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Senate Unanimously Approves a Bill to Make Juneteenth a Public Holiday

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Re: Senate Unanimously Approves a Bill to Make Juneteenth a Public Holiday

#271

Post by _-david-_ »

knodi123 wrote: post #110
nopzor wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you mean election day should be changed to MLK's birthday?

Western cultures moved the date of Jesus's birth to late December for political reasons. So there's precedent. Besides, I don't think MLK's birthday is that significant anyway. Nobody celebrates his birth, do they? Sure, celebrate the date of one of the Selma marches, or of the I Have A Dream speech, or the date of his death.... But in my opinion, it's sufficient to set aside a day to remember him - it doesn't have t…

>Jesus's birth to late December for political reasons.

The Bible says Jesus was born 6 months after John the Baptist. John the Baptist was born within a two week period based of the schedule of John's father priestly duties. Since we do not know the exact year Jesus was born one option is that John was born in June. (His birthday is traditionally celebrated on June 24th.) Six months after that would be December. The idea we know for a fact that Jesus' birthday was not December 25th is just plain wrong.

Re: Senate Unanimously Approves a Bill to Make Juneteenth a Public Holiday

#272

Post by umvi »

Jedd wrote: post #270
umvi wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah because it's like bribing a vote. If it was non partisan water no one would care but instead it's "Oh you're hot and thirsty standing in line? Here, have a cold one courtesy of Biden (or Trump)!" Nothing is stopping voters from drinking their own water and eating their own snacks in line. I applaud laws that limit "gift giving" at the polls. The polls should not be a place where your vote is swayed by a gift.

The poverty of expectations implicit in that concern is profoundly depressing. That sufficient number of people (to warrant passing such legislation) would be swayed on the topic of who to vote for, to disregard their experience and opinions built up over the past several years, in return for a $2 bottle of water to quench a mild thirst, seems inconceivable. I wonder if there's perhaps other reasons at play there. I…

> The poverty of expectations implicit in that concern is profoundly depressing.

I shouldn't have used Biden/Trump in my example, because where freebies really sway votes is not the POTUS, but in the dozens of other positions and issues on the ballot.

In Maryland this last election the ballot was like 4 pages long and took me many hours of prep work to determine who I wanted to vote for board of education, representatives in congress, etc. If you haven't done the prep work and only came to vote for the president, your vote in the other areas is up for grabs. That's why people at the polls try to stuff your hands with brochures and freebies that have names on them - anything to make their preferred candidate's name pop into your mind while you are filling out the ballot.

Re: Senate Unanimously Approves a Bill to Make Juneteenth a Public Holiday

#273

Post by awb »

ralusek wrote: post #216
vfclists wrote: post #43

White people deciding what they feel Black people need. Black people don't need Juneteenth holidays. They need respect from the nation's institutions and they need to present and articulate their case for reparations in an emphatic and uncompromising manner.

Respect from nation's institutions? Do you mean the equality under the law already shared by all citizens?

Writing the law and enforcing the law equally are two different things.

Re: Senate Unanimously Approves a Bill to Make Juneteenth a Public Holiday

#274

Post by LordDragonfang »

mbg721 wrote: post #229
KittenInABox wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a bad faith response to the poster you're responding to.

I'm not trying to respond in bad faith; I'm pointing out, albeit by hyperbole, that "more voting" can still be anti-democratic.

The dead aren't people (at least, not any longer), so no.

For, your eight dead relatives happen to be the average number of votes by the dead in a whole election[1], since votes by the dead have never actually been recorded in significant numbers, and certainly not in recent accusations [2][3][4]. Hell of a coincidence that it's all your dead relatives.

You are not, in fact, responding in good faith.

[1]https://ballotpedia.org/Votes_cast_in_the_names_of_deceased_... [2]https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54874120 [3]https://apnews.com/article/ap-fact-check-donald-trump-georgi... [4]https://www.factcheck.org/2020/11/thin-allegations-of-dead-p...

Re: Senate Unanimously Approves a Bill to Make Juneteenth a Public Holiday

#275

Post by Jedd »

umvi wrote: post #272
Jedd wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The poverty of expectations implicit in that concern is profoundly depressing. That sufficient number of people (to warrant passing such legislation) would be swayed on the topic of who to vote for, to disregard their experience and opinions built up over the past several years, in return for a $2 bottle of water to quench a mild thirst, seems inconceivable. I wonder if there's perhaps other reasons at play there. I…

> The poverty of expectations implicit in that concern is profoundly depressing. I shouldn't have used Biden/Trump in my example, because where freebies really sway votes is not the POTUS, but in the dozens of other positions and issues on the ballot. In Maryland this last election the ballot was like 4 pages long and took me many hours of prep work to determine who I wanted to vote for board of education, representa…

> In Maryland this last election the ballot was like 4 pages long and took me many hours of prep work to determine who I wanted to vote for board of education ...

The what?! That sounds absolutely awful.

We have partisan people outside the front gates at schools etc for our polling booths, with a 'how to vote' but they tend to be very well behaved, and aren't allowed on the property, so it's a small and mild gauntlet.

At federal election time we have only two pieces of paper to fill out. A small green piece for (upper house) senate with 5-10 candidates, and a (ridiculously) large white sheet with ~130 names on it sorted in to about 40 columns for the (lower) house of representatives. Party / independent status is listed under each name on the former, and at the top of the columns on the latter.

The voting rules have relaxed slightly - several years ago for the lower house you could opt for one or more column headings with a numeric preference OR every person under the column headings. Even that typically took you less than ten minutes, and for most people the time consuming bit was to work out which fringe parties to put at the very end of your preferences.

