5 Feet of Fury

Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman still not dead enough

This whole “universal suffrage” thing just not working out…

Such claims that the mere act of calling out wholescale electoral fraud is somehow insidious, racist behaviour are not atypical. The Huntington Post’s Allison Kilkenny sees the victim gambit and raises casuist reasoning: “The accusation of ‘voter fraud’ is misleading because the fraudulent forms in question were submitted to the government by ACORN.”

Chew on that for a while, and try to swallow it. It catches somewhere, doesn’t it? Not just not just the illogic that is equivalent to saying “the accusation of ‘bank fraud’ is misleading because the cheque was submitted to the bank,” it’s the perceived, rumbling privilege to demand, in the name of a putative moral righteousness that feeds on the corporeal suffering of this world, that the morally and legally illegitimate actions of one particular political force are not to be questioned.

We’ve seen that political mindset play out, in the last century and on other continents, and we may not be as immune to the long-term effects of rule-bending cultural redefinitions as we think. If particular views — approaches — acquire sufficient cultural capital as to be considered sufficient political/cultural defense of, oh, I don’t know, say, voter fraud, we could be in for a long ride.

Whatever the results of the election on November 4th, let’s just hope it’s not close.