title:  WaPo Editorial Goes Full Racist, Wants To ‘Weed Out’ Voters Based On Right-Wing Testing Guidelines
text: Right-wing ideologues are at it again with voter suppression. When not passing discriminatory voter ID laws and striking down the Voting Rights Act, they are passing off half-assed, offensive journalistic  philosophy  as legitimate commentary.Enter right-wing libertarian columnist David Harsanyi and his op-ed in the Washington Post.Titled  We must weed out ignorant Americans from the electorate,  the article at first glance seems innocent   yes, we all wish people we deemed  stupid  didn t vote. Liberals wish conservatives didn t vote, and conservatives wish liberals didn t vote.However, when reading deeper, one quickly finds out that Harsanyi has an extremely nefarious way to achieve this   forcing voters to pass a civics test if they wish to vote.Saying to voters,  Unfortunately, we can t trust you,  Harsanyi says  Let s give voters a test. The citizenship civics test will do just fine. The reason? The writer thinks the American public is too ignorant to vote:At the same time, let s also remember that checking a box for the candidate whose campaign ads you like best is one of the most overrated obligations of the self-governed. If you have no clue what the hell is going on, you also have a civic duty to avoid subjecting the rest of us to your ignorance.The questions? Simple (if you have the privilege to from an educated background:Admitting that he believes the school system and society fails to teach the public proper civics, Harsanyi says he doesn t care. He s made up his mind. He doesn t seem to know (or maybe he just doesn t care) that his civics test, banking on the fact that people will fail it, would disproportionately affect black and Hispanic voters, Americans who don t speak English, and voters with intellectual or learning disabilities. All these people, regardless of what Harsanyi thinks, are Americans who are all entitled to vote without any discriminatory barriers.But Harsanyi addresses that:Of course, we also must remember the ugly history of poll taxes and other prejudicial methods that Americans used to deny black citizens their equal right to vote. Any effort to improve the quality of the voting public should ensure that all races, creeds, genders and sexual orientations and people of every socioeconomic background are similarly inhibited from voting when ignorant.CAUSE THAT JUST MAKES EVERYTHING BETTER, DOESN T IT!? That was the same thing the racist bigots in the South said when passing their discriminatory Jim Crow laws.This attack on the basic dignities of voters and their absolute right to vote without barriers is disgusting, but we shouldn t put it past a libertarian, or rather faux-libertarian considering actual libertarians are for freedom with no barriers.Featured image via Scott Olson/Getty Images