IIRC now you can fill in as many preferences as you like below the column headings - until you get bored, basically. Either way this is a mechanism to let you select where your spill over preferences go to, rather than allowing your first preference to 'sell off' your votes, if it looks like they aren't going to obtain a seat. Ie. force your cascading preferences, rather than pass that decision onto your first preference.

Interestingly in the last federal election here a good 25% of the population did not vote for either of the two major parties (both of which are somewhere to the right of center, gung-ho on being all-in on fossil fuel, etc). That group of people is trending upwards the last several elections, so there's some small optimism that we may escape the end-game of a viciously partisan two-party system here.

In any case we have no other votes to cast at these events. (I recall a federal referendum about 20 years ago that was tied in to an election, but that would have been a 'yes or no' option on a separate, very small, piece of paper - with a LOT of public discussion preceding it, as it was the ol' chestnut of whether Australia should remove itself from the British Commonwealth and become a republic.)

Every aspect of the voting experience in the USA really does seem to be designed to be as hostile to the citizenry as possible.

Re: Senate Unanimously Approves a Bill to Make Juneteenth a Public Holiday

#276

Post by mos_basik »

Jedd wrote: post #275
umvi wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The poverty of expectations implicit in that concern is profoundly depressing. I shouldn't have used Biden/Trump in my example, because where freebies really sway votes is not the POTUS, but in the dozens of other positions and issues on the ballot. In Maryland this last election the ballot was like 4 pages long and took me many hours of prep work to determine who I wanted to vote for board of education, representa…

> In Maryland this last election the ballot was like 4 pages long and took me many hours of prep work to determine who I wanted to vote for board of education ... The what?! That sounds absolutely awful. We have partisan people outside the front gates at schools etc for our polling booths, with a 'how to vote' but they tend to be very well behaved, and aren't allowed on the property, so it's a small and mild gauntlet…

I interpreted @umvi's comment to mean they took "many hours" of research [during the days/weeks before election day] to decide which candidate to vote for in the down-ballot races. They said this to support their proposition that it might be easier to sway voter's down-ballot votes with poll gifts because it takes a lot of personal time to research the policies of low-profile candidates (i.e., candidates who aren't Trump/Biden). Voters who haven't spend that time might plausibly sell those votes for a free water bottle.

Sounds like you may have interpreted @umvi's comment to mean they took "many hours" to fill out the ballot [on election day]. So, you gave a rundown of your ballot's mechanics as an example of how a ballot can be designed in a way that doesn't take "many hours" to complete.

Re: Senate Unanimously Approves a Bill to Make Juneteenth a Public Holiday

#277

Post by Jedd »

mos_basik wrote: post #276
Jedd wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Maryland this last election the ballot was like 4 pages long and took me many hours of prep work to determine who I wanted to vote for board of education ... The what?! That sounds absolutely awful. We have partisan people outside the front gates at schools etc for our polling booths, with a 'how to vote' but they tend to be very well behaved, and aren't allowed on the property, so it's a small and mild gauntlet…

I interpreted @umvi's comment to mean they took "many hours" of research [during the days/weeks before election day] to decide which candidate to vote for in the down-ballot races. They said this to support their proposition that it might be easier to sway voter's down-ballot votes with poll gifts because it takes a lot of personal time to research the policies of low-profile candidates (i.e., candidates who aren't T…

Oh, no, I actually took it to mean that time-consuming research was required before turning up to the polling station -- but acknowledging that 4 pages of ballots could be onerous, especially as one of the votes is clearly way more momentous than the others.

I guess the argument is that because it's a weekday, you want to aggregate many into the one event.

Re: Senate Unanimously Approves a Bill to Make Juneteenth a Public Holiday

#278

Post by rsynnott »

johnny22 wrote: post #236
rsynnott wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, just… spend more money on it. Here, polls are from 7am to 10pm, you don’t generally have to queue to vote for more than a few minutes, and unless you’re in an extremely rural area you can walk to your polling place. Now, presumably American elections are cheaper per capita, but it’s not like the money isn’t available. Cut down on the f35 habit a bit and have some proper elections.

The f35 habit is a federal thing. States administer elections so that wouldn't help them at all (and it's not due to money)

So, have the federal government give states money to hold proper elections. Sanction any state who doesn’t. This isn’t hard. Most of the developed world manages to hold elections more or less sensibly; the US can too, if it wants to. The trouble is, it doesn’t want to.

(I’m sure money isn’t the only problem, but clearly US elections are done on the cheap)

Re: Senate Unanimously Approves a Bill to Make Juneteenth a Public Holiday

#279

Post by koheripbal »

vgel wrote: post #20
hanniabu wrote: post #3

It bothers me when they're quick to make empty efforts like this yet when it comes to doing anything that actually matters an overwhelming majority of them (on both sides) will vote against it.

I agree that it's frustrating that other efforts aren't being made, and this is easier, but I disagree it's an empty effort. Holidays, statues, rituals -- they're how we define ourselves as a society. They're important. Imagine how people would react if we tried to get rid of MLK day, or President's day, or the extreme negative reaction to proposals to cede Mt. Rushmore? They're symbols of the American national ident…

I dislike this holiday from a purely linguistic point of view. Having a national holiday be named after the portmanteau of June and nineteenth seems like juvenile naming.

Was there really no better name for this day?

Re: Senate Unanimously Approves a Bill to Make Juneteenth a Public Holiday

#280

Post by koheripbal »

quesera wrote: post #217
ralusek wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who would you have expected to vote "nay?"

The people who prefer not to confront the ugly parts of history directly. There are many.

When it comes to virtue signaling, everyone is onboard.
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