. Today, over two million people are incarcerated in the United States, while approximately seven million are involved in the criminal justice system at any one time. What happens, he wondered, when you remove that many people from the voting process? What does it mean when you have very close election victories by conservative candidates?
Levingston then asked Jeff Manza, co-author of the book Locked Out: Felon Disenfranchisement and American Society (Oxford University Press), about the practical implications of felon disenfranchisement. Using Department of Justice demographic information, Manza said, he was able to estimate how many felons would have voted and how they would have voted. Evidence indicated that in a number of close races, the Republican winner might well have lost had all citizens been allowed to vote.
Monifa Bandele, field director of the Right to Vote Campaign, discussed how felon disenfranchisement has affected people in the communities she works with. Bandele has observed three levels of impact:
the family: if heads of households vote, their children and other relatives are more likely to vote;- the community: these groups are bypassed by politicians if residents don't or can't vote;
- the macro-level: if millions of people are blocked from voting, their demographic becomes less important politically.
Joseph "Jazz" Hayden remarked on the status of his lawsuit, Hayden v. Pataki, and what motivated him to file it. Only Maine and Vermont allow prisoners to vote, Hayden said, but "since we are all citizens of the United States, once you commit a crime you do not cease to be a citizen." The contradiction was so glaring, he said, it had to be addressed. In 2000, he filed a class-action lawsuit on grounds that the Voting Rights Act is being violated and that this in turn dilutes and weakens the community vote.
After 11 months, the lawsuit had a hearing. The court decided against the prisoners' claims. Lawyers are considering whether to go to the Supreme Court, but this is unlikely given the present conservative slant of that body, Hayden said.
Levingston asked Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project, about the impact of disenfranchisement at the jail level, where people haven't been convicted of a crime. Mauer stated that there are approximetely 700,000 inmates around the country who haven't yet had a trial, or who were convicted of a misdemeanor. They are eligible to vote but likely will not, Mauer said. They are unaware they have the right, and prison staff are unlikely to make arrangements for them to vote.
Abramsky addressed the perception that formerly incarcerated people are not interested in getting the right to vote. Conservatives are often adamant, he said, that felons do not want to vote. As part of his research Abramsky spoke with convicted felons, most of whom expressed a desire to vote. While conservatives claim that this population, if allowed to vote, would form large criminal voting blocks, Abramsky said that what they really want is to have a say in policies that affect them, such as those regarding schools, tax policies, and war.
Manza polled Americans about whether they thought people with felony convictions should be allowed to vote. He found two trends in public opinion. Over the last 40 years Americans have shown increased willingness to punish criminal offenders more harshly. Yet Americans have become much more supportive of civil rights and civil liberties for all groups, including unpopular ones. Manza's study found that Americans support restoring the right to vote for everyone except for current prison inmates (only about a third support this).
Levingston asked Hayden about his comparison of the felon disenfranchisement issue with "Juneteenth," referring to the disconnect between abolition and the prolonged practice of slavery in some parts of the country. Just as slaves were not made aware that they were free long after emancipation, one of the biggest obstacles to restoring people's right to vote is that they are unaware of the laws or of the process required to restore voting rights. There are possibly millions in the country who are eligible to vote but do not excercise that right because they have not been notified, Hayden said.
Mauer addressed the international implications of the issue. As with the death penalty, the United States is by far the exception with regard to the practices of the rest of industrialized world, he said. But Mauer pointed to a few encouraging developments: for example, a group of organizations has called on the UN Human Rights Committee to confront the United States regarding felon disenfranchisement.
Some encouraging news has emerged in the United States, Bandele said, citing three areas:
Litigation: several lawsuits have challenged states' laws that prevent people from voting.
Push for policy change: public education is increasing awareness so that the public will put pressure on elected officials to change the laws.
Compliance: 5.3 million people are legally disenfranchised; that number doubles when we talk about noncompliance in states where people are allowed to vote but essentially prevented from doing so because they are asked to present nonexistent documents, or are incorrectly told they do not have the right, or where there is widespread ignorance of the laws even among elections administrators. For example, Bandele noted developments in New York State. Systematically, she said, election boards were not providing correct information regarding voting rights. This has been corrected through better education and information.
Levingston asked Abramsky how those in power have reacted to the ease with which people lose the right to vote. In some states there is a good-faith effort to get people to vote when they've finished their sentences, he said. In others, "there is absolutely no momentum toward reenfranchisement." For example, Mississippi has a very efficient disenfranchisement process, Abramsky said. When convicted of a qualified felony (not all felonies result in disenfranchisement), the individual is immediately removed from the voter rolls. Mississippi claims to have a reenfranchisement process, which is as follows: An individual must go to his or her state representative and convince them to personally author a bill reenfranchising that individual. Both houses of the legislature must then be convinced to pass the bill, and the governor has to sign it. This means that every year, only 10 to 12 people have been reenfranchised in Mississippi, while at the same time thousands are being disenfranchised.
In states like this there is a "secondary disenfranchisement": there is no reenfranchisement process comparable to the massive disenfranchisement efforts. Even though in theory people can vote, Abramsky said, in practice it is a diminution of their voting rights.
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Why would an article like this be removed from your site if you believed in it enough to post it, and not only post it but offer Multimedia links to it originally? This was not something which accidentally ended up on line.
The next question would be why is it gone? You decide.
Felons do not deserve the right to vote, no more than they deserve the right to own guns. This was lost. Not only lost, but willfully given away one day when they awoke and decided to go and commit a crime. Which crime was it? Murder, Rape, or something worse?
Think about that.
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