The examples of early natives torturing an executing people is a strange choice here.
Readers, don't forget that these people are the contemporaries of the perpetrators of chattel slavery, and the french revolution, to name a few popular examples.
The sordid atrocities committed all around the Americas by indigenous Europeans are very well-documented and continued beyond the 18th century, legitimized by the US society and government.
To bring such a thing up in defense of borders created during and with the help of those same atrocities is disingenuous, to put it kindly.
It appears to me that such a defense is an attempt to compare 18th century natives to modern US citizens, an obviously unfair comparison, much the same as if I were to compare modern native Americans to Columbus or 18th century slave-owners in the south.
I don't think the intent was to draw a comparison between contemporary native americans and those of the 18th century. Instead, I think it serves to demonstrate that atrocious behavior is not exclusive to the european settlers.
The point is that among the tribes, there never was constant territory. They warred among themselves, conquered each other multiple times over, and there were numerous atrocities committed by some of the tribes who claim to deserve reparations. For the record, I don't think any of this is productive for humanity, but since this has become a popular movement of the moment, let's disentangle this. When the Sioux conquered the Anishnabe, when the Aztec sacrificed humans from "lesser" tribes by the thousands [1], when the Mayans conquered other tribes and did the same, when the Iroquois tortured their conquests, what reparations are these tribes owed? If we're going to rewind the clock 200 years, why not rewind it 300, 400, 1000 years? Let's untangle all of humanity's historical atrocities and try to really see how far this rabbit hole goes.
Do you think the government as it is setup right now is highly responsive to the will of voters?
Do you think that adding non-citizen voters will change the answer to the above?
If non-citizen voters made the government more responsive to the will of voters, do you think the will of non-citizen residents is significantly different than the will of citizen residents? How is it different?
Do you think will be inundated by immigrants who want sharia law? Is that where you're going with this? Do you think there could be enough immigrants to enact such a thing? Do you think that's possible given the basic freedoms guaranteed by the constitution?
> When those problems manifest, we should deal with them
I think this is one of the key problems with a hyper-conservative government.
If your default position is "don't change it" on every issue, then you have a very difficult time solving problems.
More liberal governments that frequently change the rules are like startups vs very large corporations. They are more agile and better able to quickly deal with problems as they arise. They are "responsive" in a way conservative government is not.
Look at recent statewide rent control measures in California. There was a lot of hand-wringing about what it could mean in this scenario or that scenario, but in the end the response is
> When those problems manifest, we should deal with them
Which I think is the sentiment of a people who really feel like they have a handle on their government and that it responds to their will.
Personally, I have found that engaging in political conversation with people in a framing they find comfortable and familiar makes it possible to change minds. Doing so makes it possible to address the position at hand without also trying to reorganize a person's worldview. Your experience may differ, but I've generally found that task a daunting prospect. Perhaps you are simply far more skilled than I at getting people to reorganize their worldviews - certainly not a high bar here.
Unfortunately, the results of this sometime goes over poorly with people outside the target audience. Such people are often reacting negatively to a framing they find problematic or otherwise objectionable. At times they prefer challenging the framing to advancing a particular position.
This is a very valuable thing to do! It's critically important to a functioning liberal democracy. It's just perhaps not always the most impactful thing to do in a given moment to advance the goal of swaying someone's position.
I could see that being true in some cases. The iterative process can work quite well if done correctly. You certainly don't want to solve problems that won't exist, but you also need to put a reasonable amount of forethought into the possible consequences of the changes so that you don't create more problems (push new bugs in with that code fix).
The problem with elections is a bit different. If the elections were manipulated either through people voting who shouldn't have, or foreign governments, do you think the people who benefited from that who are now in power will fix that issue? Probably not, especially when there is most likely close to 50% of the population who feel the person was their preferred candidate anyways.
Voter ID laws are often used to disenfranchise poorer voters by creating bureaucracy mazes or DMV-like conditions to stop voters from acquiring the necessary credentials.
Anecdotally, as someone who was living in poverty before I got into this line of work, I did not have a state-issued ID and did not have time to waste or even the inclination to get one (my state does not have voter id laws).
Sure many will go out of their way in order to acquire credentials, but much like email scams, the value of voter suppression is in the marginal success.
Lastly, the amount of real voter fraud (well below 10% last I checked) seems minimal vs the amount of people who don't have credentials (about 10% according to the above).
I will leave you with this quote:
"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer"
I'm genuinely curious. How did you handle identifying yourself to the police? Also, was this when you could still get a greyhound bus ticket without photo ID? Where you ever asked for ID when cashing or writing a check? It seems like ID is required for EVERYTHING these days, so I'm interested in some of these points.
The whole world besides Anglo countries is using photo ID to vote. The article basically says people don't have a way to get it in 10 mile radius which is ridiculous. You really think you get ID in Germany everywhere in 10 mile radius? No, you take a bus to nearest city that offers these services.
False, in South Africa you have to pre-register to vote at a precinct with a photo ID, then on election day you have to show your photo ID to vote at the place you pre-registered for. After you've voted they mark your thumb with the ink as a secondary (or tertiary) security measure.
I'm honestly not going to check every country on the list, but it's blatantly false in South Africa where I've voted before. And I'm going to bet it's false for a lot of other countries on that list too, like India.
Readers, don't forget that these people are the contemporaries of the perpetrators of chattel slavery, and the french revolution, to name a few popular examples.
The sordid atrocities committed all around the Americas by indigenous Europeans are very well-documented and continued beyond the 18th century, legitimized by the US society and government.
To bring such a thing up in defense of borders created during and with the help of those same atrocities is disingenuous, to put it kindly.
It appears to me that such a defense is an attempt to compare 18th century natives to modern US citizens, an obviously unfair comparison, much the same as if I were to compare modern native Americans to Columbus or 18th century slave-owners in the south.