Card Check at the C-J

Card Check is of course the proposed method of voting for union members in which the member signs his ballot in public thereby opening himself up to retaliation from those who oppose his selected candidate. And, let's be clear, there is no question that there are people crazy enough to harm someone, either physically or through influence, for voting differently than the mad man wishes.

A newspaper I regularly read online is adopting a new policy for those leaving a comment to an article, they will require you to identify yourself in order to comment. The newspaper is the hometown publication of my favorite college basketball team, and I go there to follow the Louisville Cardinals and sometimes to keep up with my one time hometown in general. The method of delivering identification will be to sign on through your Facebook account, and the change is designed to identify those who leave distasteful comments with the hope that they will cease their offense if their names are known. And, while that has merit in a finite universe it has implications in the real world which the deciders failed to accommodate. And, all of the bad consequences of their action derive from the public knowledge of the names of the innocent commentator, and it is the same danger posed to those required to vote in a Card Check world; the people who don't like their opinion are given free access to the identity of those they might harm for their opinion!

In both cases the solution is worse than the previous arrangement. The idea at the newspaper does at least have a noble goal in mind, I can image no such valued purpose for Card Check; both ideas leave the innocent vulnerable to the predator.

There are those who are working to protect the secret ballot endangered by Card Check. And the newspaper need only read the comments to their announcement of the pending Facebook fiasco to see how its readers view their decision. And, then there are you and I to stand in the doorway blocking both dangerous actions.