The corrupt governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, announced the other day that ex-cons will be granted the vote just in time of the presidential election. His assumption is that identity politics being what it is, the ex-con vote will naturally flock to Hillary Clinton, supporting someone they see as their own. There has always been an assumption that convicts, if given the chance, will vote for people like themselves.

That is the assumption. The reality is something different. Ex-cons tend not to vote at all. Those who would be inclined to vote are those who have gone the other way with their lives, embracing religion or social advocacy to help ex-cons get on the right path. It is a small club that will not make a difference in an election. Their party choice will most likely be along racial lines. The honkies voting for the Christian Republicans and the blacks voting for Liberal Democrats.

What is really going on here is an attempt to energize the black vote, particularly the female black vote. There is an assumption among white plutocrats that because so many black men are in prison, black women are naturally soft on crime. Liberals have done the math and realized that Obama won states like Virginia the first time on the overwhelming turnout among black women. Without black women voting in large numbers, he may have lost in 2012.

The image of the wailing black woman, as her son is led away to prison, is what they have in mind. They think by being soft on crime, they can appeal to that voter. Of course, that same black woman will be the first one yelling that the police do not do their job, so it is more complicated than the rich honkies understand. That and the last time I checked; Hillary is not a charming black man. That is what these black women saw in 2008, not a cackling hag promising treats.

There is also an HBD assumption in the weeds here. Lefty will call you a racist for noticing that blacks commit an enormous amount of crime, but they base their political calculations on it. They make assumptions about blacks that would make the Aryan Brotherhood blush. Even the AB understands that not all black people think alike. That has always been the thing with Lefty. He talks like MLK but lives like the KKK.

Whether or not ex-cons should be allowed to vote is a tricky subject. On the one hand, we have the idea of paying your debt to society. You break the law and you pay the price for it. Once the price is paid, your rights are restored. Including the right to vote makes a lot of sense. The argument here is that we want to encourage ex-cons to become good citizens and the promise of a second chance is an incentive. Either you paid your debt or you still owe, there’s no in between.

Of course, the right to own a gun should also be restored, but you can be sure no one will ever ask Liberal Democrats about that issue. That is the reason the Wuss Right is in trouble. They simply refuse to go on offense. They should be attacking the Left on this very issue. Make it about the Left’s gun grabbing. That is how you win at politics. Always be on offense and force the other guy to defend his positions. But they are called the Wuss Right for a reason.

Libertarians would go even further and say we should not maintain public crime records. Once a person has fulfilled their obligations to the criminal justice system, they should not have to carry the burden of a criminal record. The argument here is a youthful indiscretion can haunt someone for the rest of their days and that is not in the public interest. Sealing the criminal records after the punishment has been served lets the offender rejoin society with a clean slate.

Keeping this stuff a secret, however, is now impossible. Put a name into Google and you can quickly find their criminal history. The Social Justice Warriors and the people who fight them use this basic tool all the time to unearth damaging information. Stop exposing criminal records to the public and a private firm will step in and do it. Imagine Apple running a criminal database. Tim Cook would expunge the records of the sodomites, but enhance the records of Christians.

Putting that aside, I am somewhat sympathetic to the argument in favor of restoring all rights to ex-cons. I have met more than a few men who lost their franchise due to being knuckleheads in their youth. They got into the drug game and eventually got busted. They went onto live normal productive lives, but were barred from voting and had to explain their criminal record to every potential employer. How that serves the public interest is hard to explain.

On the other hand, giving murderers and child molesters a clean slate is against the best interests of society. Sex crimes arise from deep psychological defects that can never be fixed. Murder is a crime against the very nature of human society that can never be truly forgiven. Housing these people in cages may not be practical, but ostracizing them via the scarlet letter is something the public will always demand. This is where my penal colony idea looks fairly good. Sex offender island would solve this problem.