You know what? H.T. loses. In light of current events, there will simply be enough voter suppression to make your head spin and the nonhuman vote won’t matter.
I think the idea is that H.T. is selling his turtles nationwide. Although presumably their votes are only supposed to count in Vermont, which isn’t exactly California when it comes to federal representation.
I could make a comment about art imitating real life, but why depress everyone by dragging our current lack of legitimate President into this discussion?
In what *legal* way is his presidency not legit? Or do you think the votes of line-jumping crimmigrants should be allowed to overpower the will of the people of the United States?
The votes of immigrants, if they are citizens, are the will of the people of the United States. The number of non-citizen immigrants that voted was vanishingly small, certainly much smaller than Clinton’s popular vote margin over Trump. “Line-jumping crimmigrants” is just racist propaganda and you should stick it where the sun don’t shine.
Since voter ID is anathema in many states, we will never know how many crimmigrants voted. That’s the idea behind the objection. And if crimmigrants are discernible by race, by all means, tell us the name of the race. By inserting race into a race-irrelevant matter, you have just tagged *yourself* as the racist. And also- nothing I said concerned legal immigrants, or the price of Cheese Whiz in Chicago. You want in, stand in the same line as everyone else, and take your turn. Anything else is a slap in the face to everyone who did it right.
It wasn’t the “line-jumping crimmigrants”, as you put it, that tampered with the election so much as Russian hackers and shady double-dealing by Fuhrer Trump and his cronies (as is typical of Retardicans, IMHO), as well as the rampant deliberate disenfranchisement of “persons of color” in red states and the fact that a number of Retardican voters deliberately voted twice because they were led to believe by Fox Propaganda and Breitbart “Fake News” that the elections were rigged [they were, but in their favor, just like Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004]–admittedly a small number, insignificant in and of itself, but still indicative of a need for massive overhaul of our entire electoral system, starting with outlawing all gerrymandering and requiring a voter registration system that does not throw out voter names based on similarity.
The people of the United States voted against him. And all the crimes and such should have rendered him ineligible. And you knew for a fact he didn’t sincerely take the oath of office. And congress was required to impeach and remove him basically immediately.
So there’s a few ways. You couldn’t even get through a comment without lying about one of them.
Unity has a point! Sweetheart is starting to sound more and more like Fred Colon when he was in charge of Ankh Morpork’s law enforcement and spent all his time obsessing over sugar cubes. @_@
Have Unity eat HTs no doubt large and juicy brain?
(I mean, what’s the point of having an evil baby-killing, brain-eating, nanotechnological zombie demented killing machine if you don’t occasionally make use of her talents?)
Oh, I don’t know, that’s sort of a funny once gag. Then Shaenon and Jeff wouldn’t be able to bring H.T. back to annoy the Skin Horse team in the future.
That actually *would* solve the problem, if you could get some anti-nonhuman activists to attack and wipe out the adorable turtles. Use the horror to turn the vote against their side, and wipe out H.T.’s base in one fell swoop!
Except, that’s evil, and mass murder is probably a worse outcome than both failure states, so um. Modification to the plan! Kidnapping! Get anti-nonhuman activists to attack H.T.’s compound and KIDNAP THOSE TURTLES!
When I was a kid I read somewhere (and I don’t recall where, and I can’t find a source online) that some cultures make turtle soup without killing any turtles, by heating some water to “pleasant bath” levels and briefly dunking the turtles in it to flavour it. Acually, it seems incredibly unlikely that would even work, and even if it did, it doesn’t do anything to stop them voting, so forget I said anything.
No, clearly the only solution is a voter education program aimed at turtles! Preferably involving therapy puppets! Tip will be happy because he gets to use the puppets, Sweetheart will be happy because it’s the most boring solution and Unity … can probably punch H.T. again anyway if she likes.
My point about taking over the state of Vermont stands (roughly: and?), but also, how many turtles are there? We’re a small state but it still takes over 100K votes to win the gubernatorial election. H.T. is going to need an outside PAC to drop megabucks on the race, which is what actually happened last time.
Y’know, when they close the curtain and pull the lever, or whatever process their part of Vermont uses, nobody will know just who they voted for. You gotta get at the ballot boxes after.
Sure (and to be clear, I’m just nitpicking for no particular reason, I don’t think this is a real problem with the storyline which requires suspension of disbelief and such), but then you’re in a coalition with humans who would probably not be down with H.T.’s eating people plan.
