The Right-Wing Strategy: ‘We Don’t Want Everybody To Vote’

By on August 27, 2012 in News 14

Perturbed by the GOP’s current push for new laws making it more difficult for the young, elderly, poor, and minorities to reach the ballot box? This classic, extremely blunt speech by über-influential conservative Paul Weyrich (founder of the Heritage Foundation, Moral Majority, and American Legislative Exchange Council) goes a long way in explaining:

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  • Anarchy Pony

    “Heritage Foundation, Moral Majority, and American Legislative Exchange Council” If those aren’t three things that should be burned down, then I’ll eat my hat.

    • Calypso_1

      …where’s my flaming axe.

  • TennesseeCyberian
    • Calypso_1

      An op-ed satire piece vs. the ranting of one of the religious rights most prominent policy architects.

      • TennesseeCyberian

        Point taken.  I wasn’t intending to make a false equivalence, just a comparison.  But so long as we’re talking about prominent figures, let’s get Bill Maher’s take:
         
        http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2012/08/17/bill-maher-tea-baggers-must-take-literacy-test-if-voter-ids-are-requi
         
        Maher’s “joke” certainly echoes Paul Weyrich sentiments in 1980, when the above video was recorded.
         
        To avoid another false equivalence, let’s look at relevance: Bill Maher and the HuffPo’s Dan Treadway were “joking” about limiting voter rights this year, while the late Weyrich uttered “I don’t want everybody to vote” 32 years ago.

        • Calypso_1

          Maher is still a comedian & talking head though, not a key party insider, Dominionist & founder of some of the nation’s most influential think tanks, who in this clip is speaking at a major fundamentalist gathering that included such other conservative icons as Ronald Reagan.
          I understand there is an underlying element of intellectual elitism in the left, you can parade examples all you want, but I will never concede any degree of acceptance for the likes of Weyrich or his core ideas.

          • TennesseeCyberian

            I never asked you to accept anything, and I’m not sure why you would think that I would–especially since I have no more affinity for the “Religious Right” than I do the hypocritical left.

          • Calypso_1

            Generally, when people are in the mode of interaction that involves point/counter-point and terms such ‘false equivalence’, etc, they are indeed making an attempt towards concessions and persuasion.  Even if such was not your intent I do not have any desire to view individuals such as Weyrich in comparative terms with other supposedly polar ideologies as I find his own so insidious and appalling as to consider it worthy of nothing but destruction.

          • TennesseeCyberian

            What are the most appalling tenets of Weyrich’s ideology?  I have my guesses, but I don’t want to assume.

          • TennesseeCyberian

            The reason I asked you why Weyrich’s ideolgies are “worthy of nothing but destruction” is this:

            My main objection to the Religious Right is their insistence on imposing their moral values through legislation. They seek to restrict sexual habits and barbaric abortion practices, heretical beliefs which are no more incredulous than their own, and oddly enough, worker solidarity, no matter how biblically informed that unionization may be.

            The Religious Right use sacred texts which climax in the sacrifice of a selfless mendicant to justify full on, money-hungry, witch-burning theocracy. Their lack of a sense of irony is their most damning quality.

            But those guys have been pushed way back since the early 90s, and a new collective which seeks to impose moral standards via federal government control is in the ascendancy. They’re often called “leftists,” “liberals,” “progressives,” or what have you, and despite their insistence that they’re ready to stand up for me and my welfare, it seems clear to me that they are more than willing to claim power at my expense and label anything outside of their utopian ideals as some sort of thoughtcrime “-ism.”

            To the extent that the hypocritical left seeks to control our way of life for their own purposes, they are no more benevolent than the Religious Right.

            Hence my comparison.

    • Andrew
  • http://buzzcoastin.posterous.com BuzzCoastin

    Suffrage in the Land of the One Man One Vote:
    1776-1868 only male property owners could vote
    1870 – men of color can vote
    1920 -  women can vote
    and even today, no US citizen votes a for presidential candidate

    but elections are no longer decided by voters
    they are decided by elite nominators and their money

  • James Jones

    Sounds like same thing going on now. Voter suppression by Republicans is aimed at those who are likely to vote Dem.. It is plain for the world to see and is coming back to bite the republicans in the ass.