Mr. Wilson, it seems that you have swallowed the GOP talking points hook, line and sinker. You have espoused the connections to ACORN and William Ayers as two reasons not to vote for Barack Obama. I, however, contend that these "connections" are non-issues.
The ACORN non-issue is being blown up by the Hannitys and the Limbaughs of the world. The criticisms of ACORN are unfair. No charges have ever been brought against ACORN itself. Former ACORN workers, with the full cooperation of ACORN, have been convicted of voter registration fraud, but ACORN itself has not participated in this fraud. In most states, actually, ACORN is required to turn in — all — voter registration forms, regardless if they know them to be fraudulent or not. If they suspect them to be fraudulent, they even indicate this before turning them in to the county clerk. In the past, other voter registration outfits have been found disposing of all forms marked with the party that they themselves did not support. Laws are now in place to prevent this; ACORN must turn in all registration forms, which they do.
ACORN has no means of validating the registration forms. The authentication of the forms is solely the job of the county clerk. How many of the 350,000 ACORN employees have access to the Social Security Administration databanks? The county clerk's office does have access to these databanks — the databanks which are used to verify voter registration.
In the end, you are not making the distinction between voter fraud and voter registration fraud. Voter fraud is a serious crime — one not to be taken lightly. It has also only occurred rarely in the modern era, and even then, never on a national, or even state scale. Voter registration fraud, however, is a petty crime deserving of nothing more than a slap on the wrist. Let's, for a moment, assume that Mickey Mouse, Homer J. Simpson, and Dora T. Explorer somehow become registered to vote. Will they? Will Daffy Duck show up to the polls on Nov. 4? There is nearly zero evidence that these fictional characters will show up to vote.
Since you brought up William Ayers, I will address that as well. Bill Ayers did his crimes 40 years ago (when Barack Obama was 8 years old), was acquitted and is now an expert in the field of education and has been teaching at UIC for many, many years. He was brought on by the world-renowned, Republican-managed Annenberg Foundation to provide advice on education policy. Many people who live in Chicago, including numerous Republicans, have worked with and met with Ayers and do so on a daily basis. He was even named "Citizen of the Year" by the city of Chicago for his work on education reform.
Is UIC a terrorist organization because they hired Ayers? Is Walter Annenberg (a close personal friend of Ronald Reagan) a terrorist because he put Ayers on the board of a charity? What do you think Obama and Ayers discussed while on a charity board? How to help increase urban literacy (part of the goal of the charity), or the best way to kill Whitey?
Things that Ayers did in the 60s, which are indefensible, do not magically transfer "terrorism" particles to anybody he comes into contact with. I read a book one time that talked about some guy 2000 years ago who went around Israel preaching something about repentance, forgiveness, and redemption. But those aren't American values, so I guess we can disregard what he said, right?
Guilt-by-association is never a valid reason to paint someone in a negative light. If this logic were to hold true, we could say the same thing about John McCain for the associations he's had with the Keating 5, for example. Do you really want to play that game? OK. Sarah Palin is married to and has born five children to a man who belongs to the Alaskan Independence Party — a political party that wants Alaska to secede from the Union. Now, I'm pretty sure that someone that you're married to has more influence over you than someone who served on a board of a charity with you, but is it OK to claim that Sarah Palin hates America and wants to destroy the Union? To do so on a guilt-by-association basis is completely baseless.
I hope that this has been eye opening.
Drew Blanton
Yamaguchi, Japan
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