Also! For those who are interested in geeking out on the VT political system: In Vermont, if no candidate in a statewide election gets over 50%, then the General Assembly votes on the winner. It is a custom that the GA votes for the person who got the most votes; usually the other candidates don’t even bother contesting the vote, though in 2014 the challenger who had come unexpectedly close to beating the incumbent lobbied for legislators to vote for him (since the incumbent’s party held nearly two-thirds of the seats anyway, this went nowhere). But H.T. would have an even more difficult time in a three-way election, because the Assembly would probably draw the line on voting for someone who campaigned on eating people. And if H.T. doesn’t campaign on that, who needs the turtles?
Solution: There’s an awful lot of silverfish back at Skin Horse’s old building. They reproduce faster than turtles. And I think they’ll vote for whatever Tip wants.
The answer is flippin’ obvious. Inform the authorities of intended voter fraud, and get the election canceled / delayed until an investigation is undertaken and the situation is cleared.
It’s just an election. You can have another one later. The nonhumans don’t “lose the vote”, they just have to wait to be able to vote without the threat of fraud ruining the election.
If they can’t handle playing by the rules of democracy, and would be willing to accept an illegitimate victory won through fraud, they don’t deserve a vote. No one does. Democracy only works because we all agree to play by the rules, even when that’s inconvenient or unpleasant for us.
You know what? H.T. loses. In light of current events, there will simply be enough voter suppression to make your head spin and the nonhuman vote won’t matter.
That’s true. After all, how many turtles have government-issued ID and a verifiable address?
They also seem to all live in the same district, so at best HT could become an Alderman (or whatever the local equivalent is called).
I think the idea is that H.T. is selling his turtles nationwide. Although presumably their votes are only supposed to count in Vermont, which isn’t exactly California when it comes to federal representation.
I could make a comment about art imitating real life, but why depress everyone by dragging our current lack of legitimate President into this discussion?
In what *legal* way is his presidency not legit? Or do you think the votes of line-jumping crimmigrants should be allowed to overpower the will of the people of the United States?
The votes of immigrants, if they are citizens, are the will of the people of the United States. The number of non-citizen immigrants that voted was vanishingly small, certainly much smaller than Clinton’s popular vote margin over Trump. “Line-jumping crimmigrants” is just racist propaganda and you should stick it where the sun don’t shine.
Since voter ID is anathema in many states, we will never know how many crimmigrants voted. That’s the idea behind the objection. And if crimmigrants are discernible by race, by all means, tell us the name of the race. By inserting race into a race-irrelevant matter, you have just tagged *yourself* as the racist. And also- nothing I said concerned legal immigrants, or the price of Cheese Whiz in Chicago. You want in, stand in the same line as everyone else, and take your turn. Anything else is a slap in the face to everyone who did it right.
Have you never heard of voter registration or are you just really bad at lying?
Making immigration illegal is a violation of defining US principles. And you’re in favor of crimes, anyway.
It wasn’t the “line-jumping crimmigrants”, as you put it, that tampered with the election so much as Russian hackers and shady double-dealing by Fuhrer Trump and his cronies (as is typical of Retardicans, IMHO), as well as the rampant deliberate disenfranchisement of “persons of color” in red states and the fact that a number of Retardican voters deliberately voted twice because they were led to believe by Fox Propaganda and Breitbart “Fake News” that the elections were rigged [they were, but in their favor, just like Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004]–admittedly a small number, insignificant in and of itself, but still indicative of a need for massive overhaul of our entire electoral system, starting with outlawing all gerrymandering and requiring a voter registration system that does not throw out voter names based on similarity.
The people of the United States voted against him. And all the crimes and such should have rendered him ineligible. And you knew for a fact he didn’t sincerely take the oath of office. And congress was required to impeach and remove him basically immediately.
So there’s a few ways. You couldn’t even get through a comment without lying about one of them.
Unity has a point! Sweetheart is starting to sound more and more like Fred Colon when he was in charge of Ankh Morpork’s law enforcement and spent all his time obsessing over sugar cubes. @_@
Have Unity eat HTs no doubt large and juicy brain?
(I mean, what’s the point of having an evil baby-killing, brain-eating, nanotechnological zombie demented killing machine if you don’t occasionally make use of her talents?)
Unity had a few turtles earlier, so she’s not hungry. There’s no need to go to such extremes anyway. Who wants to see Unity punch a tiger in the face?
I would very much like to see Unity punch H.T. the face. I’m sure he would be rendered speechless…
Solution: Eat H.T.
