Should America Roll Back Voting Rights for the Masses?

[The World Capitalist Confederation]

We've already seen the effects of intellectuals trying to tell farmers how to do their job. It's called the Soviet famine of 1932–33 and The Great Leap Forwards. An uneducated farmer should have the right to vote for representatives that represent their interests. If not for moral reasons, than for practical ones. A disenfranchised group of people aren't going to matter to politician's and that will inevitably lead to neglect.

I don't get offended by different opinions. Everyone is entitled to speak their mind and have their views heard-including your own (though i disagree with them). A byproduct of my "pie in the sky" morals, i suppose.

There are also intelligent farmers. In fact, educating rural communities (which are disenfranchised right now) would help immensely with this.

Irrelevant, but I find it funny that someone on the right puts Jean-Paul Sartre, a committed socialist and supporter of the Soviet Union, as their 'profile picture' for the forums.

[UniversalCommons]

I would think basic failures should exclude people, not conditions. Bankruptcy, not finishing high school, going to jail. These conditions should be correctable and reinstatable after time.

[Bear Stearns]

There are also intelligent farmers. In fact, educating rural communities (which are disenfranchised right now) would help immensely with this.

Irrelevant, but I find it funny that someone on the right puts Jean-Paul Sartre, a committed socialist and supporter of the Soviet Union, as their 'profile picture' for the forums.

Is it? I'm an economic populist and my picture is of a former global investment bank.

[Jean-Paul Sartre]

There are also intelligent farmers. In fact, educating rural communities (which are disenfranchised right now) would help immensely with this.

Irrelevant, but I find it funny that someone on the right puts Jean-Paul Sartre, a committed socialist and supporter of the Soviet Union, as their 'profile picture' for the forums.

I am not a member of the right, and while I agree with many of Sartre’s ideas, I don’t agree with all of them.

[Arlenton]

Universal poll tax to pay for elections.

[US-SSR]

How do you know? There wasn't any public opinion polling in 1856. And Senator Sumner, while badly injured, was not in a coma for the rest of his term.

We do know that South Carolina sent the beater (whose name escapes me for a moment) a golden cane. The North was horrified, sure. But not so much at Congress as at slaveryites.

Once.
Hardly an indicator of functionality.

The point I was trying to make is that the approval of voters is not a good barometer of congressional quality. One of the major reasons Congressional approval is so low today is major partisanship, not ability.

It was Preston Brooks of South Carolina. He wasn't the first or the last to engage in fisticuffs with or to draw a gun on his fellow Congressmen. But such behavior seems to have died out with the end of the last US Civil War.

[Alien Overlord]

We've already seen the effects of intellectuals trying to tell farmers how to do their job. It's called the Soviet famine of 1932–33 and The Great Leap Forwards. An uneducated farmer should have the right to vote for representatives that represent their interests. If not for moral reasons, than for practical ones. A disenfranchised group of people aren't going to matter to politician's and that will inevitably lead to neglect.

I don't get offended by different opinions. Everyone is entitled to speak their mind and have their views heard-including your own (though i disagree with them). A byproduct of my "pie in the sky" morals, i suppose.

There are also intelligent farmers. In fact, educating rural communities (which are disenfranchised right now) would help immensely with this.

I'm aware that there are intelligent farmers-that's the whole point of my mentioning of intelligent mechanics. Additionally rural communities aren't disenfranchised. You can still vote in a rural community.

Edit: Seeing as how we aren't a technocracy, as is being proposed in this thread, rather that we are a meritocracy, i see no reason to disenfranchise legal citizens. Let people participate in government based on their own merit and not arbitrary tests.

[Liriena]

America needs to stop being a country of self entitled snow flakes. This country is not nor has it ever been a Democracy it is a Constitutional Republic. At 17 I raised my right hand and swore to stand by, support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies foreign or domestic. I did not swear to protect the government or the people. That document is what I put my faith in and it is what I believed in enough to risk my life. The voting laws and all other laws must obey the Constitution of the United States or be abolished. FYI snow flakes 11 years after taking off that uniform for the last time I still believe in the Constitution enough that I am still willing to take that risk.

...ah-huh.

[The South Falls]

How would you measure intelligence as correlating to voting? Ability to garner information is really all that matters. And anyway, a republic is based on the principles of the constitution. The American constitution allows for all to vote, regardless of their capability. We'd essentially, by principle, be in an oligarchy of the well educated.

[The South Falls]

America needs to stop being a country of self entitled snow flakes. This country is not nor has it ever been a Democracy it is a Constitutional Republic. At 17 I raised my right hand and swore to stand by, support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies foreign or domestic. I did not swear to protect the government or the people. That document is what I put my faith in and it is what I believed in enough to risk my life. The voting laws and all other laws must obey the Constitution of the United States or be abolished. FYI snow flakes 11 years after taking off that uniform for the last time I still believe in the Constitution enough that I am still willing to take that risk.

Thanks for your service, but what does that have to do with the question af hand?

[Liriena]

They are democracies. It's in the name. They are not direct democracies.

People vote for representatives who represent their collective will within the system of government of their republic? This is a democratic process. You are in a representative democracy within the framework of a federal constitutional republic. Much in the same way that the United Kingdom is a representative democracy within the framework of a constitutional monarchy.

Here, enjoy Freedom House's map on the matter.

It's a misnomer. Like Libertarian Socialism.

Ah-huh. And from which dark, dank orifice did you produce that hot take?

And I can care less what ''think tank'' organizations have to say. Especially when they measure a country's freedom rate by things like having ''free'' healthcare.

Your personal opinions are appreciated but they don't constitute a reliable source.

