“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”
Earlier this year, I was married, subsequently changed my name and moved. Shortly after our marriage and move, I registered with the Delaware County Board of Elections to update their information. Shortly thereafter, they sent me a card with my new name (Sherry L. Mann) and current address.
In getting ready to vote today, I would have thought that my updated voter’s registration card (with embossed seal) along with my drivers license would have sufficed, but my husband is an attorney who specialized in election law at Ohio State University. He knew to bring other relevant documents, so in addition to my voter registration card and Ohio Driver’s license we brought our electric bill (which would prove my current address) and our marriage license (to show my recent name change).
But there was a problem. Actually, according to the local board of elections, there were several.
Although my electric bill proved my address, it was in the name of, “Sherry L. Clark” so “Sherry L. Mann” didn’t have proof of where ‘she’ lived.
My Ohio Driver’s License had “Sherry L. Clark” with my former address on it.
My marriage license showed that “Sherry L. Clark” got married to Jesse R. Mann, but evidently that was not sufficient proof for the poll’s “presiding judge” that Sherry L. Clark was in fact, Sherry L. Mann.
The following is based on a talk delivered at the Free State Project’s Liberty Forum in Nashua, New Hampshire, Saturday, March 20, 2010.
In the United States, civil liberties are seen as the province of the left. The ACLU, the Bar Association, the Democratic Party, people who err in favor of procedural protections for criminals and even terrorists — this is what tends to come to mind to conservatives who condemn civil liberties as a leftist interest, and to liberals who celebrate it as a great anchor of their political philosophy.
But what happens when the left-liberals are in charge of the executive branch, its police, its justice department, prosecutors and military courts? Predictably, conservatives fear the government will be soft on foreign and domestic villains. Liberals hold out hope that due process will be restored.
Libertarians, too, will often adopt this general lens through which to see political reality. Just as many progressive writers discussed the coming of Obama as a new dawn for the Bill of Rights — or, at least, the amendments they openly favor — many libertarians hoped that the Bush era of warrantless wiretapping, indefinite detention, torture and police statism would recede with the electoral victory of the Democrats.
But here we see the problem. For if the left are the most institutionally important guardians of civil liberties, then the ascent to power of one of their own will often mean a quieting of dissent. Left-liberals become caught up with economic policy, become corrupted, or simply tire of finding more reasons for their own partisan figurehead to be criticized, and look the other way. Just as Republican administrations can often implement domestic interventions with a freer hand — look at Bush’s effortless Medicare expansion compared to how long it has taken for Obama to move on health care — Democrats can expect a less hostile climate in which to build up executive power to the detriment of civil liberty. And indeed, even if they have good intentions, they run against political pressure from the opposition accusing them of being soft with the police power. A left-liberal in office is the perfect storm for the destruction of our privacy and the rule of law. Just remember what Clinton did at Waco, or the erosion of liberty after the Oklahoma City Bombing, and the truth of this was confirmed long before January of last year when Obama took the throne.
I just returned from Haiti with Hebler. We flew in at 3 AM Sunday to the scene of such incredible destruction on one side, and enormous ineptitude and criminal neglect on the other.
Port of Prince is in ruins. The rest of the country is fairly intact. Ours was a rescue team and we carried special equipment that locates people buried under the rubble. There are easily 200,000 dead, the city smells like a charnal house. The bloody UN was there for 5 years doing apparently nothing but wasting US Taxpayers money. The ones I ran into were either incompetent or outright anti-American. Most are French or French speakers, worthless every d*mn one of them. While 18oo rescuers were ready willing and able to leave the airport and go do our jobs, the UN and USAID (another organization full of little Obamites and communists that openly speak against America) These two organizations exemplared their parochialism by:
USAID, when in control of all inbound flights, had food and water flights stacked up all the way to Miami, yet allowed Geraldo Rivera, Anderson Cooper and a host of other left wing news puppies to land.
Pulled all the security off the rescue teams so that Bill Clinton and His wife could have the grand tour, whilst we sat unable to get to people trapped in the rubble.
Stacked enough food and water for the relief over at the side of the airfield then put a guard on it while we dehydrated and wouldn’t release a drop of it to the rescuers.
No shower facilities to decontaminate after digging or moving corpses all day, except for the FEMA teams who brought their own shower and Decon equipment, as well as air-conditioned tents.
by sherry mann
-
Designed by