It’s all part of Newton’s three laws of motion. It’s the third law actually, and it’s something politicians seem to always forget.
The action by the Georgia State Legislator is a case in point. The governor, Brian Kemp signed the law apparently not realizing the consequences that it would have. The law, Georgia’s Election law is as much about restricting minority voting as anything we’ve seen since the bad old days of Jim Crow. Unfortunately, the US supreme court has given each state a long rope in defining what the 15th amendment actually guarantees when it comes to our right to vote. Each state therefore can enact statutes that seemingly protects its citizens from fraud and other criminal activities.
As a reaction to this action, Major League Baseball will not hold the All-Star game in Atlanta as promised, consequentially costing that city millions of dollars in potential economic relief. MLB blasted the action as voter suppression.
I had hoped that those days were behind us but apparently not. It is unconscionable that we still have these narrow-minded people representing it citizens. They fear voting for all because they fear losing their jobs and their positions of power and privilege.
One of many famous Twain quotes about the body politic is “To lodge all power in one party and keep it there is to insure bad government and the sure and gradual deterioration of the public morals.
- Autobiographical dictation, 24 January 1906. Published in Autobiography of Mark
Twain, Volume 1 (University of California Press, 2010)
That unfortunately is what has happened in Georgia. The Republican Party there, being the dominant party has ensured through this law the gradual deterioration of public morals.
I can only hope others will heed this as an immoral act and think twice about restricting the rights of minorities when it comes to going to the ballot box and voice their favorable or unfavorable opinion towards those wishing that precious vote.
Jerry Schellhammer 