Nope, but philosophers and the founders were pretty clear on that. If one wants to get into the argument that other rights led to the foundation of universal sufferage that's perfectly fine for another topic, but representation was always considered something for people with something invested in the game. IOW something to lose.
The only part that has any bearing on our discussion has been put in bold. The fact that rights were infringed upon in the past doesn't mean they weren't rights. History does not provide any argument that allows for voter IDs
today, when we recognize voting as a right and have alleviated the infringements upon that right that were supported by the foudners.
If you agree that the government does not grant rights, then the right to vote has existed since the coutnry was founded, regardless of the founders' ability to recognize it or not. Their infringment of that right does not provide a valid argument to support our infringement of it.
Voter ID laws won't stop all types of fraud, but it can get rid of some of the identification based fraud.
The identification-based fraud is pretty much the mythical problem I speak of. It's so minimal as to be practically mythical.
It won't fix machine tampering, buying votes, busing, etc. but it could prevent Mr. Snuggles from casting a vote.
that's what I said. It won't stop the
real problem, but it
does address the mythical one.
Not my point, I was admittedly being a bit of a smartass for rhetorical purposes.
I know. And I responded in kind.
What I'm saying is that a fundamental right to be armed has less of a downside and a shorter scope than that of the created right of voting.
Ah, so I take it you can use a logically valid and non-hypocritical argument justify your choice to designate the rights you wish to infringe as "created" ones, while designating those that you do
not want infringed as "fundamental".
Hint: Citing the founding father's chocie to infringe upon voting rights =/= logically valid.
Not saying that voting should be restricted for most purposes mind you, but at least be who you're supposed to be, prove it, and have some simple understanding of who you're voting for rather than pushing a letter next to a name.
Why? Because you said so?
We vote for that representation yes, but structurally we do not follow the democracy model.
It's a democracy, it's just not a pure democracy. It's a representative democracy. It still follows the most basic democratic model of one citizen, one vote. that model is one that assures that the elections are decided by idiots.