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Originally Posted by OpieCunningham
Then you're using the phrase "accept responsibility for your own actions" as a cop out to avoid having to deal with changing a law?
If society constantly changes, the consequence of disenfranchisement due to felony is not necessarily an ultimate consequence - it is simply a consequence which may or may not be appropriate. It is one thing to accept responsibility for ones' actions, but it is another thing to suffer a consequence which is essentially arbitrary.
As for your AIDS/Pregnancy analogies - they're weak. Neither of those two scenarios offer an alternative to dealing with the consequences. You have AIDS. You have a child. Disenfranchisement can be removed with the stroke of a pen. Or you can shrug your shoulders and pout and "accept responsibility" (read: accept that society says you cannot vote).
And I'm not asking you to change my mind - I'm asking you to support your case because I want to hear it.
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Neither of those two scenarios offer an alternative to dealing with the consequences.
I'm confused by this... are you saying then that because there is no alternative that there shouldn't be an alternative? The disenfranchisement argument has an alternative because we can change it via laws, so thus people should not need to be responsible for their actions?
Is the person who is being disenfranchised for no reason? Just because? If that's the case, then that is not fair. An innocent person being disenfranchised? Not right, not fair. But that's not how our system works...and that's something that I would be willing to lend my support in changing.
But in this case, commit felony, lose rights. Pretty simple cause and effect.
As far as using it as an excuse to NOT CHANGE the law, I don't see a need to change the law. It's not a cop out. I firmly believe that if you do something wrong you pay the price for it. I consider that to be one of the line items in that price.
As I grew up I learned about consequences. Each action that I made, had a reaction. Each reaction spurred off another set of actions ad infinitum. When I got to be old enough to learn about law and civics. I learned about the rights that I have, not the rights that I think I have.
I took responsibilty for learning about my rights. It is my civic duty to know my rights and abide by them. The penal system has lots of cause and effect written out within it's own code. When I did something wrong my moral compass weighed it out against the consequences. I don't find it unreasonable to expect someone else to learn.
I check each election to make sure that when I go to the voting polls that I am properly registered. I missed it once because of "paperwork" that shuffled me to another preceinct suddenly and I wasn't going to make it to the other precinct. Since that time I make sure that each and every election that I need to vote, if I haven't gotten my voter card, or sample ballot, I enquire.
My support for my position is simple, again, it's my opinion. In this case I don't have precedent cases or sample thesis. My facts are just what I did in my own life, I don't think things I did were extraordinary, but my duty as a citizen.
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