Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US

[Pierce T . Wetter III]

On Jul 12, 2004, at 7:54 AM, Florian Weimer wrote:

> * Tom Lord:
>
> > http://edition.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/07/11/election.day.delay/ 
> > index.html
>
> I don't think this leads the way to facism.  Certainly, you have rules
> for emergencies when large parts of the executive or legislative are
> killed or become unavailable in some other way.  I think talking about
> a terrorist act on Election Day is stupid because it might give some
> people ideas (kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy).  However, I suppose
> the Bush camarilla just wants to keep a general climate of fear
> because fearful people are more likely to vote conservative.  From
> this point of view, it's important to talk about terrorist acts twice
> a week or so.

 It wouldn't hurt for an election to be delayed say, a week, because of  
an attack. That's not fascism, that's prudence. Postponing elections  
_indefinitely_ is fascism. While Madrid is one issue, what about an  
attack ON election day that prevented people from voting?

 What if a large scale power outage in  California completely unrelated  
to a terrorist attack prevented everyone in LA and the Bay Area from  
voting, because the new-fangled voting machines didn't work? With 95  
electoral votes, that's 20% of the whole... It would make sense to have  
a "do-over" in that case, even though California will probably go to  
Kerry.

Its worth pointing out that they're responding to something that has  
already happened: The primary elections in New York were delayed  
because of Sep. 11. So the administration isn't necessarily fishing for  
fascism, they're responding to something that already happened.

 Note that Congress has the power to change the election laws at any  
moment, and it would take Congress to do so. The constitution doesn't  
say _how_ elections should be conducted, merely that they be conducted,  
and that Congress gets to decide how that should happen. It would be  
perfectly reasonable for Congress to allow the DHS to delay an election  
a week without involving congress, if "substantial numbers of voters  
were unable to vote".

 Pierce