Helping Little League is more dangerous than voting. Or just about anything else.
How did we get to the point where you can vote in an election with the most trivial forms of identification and almost no qualification, but you have to be fingerprinted and submit to a background to help out with Little League?
TENAFLY, N.J. (CBSNewYork) — A New Jersey Little League is taking safety up a notch. For the first time they’re requiring all their volunteers be fingerprinted. We’re talking coaches and concession stand workers, too.
To make sure parents can trust everybody teaching their children, the Tenafly Little League runs background checks on all their coaches and for the first time they’re requiring those volunteers be fingerprinted.
~snip~
The coaches aren’t the only ones who are required to be fingerprinted. Any adult volunteer that comes in contact with the children — from concessions to t-shirt vendor — is required be fingerprinted.
Are background checks required to elect politicians who wield the levers of power, who send our young men and women to die in foreign lands, who enact laws enforced at gunpoint? Do we require background checks on voters before engaging in this potentially harmful behavior? No? Why not?
And are politicians fingerprinted and background checked before running for office, or being sworn in? No? Why not?
WTF?
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, these states do not require photo I.D. in order to vote:
- Alabama
- Alaska
- Arizona
- Arkansas
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- Kentucky
- Missouri
- Montana
- North Dakota
- Ohio
- Oklahoma*
- South Carolina
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Utah
- Virginia
- Washington
(Source: ncsl.org)
According to Wikipedia, ten states allow you to just show up on election day, register on site and cast a vote (or maybe several votes, if you go from precinct to precinct):
Ten states have some form of Election Day voter registration: Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Wyoming and Washington DC. Montana began Election Day voter registration in 2006, North Carolina in 2007, and Iowa in 2008. Connecticut also has Election Day registration, but only for presidential elections. (North Dakota, unique among the states, has no voter registration requirement at all.)
(Source: Wikipedia)
Now ask yourself: is helping out with Little League really more of a threat to our lives, our liberties, and our property than electing public officials? Is it more of a threat than serving as a legislator, judge, or in the executive branch? How about serving in any part of the bureaucracy? Really? Why?
And what happens when elected officials have their backgrounds checked?
An examination of the backgrounds of the Pennsylvania General Assembly showed that at least five lawmakers have been convicted of criminal offenses and six others have convictions in cases that were later expunged or stricken. Another five who turned up in the AP investigation with records of arrests or citations either won acquittals or their cases were dropped.
~snip~
The AP story raises good questions: Should state lawmakers' criminal histories be a bar to public office? Should political candidates and officeholders be held accountable for offenses committed decades ago? As lawmakers, should they should be held to a higher standard, or can years of public service outweigh past mistakes?
(Source: Pottstown Mercury)
Yeah, I know that convicted felons are prohibited from voting. But if we don't insist on positive, conclusive identification when people show up to vote, then what good are any prohibitions, such as they are?
We've lost our minds. We've lost all sense of perspective. There must be something in the water.
