Ex-Felons' Voting Rights

I find the Republican take on this issue particularly galling.

I'm not in favor of felons voting while in prison or on parole. But I find the idea that people who have "paid their debt to society" should forever be stripped of the franchise offensive in the extreme.

I may be the odd Conservative Republican, but I count among my friends a couple ex-felons. Please note, they are EX-felons, that is, FORMER felons, that is NO LONGER felonious. As it happens, they are also fairly conservative, pro-American, patriotic Republicans.

But, by using the political buzz word "ex-felon" as a stick with which to beat Democrats, Republicans depersonalize and demean every person who has made a mistake, served their time, and emerged a stronger, better person, a good citizen and decent human being.

I find this sort of political opportunism as disgusting in Republicans as in Democrats.

While I understand that many criminals do not reform, it would be simple enough to require that than an ex-convict stay out of trouble for a particular period of time after he is released from parole before he regains the right to vote.

That would be sufficient to keep career criminals from having any undue political influence.

In the meantime, there is enough overtly scandalous behavior by Democrats to exploit without stooping to this sort of gutter tactics.

Shame on these Republicans for engaging in the sort of knee-jerk, snot-nosed idiocy of mindless political ideologues that we disparage when it's written by Liberals.

The Gunslinger