Email recieved

You can easily check on the Project Votesmart page.

 

I'm not familiar with the specifics of the votes in question, but in order to understand the significance of the votes you'd need to know what were the specific bills voted for or against. Many bills are conglomerations of many issues, and legislators compromise over what goes into the bill, and then decide whether they can accept the whole.

Was the vote on social security for undocumented aliens really just a plain, out and out, full benefits for all undocumenteds? Or was it limited medical care to control the spread of infectious diseases? Was it a one-issue bill, or was it part of the omnibus defense appropriations? Was it a few limited kinds of support for kids? I suspect that in the end it was neither a stand-alone bill nor full social security benefits. Probably some limited benefits which the supporters believed would benefit the country as a whole, and very possibly combined with other issues that some legislators voted for as a compromise.

The English-only bill might well have been a mish-mash of lots of items. Though that's a simpler case of an issue being pushed by a few extremists and opposed by moderates of all flavors.

Most internet mass-mailings are either recycled jokes or simple falsehoods. So the list itself might simply have been concocted. How many of the people who get these kinds of emails bother to check them out?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Dec 10 2006, 04:11 PM) [snapback]360107[/snapback]</div>

ditto.

Riders and pork are added on to this stuff making it unpalatable. Then one issue is picked to slam the legislator that voted it down. A vote against English as the official language may also be a vote against a lot of pork, tax breaks for big oil, drilling the Arctic and off the coast of California, logging National Forests and who knows what. A vote for benefits for illegals may also have included raising the minimum wage and healthcare for children.

The list as it is simplified looks like it is an attack on Democrats and moderates. The information is way too shallow to make an informed decision. At least for voters that *ARE* basing their votes on information when they make a decision.

BTW I actually e-mailed candidates in the last election and told them because they did not disclose their positions via vote-smart I could not vote for them. Perhaps more will start taking a stand if NOT taking a stand will lose them votes.

 

Why ARE irrelevant riders allowed on bills? I mean, I know why (politics), but it should not be legal.

For those just tuning in, here's how the game is played: Senator John Smith introduces a bill that would give free ice cream to everybody. Senator Bob Jones attaches a rider that would require setting all cute puppies on fire. Smith really wants the bill passed, so he votes for it anyway. Jones doesn't.

Next November, we see these ads:

(visual: ugly picture of John Smith) John Smith voted to have cute puppies set on fire. Is that really the type of man we want in Washington? John Smith. Against puppies. Against America. "I'm Bob Jones and I approve of this message."

and

(visual: ugly picture of Bob Jones) Americans love ice cream. Bob Jones does not like ice cream. Does Bob Jones like America? We think the record speaks for itself. Bob Jones: wrong about ice cream, wrong about America. "I'm John Smith and I approve of this message."

And they wonder why the election turnout is so low...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Dec 10 2006, 01:11 PM) [snapback]360107[/snapback]</div>

The particulars of the bill and the issues are discussed in this Urban Legends page:

Snopes: E-mail lists senators who "voted against making English the official language of America"

And this from the Boston Globe:

This is just another misleading flame baiting email making the rounds.

 

Hell, I like icecream!

 

The "English only" thing is complicated by the fact that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 mandates that ballots be available in foreign languages, and most of the "English only" bills that have been presented require ballots in English only, repealing this and perhaps other sections of the Voting Rights Act. Very few really want that.

Daniel has it right; you have to do the research and investigate the actual bill involved to see if the Congressperson or Senator was voting for or against something else. Most of us don't have time to do that with every claim that comes up (although it is getting easier with Internet access to most governmental bills.)

I do know that the vote on Social Security was for illegal immigrants who were in this country and paid into the system for a number of years, and were planning on staying here (usually with their families, who are legal residents by birth). So the question is do we say they are ineligible because they are illegal aliens (which is not a criminal offense), and then provide them with other aid? Or do we allow them to claim the payments?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(priusguy04 @ Dec 10 2006, 01:04 PM) [snapback]360096[/snapback]</div>

I also voted against making English our official language, and as I'm sure you probably know no senator ever voted to give social security benefits to illegals. There was never a bill that proposed this.

