A felon not only infringes on the constitutional rights of his/her victims, but he/she incurs multiple costs to society including the costs of crime investigation, prosecution, and incarceration. Revoking his/her voting rights seems a reasonable punishment for one who had no respect for the rights of others.

Maybe you don't want people to be able to vote while in prison, and that's your issue. But hello? In our judicial system, when you've done your time, you're DONE. Ergo, your rights should be restored. All of them.

Want to change our legal system so that committing one crime-- any crime-- gets you punishment for life? Go for it, buddy. It's your initiative.

I just poked around (via that great mirror, google) at some of the comments he has been throwing around to different wacky right wing sites, and found some real gems. My favorites were the ones where Democrats and conspiracy theorists are linked up as one and the same, or the ones where he lambasts "social prgrams" and then argues that the government should partner more with churches in order to solve society's ills...

If you're out there Zork this is me calling you a punk. You want to prove me wrong? Then either become a BD member and join the fray or post some form of response.

In fact...

Consider this an open challenge Zork-tastic. You pick the topic, you name the scope. I'll start the comment thread and I will, I promise you, skin you alive like the cheap and ill-informed hack that you are.

Hell, I'll even let you pick the blog...

Your turn punk.

Oh who am I kidding? We all know you're just like the rest of the assholes you surround yourself with. You have no interest in solving real problems or helping real people. Just like your fearless leader, when its time to actually fight, you're nowhere to be found

Ben is my hero.

:)

That when Karl Rove gets convicted he can't vote anymore either. It seems like a pretty complicated process, I would think that using a little initiative and streamlining the process would help immensely. Of course, we all know that trying to streamline government is like trying to make an elephant go on a diet. I do agree that felons should be held responsible for repaying their debt to society, but also once that debt is paid they should have their rights restored without having to jump through a bunch of hoops to do it.

In regards to the right wing posters, fuck them. Fuck them in the goat ass with a nail ridden board. I think that it would be a good idea to require registration for leaving comments. I want to know who I'm talking to so I can pimp slap them more effectively. This unverified shit is exactly that.

a little more every time i see it.

best ... picture ... ever

che, would you start a comment thread on it?

i mean, this guy just left his opinion. he might have had an opinion we don't agree with, but he was very civil.

i don't mind him coming by. we shouldn't allow racist, sexist or inflamitory speech, but this guy was just saying something we didn't agree with.

i don't see what the big deal is che. i don't agree with him, but we should talk about it, not just leave a stream of curse words.

if he was a jerk, than that'd be a different thing.

i'm down with Ben debating him in a thread, but i'd like him to keep coming here if he's going to be civil.

why not? i don't want us to become like horseass.org or soundpolitics.

he said something civil, we disagree.

Let's keep things straight here...

I know the whole point of Amy's post was not to revisit Florida BUUUUT, as long as the reference is being made I want to make one thing very clear...

In Florida, tens of thousands of people who NEVER WERE FELONS were denied the right to vote in 2000!!!

Whether you be a liberal or conservative, if you value our rights and freedoms: WE MUST NEVER FORGET THIS!

As for the whole debate about restoring voting rights of felons that this post was all about: I'm with you guys, Washington has a ways to go.

and btw, Che that was a pretty sick and graphic posting.

Peace,
upchuck

but honestly I'm not. I can be a bit abraisive at times, but that's just who I am. Right wingers don't like it because it's playing by their rules. Liberals don't like it because it's what they want to say, but they have manners. That's how I got my stalker on craigslist.

I demand to know more about this:

That's how I got my stalker on craigslist

Second, I think you're both right in your own special ways. Che, having read this guy's other posts from the web I don't think he had honest intentions or sought meaningful dialogue by posting here. In that sense, I think burning him a bit is fair (and entertaining).

The balance is, as Grant points out, that we want this community to grow, so we do want to be in the business of asking people back and encouraging them to participate further.

This may sound a bit exclusionary, but we should ask ourselves, do we really want trolls in our community? Remember, we're not talking about a guy who happens to disagree with us on one or two issues, we're talking about a regular contributor to Sound Politics and RedState.

I'll be more than happy to tell you about it. I created a new thread for anonymous posting that can be found at http://betterdonkey.org/node/753. Follow the link and we can discuss the matter.