December 8, 2013
Carl Hiaasen
The Miami Herald
3511 NW 91st Street
Miami, FL 33172

RE: If voting is good shouldn’t we have more of it? – Some comments on your eclectic take in today’s Miami Herald on evil Republicans wanting to bring back literacy tests, the poll tax, and shades of Hitler, photo IDs.

Mr. Hiaasen,

Rhetoric gone astray leads us to Sophistry. Tu quoque is one of the rites of passage.

Of course, and it goes without saying which is why it must be said, that Governor Scott is a racist, homophobic, Climate Change denier who wants to suppress voting, generally by the undeserving poor, the vast majority of whom are non-Gringos, and particularly by some who may have a felony conviction or two on their CVs.

After all, he IS a Republican. How could he do elsewise?

[Thank God She invented tautologies. How else would we know he is evil? It sure as Hell beats thinking.]]

Permit me to bring you up to date on some past voting perfidy.

In 1916 the Hudson County [NJ] Democratic Party claimed ROW A ALL the WAY as its exclusive property. It was held by them until 1978. [They also invented “bullet voting” but that’s a Democratic voting practice of a different color.]

Both the odds and the statistical probabilities of the Hudson Democratic Party getting that coveted slot for 62 consecutive years are incalculable. Swine will turn themselves into pulled pork sandwiches before that happens.

The only other winning streak comparable is the Israeli Air Force versus the WOG Air Force. Turkey Shoot 1, Turkey Shoot 2, Turkey Shoot 3, and Turkey Shoot 4 are now available in a boxed set.

I had an uncle whose devotion to the Democratic Party in Hudson was such that he voted until 1971. That he had died in 1956 proved to be no impediment to him in fulfilling his “Row A All the Way” sacred duty.

A Republican Judge, and therefore an anti-Democratic churl and really mean guy, stopped him from doing his annual incubus 2 step to the voting booth.

What lessons can we learn from the Democratic Primary in West Virginia in 1960 and the general election vote count in Cook County in the same year?

“Just buy me enough votes to win. I’m not paying for a landslide” or so that old corsair Papa Joe was supposed to have told his Teamster thugs in West Virginia. He got his money’s worth.

As to the midnight recount in Cook County the lesson is simple: Keep counting until you get the number you need.

The elections of Ron Wyden and Al Frank to the Senate were likewise compromised. No big deal. It was done for a greater truth, wasn’t it?

After Miriam Oliphant – and if there is a dumber woman in public life in Broward County I demand that she be jumped to #1 on the Monday morning line for tubal ligations – was elected Supervisor of Elections my sense of Historical electoral mirth got the better of me.

[A word in her defense is due. Politicians always get jobs for their friends and loved ones. While it is not unusual for a political hack to come to work late and then get drunk her boy-toy got drunk and then came to work late. There is a certain clarity there that is missing in much of public life. Besides, the Great Dr. Johnson told us that “It is impossible to criticize unresisting imbecility”. Alas, the imbeciles here are the fully documented voters of Broward County. The thought of a modern American Liberal voting against a woman of color even if said woman could and did get lost on a ladder was, is, and shall be verboten.]

In addition to my valid voter ID I applied for, and got, 5 additional voter IDs. Since I am comfortably on the back nine of life I have decided that all future felonies will be major ones I believe that “it is better to be hung for 3 sheep rather than 1 goat”. I did not exercise my suffrage rights, even though they were hard earned.

It took me 1 hour and 47 minutes to vote against the Dear Leader in November, 2012.

I am handicapped; it was a hot day, the poll workers were, how to be charitable, not on the short list for Mensa. I am not feeling particularly charitable this morning. They were as dumb as a box of hammers. A big box of heavy hammers.

I had to show a photo ID.

What do the above incidents prove?

You’re right.

Nothing.

They can be fondled or manipulated to fit any goal, predetermined or not.

Did you know that CVS requires a photo ID to buy nail polish remover?

The only other entity that is concerned with nail polish is the Taliban. When those burnoosed merry pranksters catch a teenaged girl in Kafiristan with nail polish on they remove it with a pair of pliers. That solves the problem of photo IDs once and for all.

Do I have time to discuss cliteroidectomies?

Would it be “culturally arrogant” of me to suggest that that is a no-no?

You say Republicans are bastards. I say that it is the Logical end of modern American Liberalism.

I would have thought that the inventor of “frozen lizards” would have had more sense.

Silly me.

I used to hope that that would change.

Like I said, Silly Me!




Kevin Smith