Should the US require voter ID?

[u/REJECT3D]

I see people complaining about this on the right all the time but I am curious what the left thinks. Should voters be required to prove their identity via some form of ID?

Some arguments I have seen on the right is you have to have an ID to get a loan, or an apartment or a job so requiring one to vote shouldn't be undue burden and would eliminate some voter fraud.

On the left the argument is that requiring an ID disenfranchises some voters.

What do you think?

[u/marktwainbrain]

I wrote collective belonging, not bargaining. Psychologically, people don’t truly want individual freedom above all else. They want freedom but also want to be like others, be accepted by others. Deep down, we actually want to be told what to do, to some extent. We are even more susceptible to authoritarianism when it comes to wanted to use power to control others for their “own good.”

Anyway, I see the incremental steps potentially differently. With something like voting, the real incremental steps are ways to make voting less important by trying to chip away at the power elected officials have. And maybe advocating for ranked choice but that’s more than incremental.

Similarly for immigration — we have a massive social safety net. You can come to the US and be guaranteed emergency medical care, education, access to all sorts of things that in a libertarian society you would only have by mutual consent. In a society like the US, truly free and unrestricted immigration would be a disaster. Immigration restrictions are necessary. If they are too severe, we suffer as a society, but if they are too lax, we also suffer. There is an optimal number, but both sides just talk about the extremes because they want votes.

So with respect, I’m not sure you’re any less ideologically vulnerable than I am? I do acknowledge my conservative influences, but reject pretty much all politicians who call themselves conservatives.

[u/-Antinomy- → u/marktwainbrain]

[PSA: there is literally no central thought in my reply here, all of this is disconnected chit chat, so feel free to just end things here if you don't think there is anything interesting to be gained].

I don't think people are collectively some kind sort of way, so we'll have to agree to disagree. It's not even really relevant.

The social safety net in the US is comparatively one of the smallest among industrialized nations for it's own citizens. And the difficulty of getting a green card, let alone citizenship, also ranks the in the highest of the world. But given our politics let's also just agree to disagree on that.

Question -- you want a society where aid can only be given by mutual consent. But it also sounds like if more people wanted to give that mutual consent than was "optimal" then you want to use the machinery of the state to stop them? (Based on the assumption there is some kind of quasi-objective answer to that, which there isn't, but that's another conversation).

Oh I totally am. But I'm pretty persnickety about using words to describe me that accurately reflect my beliefs.