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Felony Disenfranchisement: The Colorblind Threat to Freedom
Americans are raised and “educated” to believe that we have rights granted to us by the Constitution, I’m sorry, but I’m here to tell you that thanks to Government officials, overtime those “rights” have become nothing but fancy words on some parchment written 239 years ago by men who had hopes of creating a generally free society. The revolutionary war was fought to release the people of the colonies from the tyrannical grip of King George III, it appears we have fallen right back into the grip of tyranny after these 239 years, except this time instead of wanting to fight it, people are praising it and asking for more.
According to Wikipedia‘s definition:
Felony disenfranchisement is excluding people otherwise eligible to vote from voting (known as disfranchisement) due to conviction of a criminal offence, usually restricted to the more serious class of crimes, felonies. Jurisdictions vary in whether they make such disfranchisement permanent, or restore suffrage after a person has served a sentence, or completed parole or probation. Affected individuals suffer “collateral consequences” including loss of access to jobs, housing, and other facilities.
Now many of you know that in today’s world, it is not that hard to be charged and convicted of a felony. Many victimless crimes such as drug possession or crossing state lines with a few cartons of tobacco for your vacation can cost you a felony conviction (Not to mention thousands of dollars in legal fees).
Now I am not one to bring up the issue of race unless i clearly see it, but felony disenfranchisement most certainly seems to be racially bias. According to The Sentencing Project ;
– approximately 2.5 percent of the total U.S. voting age population – 1 of
every 40 adults – is disenfranchised due to a current or previous felony
conviction.
– Ex-felons in the eleven states that disenfranchise people after they have
completed their sentences make up about 45 percent of the entire
disenfranchised population, totaling over 2.6 million people.
– The number of people disenfranchised due to a felony conviction has
escalated dramatically in recent decades as the population under criminal
justice supervision has increased. There were an estimated 1.17 million
people disenfranchised in 1976, 3.34 million in 1996, and over 5.85 million in
2010.
- rates of disenfranchisement vary dramatically by state due to broad
variations in voting prohibitions. In six states – Alabama, Florida, Kentucky,
Mississippi, Tennessee, and Virginia – more than 7 percent of the adult
population is disenfranchised.
-1 of every 13 African Americans of voting age is disenfranchised, a rate more
than four times greater than non-African Americans. Nearly 7.7 percent of
Now all of this Data seems to be a huge problem for me, as restricting the rights of even a single individual , to me, is not only unconstitutional, but immoral as well. No man should have the power to restrict another’s rights just because a majority of a population voted that man into a political office.
Now lets step away from voting rights and get into another set of “Rights”, the “Right” to bare arms. For decades now, politicians on both sides of the aisle have been restricting the right to bare arms in one way or another for many years.
The right started to get on board shortly after the civil rights movement, realizing that the newly, completely free men and women of color were going to start carrying weapons just like the “white folks”, and that was a scary thought , so enter felon disenfranchisement and new laws that would be the groundwork for the “war on drugs”.
Be very clear about this, until the recent heroin epidemic that has left the inner cities and entered suburban america, many americans could care less about the impacts of the drug war, as it wasnt effecting them or their families. Now though, with the uptick in middle and upper class heroin deaths and arrests people are flocking to the government to release the hold they have over a felon’s rights.
Recently a friend of mine, Amanda Pacey, filled out a background check for a gun in Virginia. This comes in the aftermath of a random man assaulting her on her back porch and attempting to do physical and sexual harm to her. Luckily she was able to fend him off, but she wants the security of owning a gun to defend herself.
Well, when we were in High School, Miss Pacey got into some legal trouble, procuring a felony. She was put into juvenile drug court, which offers the dropping of your charges after completion through a differed sentencing period. She did not complete drug court, but was informed that if she completed the court’s recommended treatments thereafter she would have her charge dropped as it was still under a differed sentence.
Well Miss Pacey was given a rude awakening last week when she was charged with falsifying information on a background check. She is now facing up to 10 YEARS in prison for a mistake that she could not have known as she was recently employed at a job that cleared her background check and has a zero tolerance policy for hiring felons.
I ask that if you are able you donate to her GoFundMe so she can afford her attorney, so maybe she can get these charges dropped and move on with her life as she had been for the past 6 years.
My point to all of this is this. We all make mistakes, some worse than others, but we are all equal people. No one should have more rights than you nor I. Yet seemingly not only are law enforcement and the judicial system able to grant extra rights to law enforcement but they are constantly taking away the rights of the citizens through felony disenfranchisement, those policies are what and the victimless crimes they are based on is what is destroying this country.
5.8 million felons that have no voice within the corrupt system that is the American Government.
Felony Disenfranchisement: The Colorblind Threat to Freedom is a post from Cop Block – Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights
Source: http://www.copblock.org/148698/felony-disenfranchisement-the-colorblind-threat-to-freedom/
