Half the Man (Vote?) You Used to Be

In my October 11^th Extreme of Consciousness blog, I dug into the rational for the recent lurch to the right of those who cling to rural, traditional “stand on your own” American values as their country shifts rapidly towards an urban, diverse “cooperate to live” contemporary value system. Loss of how the “self” fits into the new world based on simple uncertainty. If you accept this basic assumption, supported by the research some of which was cited in the above noted blog, then you understand why a group of people, slowly losing their voice in the political system they believe was built to sustain their traditional view of America (Ben Franklin’s “New Jersey” compromise), is doing everything in their power to stop this transition to a new modern value system in which they are becoming the “odd man out.”

Whether you are the tiny minority of Americans that farm, if you believe in that land-based value system, you actually embrace those basic farming values. When you are on a farm, facing the vagaries of nature with no neighbors in sight, you are the sole protection of your family, and your fate lies with God and the weather. Government regulations get in the way, other than providing you with crop support and access to water, and spending your precious cash flow to support distant and seemingly antagonistic cities is maddening.

So anything you can do to tilt a playing field back towards your value system, even though demographics are actually moving in the other direction, is fair game. Letting rich conservatives have an unlimited right to spend money to counter your urban foes, redistricting to make those urban votes worth less than you own, the willingness to let the major financial interests (even if very conservative, but they are city-folk) sink by letting your country go into default in its obligations and, if all else fails, making sure you have assault weapons with big magazines in case you need to fight for your beliefs.

Liberal Americans just don’t understand how powerful these forces are. The Civil War was fought over these issues, and although there was a military victory by the North, the undertones of two very divergent philosophies has never dissipated. As we are becoming a nation governed by a majority of minorities, as the power and influence of the United States wanes with power growth in places like China, the thought of living in a country not governed by basic Christian values and deep traditional practices is simply intolerable. The increasingly disenfranchised rural values voter will do whatever it takes to keep things the way they are… even in a world where hyper-accelerating change is now the rule.

After this June, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down sections of the heavily-amended 1965 Voting Rights Act that targeted named states that were found to have applied voter ID laws to exclude minority voters, virtually all of the named states immediately reinstated their requirement for proper government-issued IDs as a precondition to voting. With statistics showing that poor, elderly, and disenfranchised minorities, particularly in cities where operating a car is expensive and public transportation abounds, were those least likely to have the expected driver’s license that most commonly fit this bill, these reinstated laws reinforced the power of the rural voter over those on the “other side.”

The Court called for Congress to reexamine the assumptions that gave rise to the statutes, but with a gridlocked House, everyone already knew that this was unlikely to happen. Attacking some of these reinstated practices as clearly discriminatory on many grounds, the U.S. Justice Department made it absolutely clear that they weren’t through with this fight. Two states figured they need a back-up plan, and you can bet that many other states are watching to see how this new tact works out.

In early October, Arizona and Kansas voted in a two-tier voting system. One for state offices and another for federal, the former with strict voted IDs required and the latter following the practices under the earlier version of the Voting Rights Act. But remembering that the states control the composition and shape of Congressional districts, such an effort will definitely continue the gerrymandering that has given the extreme right in this nation the ability to gridlock Congress.

“The states are using an opening left in June by the United States Supreme Court when it said that the power of Congress over federal elections was paramount but did not rule on proof of citizenship in state elections. Such proof was required under Arizona’s Proposition 200, which passed in 2004 and is one of the weapons in the border state’s arsenal of laws enacted in its battle against illegal immigration.

“The two states are also jointly suing the federal Election Assistance Commission, arguing that it should change the federal voter registration form for their states to include state citizenship requirements. While the agency has previously denied such requests, the justices said the states could try again and seek judicial review of those decisions… ‘If you require evidence of citizenship, it helps prevent people who are not citizens from voting, and I simply don’t see a problem with that,’ said Tom Horne, the Arizona attorney general.

“The battle over voting is part of a larger struggle between the two parties. Democrats have sought to make voting easier and to increase participation among minority groups that tend to support them. Republicans have sought to require more proof of citizenship and to increase identification requirements, saying they are fighting potential fraud.” New York Times, October 11^th. Actually, it is a blood feud between modernists and traditionalists that has risen to the level of a religious war.

It’s raw hatred. Secession movements, even though they have little reason for optimism, are rising all over the United States. Take this little excerpt from a Reuters October 12^th piece: “Scott Strzelczyk is fed up with what he calls political slavery in Maryland and sees one way out - creating a breakaway state, a feat that has not been accomplished since the American Civil War.

“Riding a wave of anti-government sentiment across the United States, the small-town information technology consultant has launched a long-shot bid to get Maryland's five conservative western counties to secede from the state, one of the most liberal and Democratic in the country… ‘We think we have irreconcilable differences, and we just want an amicable divorce,’ Strzelczyk, 49, told Reuters after pitching secession to the We the People Tea Party group in Carroll County, a county he hopes will be part of the split.

“Strzelczyk's breakaway bid is unlikely to be a serious threat to the state, since it faces nearly insurmountable obstacles. But he is not alone. His Western Maryland Initiative is just one of several secession proposals that are emerging across the United States… Nearly a dozen rural Colorado counties have put nonbinding secession referendums on their November ballots. A split-off proposal for southern Florida has also been floated.” Irreconcilable differences? What a polite way to phrase the disconnect.  But this is just the beginning.

I’m Peter Dekom, and when passions run this deep, you can bet that this conflict can only escalate.