Revised:

The reason this country lacks universal voting rights is that progressive reformers have been unwilling to sacrifice a just, decent, affordable, humane system for a merely universal one. Universality, after all, is easy. Widespread voting access and actual enumeration are not. And demanding a perfect system is easy. But as Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Johnson, Kennedy and Nixon have found, achieving such a system is not. Now, the argument over which type of system is the most worthwhile, and which sort the most possible, is a worthy one, and it’s perfectly defensible to argue — as Stoller does — for nationalized voting rights in that context. But to accuse Thurman, Helms, Byrd and so many others who’ve devoted their lives to the study and struggle of this issue “unserious” because they don’t believe we’ll dissolve the states rights industry in a single legislative penstroke is profoundly, well, unserious.

Awhile back, I dug deeper into the most current polling on attitudes towards the equal voting rights and concluded that “Folks don’t like the high costs and fear they’ll soon be overtaken by it, but they blame all manner of minor and moderate contributors for the problem, not their own communities, unwillingness to integrate and distrust of difference. Equal voting rights and representation are heavily desired, but only if it doesn’t cost anything or demand any sacrifices. In other words, the appetite for reform outpaces the realism of would-be reformers.

Original here. The right to live and be healthy is as important as the right to participate in democracy.