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by Jack Santucci // Published December 15, 2005
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  • Just so you guys have your facts straight the United States is not a demoncracy but a republic. If you want fair representation then tell people the truth. A democracy is a scary thing because the majority can vote on the rights of the minority. The Framers of the Constitution were altogether fearful of pure democracy. Everything they read and studied taught them that pure democracies "have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths" (Federalist No. 10). I hope you will correct this so people aren't continued to be steered wrong.
    Posted by MIck L, 2010-05-21 07:15:57 (3 years ago)
  • I've just begun getting interested in felon disenfranchisement. Have read up on some stuff from a variety of media outlets; my guess is that most people are unaware, that millions of people who have been incarcerated do not have the right to vote. Recently sent emails to a variety of television shows asking them to do a show on this issue. Here is my statement Is it possible, for their to be a show on the lifetime prohibition of the right to vote, by many ex felons, who have long since paid their debt to society? Permanent felon disenfranchisement is becoming an institution of several Southern states; the part of the country that, historically, has had the highest incarceration rates, and some of the worst racial disparities within the criminal justice system, is also the one most tenaciously holding on to restrictive ballot access. Florida, Kentucky, Virginia, and Alabama currently have draconian laws that disenfranchise ex felons for the rest of their lives. In Florida alone, 600,000 are essentially ghost citizens, citizens who work and pay their taxes in Florida, but who are ineligible to vote.

    Posted by grasshopper, 2006-01-21 01:49:23 (7 years ago)