Res Ipsa Loquitur!

Note that the two fools who said “It depends” relied entirely on a variation of the Golden Rationalization, “Everybody does it.” Non-citizens should be able to vote in some cases because some localities allow it.

18 thoughts on “Res Ipsa Loquitur!

  1. Short and sweet, nice. I’m going to piggyback onto this since there’s no Friday Open Forum.

    Out west (probably west of the mighty Mississippi), but particularly Denver and Colorado, parents have begun furnishing their kids with motor bikes or “ebikes”. I believe the genesis of this started with things like the electric scooters and bikes you could rent by the minute or mile or whatever. Well, people started realizing that you could just own these sorts of things and that there were plenty of more powerful options that were pretty cool.

    What they never considered was that there were rules to these things.

    So what we have in the Denver area is a bunch of 12-15 year olds riding around on what amount to full on motorcycles, with no driver’s license, no motorcycle endorsement, no registration, no insurance, no brain or common sense, no civility. They’ll drive across parks and landscaping, tearing it up. They’ll drive on the roads doing wheelies and weaving between cars.

    So, education campaigns have commenced to inform the community on what is permissible (For example: https://cityoflonetree.com/e-bikes-e-motorcycles-e-scooters-know-the-law-before-you-buy-or-ride/)

    Kids risk losing eligibility for drivers licenses. Parents are liable for their kids. Insurance will push back on claims – so really, it’s Bob’s 20-year 401k on the line based on his kid’s actions.

    There’s even videos on social media of police attempting to pull the kids over and they just double down and evade – either because they don’t know the rules or because they do know the rules.

    • Yeah, I looked into these. I got some for me and my son. The low powered ones (750 W and under, limited to 20 mph) are legally considered bicycles. I got a 350 W one for him and a 250 W one for me, they are plenty powerful enough for kids. For me, it is just a supplement, running only on electric power isn’t so thrilling and mine kicks off the electric power at 15 mph.

  2. If “non-citizens” are permitted to vote in CA elections, on what grounds could CA exclude residents of other states (who, as residents of the USA, arguably have greater standing) from voting in its elections? Sure, there could be some sort of domicile requirement but that could be easily gamed with vote tourism.

    Madness.

    Now that I think of it, Democrats already got a taste for vote tourism in NH (and several other states, I think) by allowing college students to vote in its elections with exceedingly lax domicile requirements.

  3. If you get up-staged by a (IMO) monumental phuquewit like Pratt, your problems are far greater than you ever imagined!

    PWS

      • OK so Pratt is an asshole according to the article you linked, but who cares? Donald Trump is an asshole too. I do not care about that either as long as he is our asshole, maybe Pratt is the Trump figure Los Angeles needs to shake up the political culture. He gave a good debate performance, and his ads are brilliant.

          • One of William Buckley’s most famous quotes is: “I am obliged to confess I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.”

            LA is better of with a a f**kwit and an asshole like Spencer Pratt than those communists and socialists like Bass and Raman. If they still vote for Bass or Raman, then they deserve the resulting outcome good and hard. Like NYC deserves Mamdani good and hard.

            Hope I guessed your point correctly.

            • Hope I guessed your point correctly.”

              That part of it, yes.

              If they still vote for Bass or Raman, then they deserve the resulting outcome good and hard.”

              Bravo India November Golf Oscar!

              PWS

  4. Can anybody explain to me what the point of becoming a US citizen is if you can vote regardless of your citizenship and immigration status?

    • That’s exactly what I said to my immigrant husband after we watched the LA mayor debate- voting should be a perk of citizenship!

      • The Democrats want illegal citizens be able to vote as they most likely will vote Democrat.

        A green card holder can do everything in this country except vote. Being able to participate in politics is one of the factors in the decision to become a citizen. Besides that, the country needs to have an inspiring view on the what makes it so great to be part of this country, and that includes an attractive origin story. Again, the Democrats fail miserably on this point due to their attachment to Critical Race Theory, DEI, and the 1619 Project that portrays the USA as irredeemably racist and colonialist, with slavery as the real origin story of this country. In other words, nothing to feel proud and patriotic about.

        The message seems to be that it is great to be an immigrant to the USA without any obligation, as long as the Democrats are in power, as they deliver free goodies; the trade is that you need to keep the Democrats in power by voting for them.

  5. It’s my impression that many non-citizens voted in local and perhaps state elections for much of the 19th century in many parts of the U.S.

    This included thinly populated territories that were struggling to get their population high enough to be admitted to the Union, but it took place in many settings, long after territories were admitted to the Union as new states.

    charles w abbott
    rochester NY

    • Well, I believe back then you basically needed to declare your intent to become an American citizen. Voting, if it was allowed, was considered a de facto declaration in that intent.

      It became an important point during the Civil War when both the United States and Confederate States attempted to draft foreign citizens. When Britain lodged a formal complaint, the United States dropped its effort. The Confederates did not and it became a major friction point between the CSA and Great Britain — to the point where British ministers were expelled, as I recall. Not a good choice when you are desperately hoping for British recognition and support for your survival as a potential nation. But Confederate foreign policy was mostly fanciful hopes and arrogance, without much basis in reality.

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