Democracy Is Un-American

The Supreme Court of the United States has given corporations unprecedented power to literally buy elections. The powerful have no use for the poor voting in any election. Matthew Vadum is the only one actually saying that the poor should not be allowed to vote, but the rich and powerful (politicians included) have been implementing ways to prevent the poor from voting for decades…

Firedoglake

Via Rick Hasen, right wing “VOTER FRAUD ACORN OMG” nut Matthew Vadum explains why “Registering the Poor to Vote is Un-American”:

Why are left-wing activist groups so keen on registering the poor to vote?

Because they know the poor can be counted on to vote themselves more benefits by electing redistributionist politicians. Welfare recipients are particularly open to demagoguery and bribery.

Registering them to vote is like handing out burglary tools to criminals. It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country — which is precisely why Barack Obama zealously supports registering welfare recipients to vote.

So let me see if I have this right: Helping millions of poor people to vote for someone they hope might occasionally represent their interests is “antisocial and un-American,” but a tiny minority of ridiculously wealthy people and corporations spending gobs of money to put the government securely in their pocket is “free speech”?

Of course, we won’t mention that most of the poor are “nonproductive” because none of the politicians who slid into office on avalanches of corporate money give a damn about creating jobs. Or that obscene wealth does not necessarily equate to productivity. Or that “productivity” is not actually a requirement for voting eligibility in the first place.

Still, I’ll give Vadum credit for coming out and saying that he just doesn’t want poor people to vote. Usually the right pretends that they’re terribly concerned about the imaginary threat of voter fraud, in much the same way that they’re terribly concerned about the sanctity of marriage, the lives of unborn babies, the threat of terrorism, and the morale of our troops.

The only thing un-American about poor people voting is that it doesn’t give them a voice, even when their candidates win.