Reflections on class January 13, 2006

Stupid people voting as a first step: One idea that I came up with was that voting is a first step. Even if somebody is stupid and is voting for entirely the wrong reasons, their vote is something that brings them further into the process. Now they have a candidate’s name in their mind, and a sense of ownership (I voted for that guy). When they hear something about them in the news, they now react to it, and form increasingly sophisticated political opinions.

Question:  I don’t have an answer. Is voting more or less restrictive than other forms of participation? Felons can hold office, but can’t vote. Poor people can vote, but how feasible is it to say that poor people or those without connections have a very good shot at getting elected to public office.
International implications of the American democratic ideal: Bennett (I hope I spelled his name correctly) brought up the issue of how Zinn treats internationalism, which turned into a discussion slightly surrounding Iraq. I don’t think the philosophical issue needs to go there. In fact, I think it has a real application as concerning immigration policy. The ideal is that “all men are created equal.” So what does it say about how well we uphold that ideal that a Cuban who finds his way to American soil has no worries about American citizenship, but that’s not true for a Haitian, even in the days when Haiti’s regime (which may be today, I’m not too up to date on Haiti) was as evil as Fidel’s?

Secret ballots: The professor’s comments on secret ballots and colored ballots reminded me of Dick Gregory’s Memoirs, A Callus on My Soul, in which he told the story about when he ran for Mayor of Chicago (against Dailey) as a write-in candidate. Apparently, when people went into the booth, and picked up the pencil attached to a string, their hand had to reach below the curtain to get the pencil, so the woman sitting at the desk checking the voters in could check off the fact that that person had voted for Gregory. In the next election, he had his supporters bring their own pencils!

Jury nullification and marijuana: In elaborating on my reaction to Zinn’s tenth criterion (see earlier post), I suggested that one example of civil disobedience could be a jury not convicting somebody of possession of marijuana because they think it unconstitutional to criminalize marijuana. Note that I wrote here unconstitutional. I didn’t clarify this in class. Juries should not serve as legislators. Rather, they should hold a check on legislators in terms of ensuring that legislation is constitutional. This is not a question of substituting moral judgement, but rather a safeguard for the Constitutionality of prosecutions. I could write more on this idea, but I really don’t have the time right now.