Representative government (?)

[Jack]

Republicans in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania have elected Steve Smith, a lifelong white supremacist with close ties to neo-Nazi groups and groups like Aryan Nations, to the county’s GOP Committee.

...Smith notified supporters of his victory last week by posting a message to the online forum White News Now.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has documented Smith’s participation with known skinhead organizations like Keystone State Skinheads, (now Keystone United) which he co-founded in 2001. And his racist activism extends far beyond violent rhetoric as well, into actual violence:

In March 2003, he and two other KSS members were arrested in Scranton for beating up Antoni Williams, a black man, using stones and chunks of pavement. Smith pleaded guilty to terrorist threats and ethnic intimidation and received a 60-day sentence and probation.

Smith is also an active member of local Tea Party groups, a network that he used to gain support for his bid for the committee seat. According to the SPLC, Smith referred to the Tea Party as “fertile grounds for our activists.”

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/201...gop-committee/

I wonder how many of the good people of Luzerne Country, which the article notes, "...is hardly a small rural county either. According to the 2010 census, over 320,000 people live in Luzerne, many in the county seat of Wilkes-Barre, a large city of over 40,000 people" are being represented by Smith? Evidently those who voted for him thought he represented their interests. Does this represent the direction that the GOP in Pennsylvania is headed, from ultra-conservative to outright neo-nazism?

Is this an example of representative government or representation run amok?

[Angry Citizen]

This is a beautiful example of representative government. I support the people's right to elect whoever the hell they want to. Why? Because when anyone can declare any ideology to be illegal to elect, then someone will be unfairly declared illegal.

However, the representative (and the people who elected him) are either batshit crazy or completely apathetic and ignorant of who they elected.

[lsbskins1]

There should be a law that says that if A) you are convicted of a crime of violence against another person, you are barred from voting and B) from holding public office. Put the lawyers on it and find a way because if you have no respect for the rights of the individual, how the fuck can you be trusted to apply or uphold the law in a fair and impartial way? I'm sure that the slippery slope of allowing this type of individual access to political power is much steeper and slipperier than the slope that banning an abhorrent ideology sits on.

[hensatri]

There are actions that can get you disqualified from holding certain elected positions. I don't know about this position in this state. I am assuming the individial didn't break any such rules. Although I find people are far less neuroticaly picky about the history and qualifications of a candidate when that candidate isn't the first black president...but that's a dead horse.

So, I believe these people have the right to elect who they want, and have whomever they choose represent them. But if they, by free ballot, elect a racist whack-job, then they deserve to be ridiculed, mocked, disrespected, and not taken seriously by the rest of the country.

Sometimes ridicule is the best response.

[Apeman81]

This is a beautiful example of representative government. I support the people's right to elect whoever the hell they want to. Why? Because when anyone can declare any ideology to be illegal to elect, then someone will be unfairly declared illegal.

Absolutely correct.

Robert Byrd comes to mind. I disagree him. But his constituents don't. That's representation.

David Duke had his couple of years. And then faded away.

Eric Holder can direct the DOJ not to pursue the NBPP for voter intimidation.

Rep Andre Carlson can claim the Tea Party wants to see blacks hanging from trees.

We get what we vote for. If we don't like it, we vote them out.

It's up to us. We the people. Damn, I love it!

[Apeman81]

There should be a law that says that if A) you are convicted of a crime of violence against another person, you are barred from voting and B) from holding public office. Put the lawyers on it and find a way because if you have no respect for the rights of the individual, how the fuck can you be trusted to apply or uphold the law in a fair and impartial way? I'm sure that the slippery slope of allowing this type of individual access to political power is much steeper and slipperier than the slope that banning an abhorrent ideology sits on.

Why don't we save the lawyers for people who actually attempt to legislate away freedoms.

Sick them on Nanny Staters like Mayor Bloomberg, who wants to use the law to regulate how big a cup of soda you can buy, or ban salt shakers from restaurants.

"There oughta be a law" is the worst possible response. The steepest of slippery slopes. Once you grant power to the state to regulate how they can be represented, you lose the power to be represented.

[iolo]

Why don't we save the lawyers for people who actually attempt to legislate away freedoms.

Sick them on Nanny Staters like Mayor Bloomberg, who wants to use the law to regulate how big a cup of soda you can buy, or ban salt shakers from restaurants.

"There oughta be a law" is the worst possible response. The steepest of slippery slopes. Once you grant power to the state to regulate how they can be represented, you lose the power to be represented.

You prefer people to die? You must be a Republican. With all your obsessive arms you can easily shoot nazis, whereas forcing early death on children by allowing scoundrels to sell them obesity-and-cancer creating muck by the bucketful is diffficult to deal with unless someone has the guts to stand up to the killers.

[Apeman81]

You prefer people to die? You must be a Republican.

Last time I checked, 100% of people who breath end up dead.

It's not the state's job to control how they do it.

Another fine example of the "blinder's on" "us versus us" mentality that keeps the people fighting among themselves as "they", the politicians, garner power for themselves to rule instead of represent.

[iolo]

Last time I checked, 100% of people who breath end up dead.

It's not the state's job to control how they do it.

Another fine example of the "blinder's on" "us versus us" mentality that keeps the people fighting among themselves as "they", the politicians, garner power for themselves to rule instead of represent.

It is the duty of any democratic state to prevent the killing of its citizens for profit, as you know. Why else to you have this huge, cranky obsession with drugs that is getting so many Mexicans murdered to feed your habit?