For My New Facebook Felon Friend

I got up this morning and like several thousand (maybe millions) of other people I logged into my Facebook account and checked to see what was going on in the world, at least the FB world.

Well first, I had to check a comment left by my online “Boo” up there in Tennessee who I think reads these blogs I put online, who knows? She wanted to know, then didn’t want to know, what I did for a living. I chuckled, ask her what she thought I did for a living, and then went on to see what else was out there.


I had a “friend request” out there in “cyberland” so I clicked on the link to see who wanted to be my friend. It was a young man from Port Penn, Delaware…okay. Well, I checked the mutual friend that showed up, he only had one, and then checked out his profile cause sometimes you get those people who only want to advertise their sleazy (who am I to judge “sleazy”) or inappropriate products or services to you. So I perused his information page to see what he was all about. As I looked through it, something caught my eye…his political views! Now normally this would not even matter to me, your views are your views and I don’t really care whether you are a Democrat or a Republican cause most people don’t even know why they are either, but his said something different…”Felons can’t vote”.

Disenfranchisement of felons is not new, and yes, I knew that felons couldn’t vote in a lot of states or have restrictions on their ability to vote. But something moved me, urged me to click on that statement to see what would follow. So I did, and got three web results: Washington Post, Time magazine and Straightdope.com. Hmmm, which one should I click on? Washington Post…too conservative! Straightdope.com…never heard of it but seems too liberal. After seconds of deep thought and deliberation, I clicked on the Time magazine link ‘cause I like CNN. I eventually read all three articles but I had to start somewhere (links to all three articles included at the end of the blog).

The whole idea of felon disenfranchisement started with guess what…race! Disenfranchisement laws, particularly in the South, were created largely to prevent African-Americans from being able to vote. As it is today, at the beginning of the Civil War, African-Americans were disproportionately represented in the prison population and to prevent the rare possibility of them voting during pre-Civil War days, laws were enacted in the States to prevent those with criminal records from voting. The 14th Amendment, Section 2 gives States the right to deny the right to vote for “participation in rebellion, or other crime.” That's ironic because the whole idea of "The United States" and "The Constitution" and "We The People" was based on the idea of rebellion and therefore no one should be allowed to vote. 

Today however, felon disenfranchisement has become more of a political argument rather than one of civil rights or the restoration of civil rights for felons. Since most felons are from low-income, predominately minority, particularly African-American homes and since most African-Americans and low-income minority voters usually vote Democratic (65 to 90 percent), Republicans, and now “Tea Party-ers”, would not want to see an additional 4 to 5 million voters on the rolls. In addition to that, how many legislators, at any level of government will be willing to base their platform and election hopes on giving any rights back to felons.  Too bad the Constitution didn't say when enough was enough!



If you want to read the articles for yourself, here are the links:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1553510,00.html
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1789/why-cant-felons-vote
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9785-2004Aug17.html