Oh, I don’t know, that’s sort of a funny once gag. Then Shaenon and Jeff wouldn’t be able to bring H.T. back to annoy the Skin Horse team in the future.
Solution: Corner the lettuce market.
Solution: Turtle soup (I didn’t say it was a preferable solution)
Is turtle soup a solution or a suspension?
That actually *would* solve the problem, if you could get some anti-nonhuman activists to attack and wipe out the adorable turtles. Use the horror to turn the vote against their side, and wipe out H.T.’s base in one fell swoop!
Except, that’s evil, and mass murder is probably a worse outcome than both failure states, so um. Modification to the plan! Kidnapping! Get anti-nonhuman activists to attack H.T.’s compound and KIDNAP THOSE TURTLES!
When I was a kid I read somewhere (and I don’t recall where, and I can’t find a source online) that some cultures make turtle soup without killing any turtles, by heating some water to “pleasant bath” levels and briefly dunking the turtles in it to flavour it. Acually, it seems incredibly unlikely that would even work, and even if it did, it doesn’t do anything to stop them voting, so forget I said anything.
No, clearly the only solution is a voter education program aimed at turtles! Preferably involving therapy puppets! Tip will be happy because he gets to use the puppets, Sweetheart will be happy because it’s the most boring solution and Unity … can probably punch H.T. again anyway if she likes.
Pfft. They just need to round up/manufacture enough voters of their own to counter H.T.
Wasn’t Pavane mentioned last week? How many votes per hive?
Why do you pronounce “job” with a long ‘o’?
Solution: Six parts gin to one part vermouth
I applaud your solution and recommend that we abjure to the nearest bar, er, pharmacy to fill this prescription.
With Sweetheart’s metabolism, we should probably start with gallon jugs.
My point about taking over the state of Vermont stands (roughly: and?), but also, how many turtles are there? We’re a small state but it still takes over 100K votes to win the gubernatorial election. H.T. is going to need an outside PAC to drop megabucks on the race, which is what actually happened last time.
It may take over 100k to win the election, but it can take only something nearer 30k to swing it; less, some years.
solution… sit around arguing until Tigerlilly Jones appears and really messes the heck out the the situation
Too obvious… I’m hoping to see a certain Mad time-traveler who was last seen discovering the joys of sex. I like to think of her as Miss Orgone 2017!
Y’know, when they close the curtain and pull the lever, or whatever process their part of Vermont uses, nobody will know just who they voted for. You gotta get at the ballot boxes after.
Solution: Induced religious schism in the turtle cult.
Obviously they must be made to see the true wisdom of Cosmognothics
Sure (and to be clear, I’m just nitpicking for no particular reason, I don’t think this is a real problem with the storyline which requires suspension of disbelief and such), but then you’re in a coalition with humans who would probably not be down with H.T.’s eating people plan.
Also! For those who are interested in geeking out on the VT political system: In Vermont, if no candidate in a statewide election gets over 50%, then the General Assembly votes on the winner. It is a custom that the GA votes for the person who got the most votes; usually the other candidates don’t even bother contesting the vote, though in 2014 the challenger who had come unexpectedly close to beating the incumbent lobbied for legislators to vote for him (since the incumbent’s party held nearly two-thirds of the seats anyway, this went nowhere). But H.T. would have an even more difficult time in a three-way election, because the Assembly would probably draw the line on voting for someone who campaigned on eating people. And if H.T. doesn’t campaign on that, who needs the turtles?
[puts on “Don’t Fear the Tiger” by Blue Türtle Cult]
The turtles have been given as pets. Maybe they’ll just vote with their owners since it’s the owners that are now giving them lettuce.
Solution: There’s an awful lot of silverfish back at Skin Horse’s old building. They reproduce faster than turtles. And I think they’ll vote for whatever Tip wants.
But would they resettle in a place without opera?
Wherever there are silverfish, there is opera.
The answer is flippin’ obvious. Inform the authorities of intended voter fraud, and get the election canceled / delayed until an investigation is undertaken and the situation is cleared.
It’s just an election. You can have another one later. The nonhumans don’t “lose the vote”, they just have to wait to be able to vote without the threat of fraud ruining the election.
If they can’t handle playing by the rules of democracy, and would be willing to accept an illegitimate victory won through fraud, they don’t deserve a vote. No one does. Democracy only works because we all agree to play by the rules, even when that’s inconvenient or unpleasant for us.
There’s no voter fraud. And if you can cancel elections at will you don’t have any elections.
And this vote isn’t even the one they’re influencing.