An Insidious Evil: Voting Rights Act, the SCOTUS Blunder and Voter ID Laws

by Nomad

A couple of years ago, one of the great legislative achievements from the 1960s was all but dismantled. Strange too since only seven years before it was gutted, both parties in Congress had voted to keep this landmark legislation around for another generation. We examine how this could have happened and what have been the effects.

In American history,  7 March 1965 became known as Bloody Sunday.

It was on this day that civil rights protesters clashed with Alabama State troopers. With billy clubs and tear gas, state troopers and county possemen beat, before the eyes of the nation, unarmed demonstrators. 

Despite that, two days later, a second march was organized. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was there and led the marchers and this time troopers stepped aside to let them pass. 

But that night, a gang of white thugs took their revenge of a civil rights activist, James Reeb. Reeb a white Boston minister, had come to join in the second march. Beaten to death by white men with clubs for his support of African American rights. Reeb became a martyr to the civil rights cause when he lapsed into a coma and died on 11 March 1965.

The entire nation shocked that such things could happen in the land of the free. What followed was remarkable, a national outcry against the activities of white racists leading to direct legislative action by Washington.

The Search for a Solution

On 15 March 1965, President Lyndon Johnson swiftly moved into action. He spoke before a joint session of Congress on a matter that was important to him and, he believed, important to the nation. The subject was the proposed Voting Rights Act, new laws which aimed at prohibiting racial discrimination in voting.

In certain areas of the nation, racial discrimination in voting was a deeply entrenched  problem. It had become “an insidious and pervasive evil,"  the result of an "unremitting and ingenious defiance of the Constitution.” The time had come to rectify this long-standing problem as the federal government sometimes had to do.

Dumping: Why Hospitals Continue to Abandon their Homeless Patients

by Nomad

The problem of hospital's dumping homeless patients back on the street is a shame for the nation.

The practice of homeless dumping has been for some time now a shame of the national healthcare system. Nobody is very much surprised that it happens. In a system where money outranks almost other considerations, priorities can pretty regularly become warped by the profit margin. The penniless and homeless simply aren't worth the expense of adequate healthcare when the chief aim is to make a return on investment. 

That's the harsh reality of privatized healthcare. 

In numerous incidents, hospital employees and/or emergency services  have been caught releasing back to the streets otherwise homeless patients who may be in need of expensive medical care. These patients should have been placed in shelters or in some kind of adequate facility. The street is the last place for them, for their sake's and for the sake of general public health.

Science, Evolution and The Magical Thinking of Dr. Ben Carson

by Nomad

Ben Carson's remarks on evolution may seem extraordinary for such an educated person. In fact, there's a very good explanation for his backward way of thinking.

A Relatively Modern Science Concept

This week, scientists at National Academy of Sciences in Washington have released a new version of the tree of life. 

The graphic shows everything science knows about the relationship of all living things on the planet. With the inclusion of 2.3 million species the graphic is the most complete of its kind.

As complete as it is, it is far from finished. With an estimated 8.7 million of species today, (that doesn't include the species that have gone extinct) there are still quite a lot of blank spaces to fill in the record.

One of the aspects of Darwin's theory of evolution was that all life -including humankind- is related and originated from the same primitive organisms. That every living thing, from microbes to fungus to giraffes, on the planet ultimately share a common ancestor. 

In some ways, it's a really ethereal idea which helps us find our place in the larger scheme of things. Our uniqueness as a life form comes in our knowing that place.

As one source explains:

The history of living things is documented through multiple lines of evidence that converge to tell the story of life through time.

Researcher Douglas Soltis of the University of Florida said:

"As important as showing what we do know about relationships, this first tree of life is also important in revealing what we don't know."

It's hard to find a better statement that better represents what science is really all about. Amid and in contrast to all of this marvelous science showing us the miraculous story of how life began, there was in the same week a video of Dr. Carson and his view of evolution. 

Carson on Newton

Before nodding spectators, Dr. Ben Carson, a pediatric neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital and Republican Presidential hopeful, expounded on his views about creationism vs. evolution at the conference called Celebration of Creation.

In Their World, Everything was Terrific in 2008

by Nomad

I am not sure how much more clearly you could put it than that.

Echo from the Suffrage: Twelve Reasons Why Women Should Vote

by Nomad

Here's an public ad for universal suffrage from the 1920s.

This list makes so much sense and yet, even today so many women voters stay at home.
  

1. Because those who obey the laws should help to choose those who make the laws.
2. Because laws affect women as much as men.
3. Because laws which affect women are now passed without consulting them. 
4. Because  laws affecting Children should include the woman's point of view as well as the man's.
5. Because laws affecting the home are voted on in every session of the legislature.
6. Because women have experience which would be helpful to legislation.
7. Because to deprive women of the vote is to lower their position in the common estimation. 
8. Because having the vote would increase the sense of responsibility among women toward questions of public importance.
9. Because public spirited mothers make public spirited sons.
10. Because about 8,000,000 women in the United States are wage workers, and the conditions under which they work are controlled by the law. 
11. Because the objections against their having the vote are based on prejudice, not on reason.
12. Because to sum up all reasons in one-- it is for the common good of all.