The real story as reported by the Washington Times (just for credibility with the right element). If you read carefully you'll see that the vote was against an amendment that would have denied benefits to currently legal immigrants based upon past status. Small point I suppose. Illegal -- legal, what's the difference?

 

Bottom line: Never believe anything you receive in a forwarded email. And never believe anything you see in a political campaign commercial.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Dec 11 2006, 12:35 PM) [snapback]360350[/snapback]</div>

Absolutely. And never forward an email before checking it on snopes.com. I've been saved much embarrassment that way.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MegansPrius @ Dec 11 2006, 10:40 AM) [snapback]360353[/snapback]</div>

IMO, never forward an e-mail unless the recipient has a vested interest in the content of the e-mail. That means no forwarding of junk or chain e-mails, smear campaigns, etc - The only e-mails i ever forward are ones people ask me to forward, invites to events i think someone might enjoy, or e-mails containing information someone needs to know (ie fight information, organizational planning, etc). And i'm pretty strict with my rules, including setting up my mail filter to send one of my grandparent's e-mail addresses to the junk mail folder, since all i ever got from her was mass forwarding's of a political nature sponsoring political views i don't agree with (the one that finally made me do it was one advocating drilling for oil in the Alaskan wildlife preserve). You really just need to ask yourself "does the recipient need this e-mail? will (s)he believe they benefited from receiving it?" - notice it's not if you think they'll benefit, it's what they think about it.

 

What a crock!

Making English our official language will sure make my life a lot better and probably end the war in Iraq. (The cure for cancer will follow shortly.) The Mexicans out here in California will all soon sound like Prince Charles if this is passed. What's wrong with these ignorant savages that they can't say, "Please pass the crumpets" without their odious accents?

We pay foreigners sub-standard wages under the table, no taxes withheld or SS payments deducted for them, as the law demands. Then, when they get old or sick we scream like hell when they have the nerve to apply for the least benefits that their back-breaking work of a lifetime should have gotten them. We aren't against illegal immigration. We want all the folks who will work cheap to be here. But anybody who makes any demands on us should be bussed back across the border immediately. The ingrates!

But perhaps I substitute other's reality with my own.

 

I will not address the Social Security Bill as I do not know enough about it but I will put in my two cents on English as the official language of America.

First of all, we do not speak "English" in America, the British speak "English". We speak "American" which is an amalgam of many different languages. The other problem is we, like our supposedly Yale educated President, don't speak or write the language particularly well.

So making "English" the official language is absurd.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Stev0 @ Dec 10 2006, 05:34 PM) [snapback]360140[/snapback]</div>

The Simpsons had a great example of adding a rider to a bill and having the bill fail as a result:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(eagle33199 @ Dec 11 2006, 09:03 AM) [snapback]360371[/snapback]</div>

I rarely forward anything. The exceptions are the occasional joke, when I cannot stop laughing at it, and the occasional work of art. Not long ago someone forwarded to me a PPS file which contained some 15 or 20 really spectacular photographs. Something like that is worth forwarding. And I always forward cat jokes to my sister, who loves cats as much as I do.

But it's an immutable law of the internet that no true information ever arrives by forwarded email. By an action as mysterious and as absolute as Dirac's law of lepton exclusion, the Forward button will not function on an email that contains so much as a grain of truth.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(FBear @ Dec 11 2006, 01:33 PM) [snapback]360436[/snapback]</div>

Got a cite? And which segment of the "English" speak ""English""? And what's this '"we"'? Got a mouse in your 'pocket'?

 

"i before e, except after c"

"Received"

(Where's Alnilam when you need him?)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jared2 @ Dec 11 2006, 12:21 PM) [snapback]360530[/snapback]</div>

Damn, I was away all day doing deep research on the word "Prius"! Missed my duty here....

Forgive me!