Austin: Dems' 'Voter Suppression' Pandering Infantilizes Minorities & Discourages Self-Sufficiency
After passing a sweeping election reform bill aimed at protecting the integrity of state elections, Georgia Republicans were attacked as racists engaging in voter suppression.
President Joe Biden, voting rights activist Stacey Abrams and the vast majority of the Democratic Party claim the law’s provisions are “racist” examples of voter suppression.
One of the most oft-cited examples of this is a provision requiring voters to provide identification if they choose to vote absentee.
The idea that such a requirement could be considered “racist” is ridiculous, especially considering the fact that, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 97 percent of Georgia citizens already have such forms of identification.
Moreover, the law itself provides an exception for first-time voters.
If unable to provide a driver’s license or state ID, first-time voters instead can provide “a current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck or other government document” showing their name and address as a form of ID.
Accusations of “voter suppression” are not only absurd, they are dangerous and only serve to hurt the communities they purport to protect.
The message this kind of rhetoric sends to minorities is as follows: “You can’t do it on your own. You can’t take care of yourself. You don’t have the wherewithal to get an ID. Let us take care of you.”
Rather than utilizing the minimal amount of self-sufficiency required to travel to the nearest DMV to apply for a license — or simply to apply for a state ID in places such as Georgia, where they are provided for free — minorities are to be made dependent upon the actions of a majority-white Democratic Party.
This is exactly the sort of logic that has been destroying the black community for decades, the idea that African-Americans need the government to take care of them in virtually all aspects of life.
Such thinking led to the expansion of the welfare state, which, to this day, creates perverse incentives for poor Americans — disproportionately black — to remain under a certain income threshold, lest they lose their rights to receive government subsidies.
“There is a sweeping array of other government subsidies, whether in money or in kind, which together allow many people to receive greater benefits than they could earn by working at low-skilled jobs. Is it surprising that the labor force participation rate is lower than it has been in decades?” economist Thomas Sowell wrote in the Charleston (West Virginia) Gazette-Mail in 2014.
“In short, when people don’t have to earn incomes, they are less likely to earn incomes — or, at least, to earn incomes in legal and visible ways that could threaten their government benefits.”
Sowell wrote that no incentives exists for politicians or the bureaucrats who are in charge of the welfare state agencies to keep people from depending on government programs.
“Moreover, the eligibility rules create a very high cost to individuals who try to rise by getting a job and earning their own money,” Sowell wrote. “It is not uncommon for someone who is receiving multiple government-provided benefits — housing subsidies, food subsidies, etc. — to lose more in benefits than they gain in income, if they decide to take a legitimate and visible job.”
Providing help to those in need often is the moral, ethical thing to do. There is a point, however, when that “help” becomes excessive.
Often to the point of enfeeblement and infantilization.
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