Thom Hartmann vs Matthew Vadum – Is Registering the Poor to Vote Un-American?
From this Thursday’s Thom Hartmann show , Hartmann debates Matthew Vandum who apparently thinks the only people who should be allowed to vote to promote their own interests are the rich. Here’s more on Vandum from TPM: Columnist: Registering Poor To Vote ‘Like Handing Out Burglary Tools To Criminals’ : Conservative columnist Matthew Vadum is just going to come right out and say it : registering the poor to vote is un-American and “like handing out burglary tools to criminals.” “It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country — which is precisely why Barack Obama zealously supports registering welfare recipients to vote,” Vadum, the author of a book published by World Net Daily that attacks the now-defunct community organizing group ACORN, writes in a column for the American Thinker. “Encouraging those who burden society to participate in elections isn’t about helping the poor,” Vadum writes. “It’s about helping the poor to help themselves to others’ money. It’s about raw so-called social justice. It’s about moving America ever farther away from the small-government ideals of the Founding Fathers.” Most conservative criticism of voter registration drives aimed at poor and minority communities has been under the guise of worries about voter fraud. Vadum’s column is notable because he isn’t just pretending to be worried about the nearly non-existent threat of in-person voter fraud — he just doesn’t think poor people should be voting. And for a little blast from the past, here’s more from The Daily Show when John Oliver interviewed this same guy back in 2008 below the fold.
Thom Hartmann vs Matthew Vadum – Is Registering the Poor to Vote Un-American?
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on September 11, 2011. Filed under