[Liriena]

It is still however, a democracy. The essential idea is that the people have sovereignity, that the state represents them and their interests in their entirety. The legitimacy of the American republic derives from its representative democracy. If we institutionally admit, by way of "intelligence tests", and other such barriers, that the purpose of the state is more paternalistic, then there is no point in maintaining any democratic process as anything other than a symbolic paliative to the technocratic authoritarianism around which the state would organize itself.

It's a dictatorship of the "intelligent".


I happen to disagree on this. While lack of education, critical thinking and the effects of malnourishment on the intellectual development of the people are legitimate concerns, I don't think that they make it inherently undesirable for the vox populi to be deprived of power. It is my experience that, despite everything, people tend to have a basic, almost instinctive understanding of what is wrong with their society and what is needed for the common good. Our responsibility should be to cultivate this understanding through education and socioeconomic policy so as to improve upon it and allow as many people as possible to intelligently engage in politics.

And yet those people are also easily deceived. If you'd like to label that a "dictatorship of the intelligent", it is. I'm sorry that I'd like people who are educated to be in charge, rather than Jimmy at the gas station.

How easily deceived, exactly? And deceived by who?

[Chernoslavia]

It's a misnomer. Like Libertarian Socialism.

Ah-huh. And from which dark, dank orifice did you produce that hot take?

And I can care less what ''think tank'' organizations have to say. Especially when they measure a country's freedom rate by things like having ''free'' healthcare.

Your personal opinions are appreciated but they don't constitute a reliable source.

Logic. > Advocates people seize the means of production. > Builds a state to keep people from owning more than what they perceive as ''too much''. Also, the fact you're using wikipedia should be evident you don't know what you're talking about.

Neither does your damn source. You lot yourselves consider the Electoral College to be ''against democracy''. So which is it?

[The World Capitalist Confederation]

I would think basic failures should exclude people, not conditions. Bankruptcy, not finishing high school, going to jail. These conditions should be correctable and reinstatable after time.

Ahh yes, bankruptcy, a completely voluntary state in which you're just lazy and don't want to pay off loans. It's not that the house market is too volatile or you've become chronically unemployed even though you're still searching for a job, it's that you can't get off your bottom to actually pay your money off.

[Liriena]

Ah-huh. And from which dark, dank orifice did you produce that hot take?


Your personal opinions are appreciated but they don't constitute a reliable source.

Logic.

Lmao nope. Name-dropping the word "logic" is a surefire way of convincing me that you're not engaging in logic.

> Advocates people seize the means of production. > Builds a state to keep people from owning more than what they perceive as ''too much''.

By that logic, the existence of any state that enforces any sort of norms on ownership can never be libertarian. So I guess every country that bans slavery and monopolies can't call itself libertarian.

Also, the fact you're using wikipedia should be evident you don't know what you're talking about.

Says the guy whose explanation as to why "libertarian socialism" is a misnomer is a rather embarrassing indicator that his political education began and ended in conservative Facebook memes.

Neither does your damn source

Why are you so needlessly agressive about semantics?

[Liriena]

You lot yourselves consider the Electoral College to be ''against democracy''. So which is it?

The fact that one could argue that the electoral college, in practice, can operate undemocratically (insofar as its composition often contradicts the composition of the popular vote) does not mean that the United States is not a representative democracy. It only means that the electoral college's position within that framework is questionable, without that detracting from the fact that the electoral college itself is democratically elected, regardless of its composition. Much in the same way one can criticize, say, gerrymandering without necessarily believing that the existence of the House of Representatives is, in and of itself, undemocratic.

[Chernoslavia]

Logic.

Lmao nope. Name-dropping the word "logic" is a surefire way of convincing me that you're not engaging in logic.

> Advocates people seize the means of production. > Builds a state to keep people from owning more than what they perceive as ''too much''.

By that logic, the existence of any state that enforces any sort of norms on ownership can never be libertarian. So I guess every country that bans slavery and monopolies can't call itself libertarian.

Also, the fact you're using wikipedia should be evident you don't know what you're talking about.

Says the guy whose explanation as to why "libertarian socialism" is a misnomer is a rather embarrassing indicator that his political education began and ended in conservative Facebook memes.

Neither does your damn source

Why are you so needlessly agressive about semantics?

Says the guy dropping a wiki article.

Slavery is forced labor. Socialism is an oppressive system that uses aggression against people who you consider to be the bourgeoisie. You can't be for leaving people the fuck alone and at the same time be for forcing people to give up their stuff. that's nonsensical. We've been through this before.

''aggressive''. I mean, why are you?

[Victorious Decepticons]

I would say whether or not someone held religious faith, and believed in scientific theories. If you're an anti-vaxxer, anti-fluoride, and believe climate change is a hoax, or believe in things like creationism, it's bye-bye franchise.

The possibility of this kind of garbage is the only reason I oppose OP's idea.

Science should be questioned at every turn, just like anything else that can affect public policy. If science cannot properly debunk the anti-vaxxers, anti-flouriders, and climate change denialists instead of trying to force them to shut up "or else"...that's exactly when the scientific claims should be considered too flimsy to rely on. As it stands, scientific unbelievers force scientists to come up with something other than "because I said so" when their pronouncements come out. That is very important for ensuring that there is something legitimate behind their claims instead of just BS agenda-pumping nonsense. I think that it is also sometimes the only reason scientists bother to actually explain anything to the masses in something approaching plain English.

Finally, just because some hotshot thinks a scientific thing is a Big Fat Deal doesn't mean that it is, and if the Panic Wagon needs one thing badly, it's a good, solid set of brakes. Otherwise we'd be stuck with absolute idiocy like plans to essentially force everyone into primitivism in order to "stop global warming" or some similar patent nonsense that replaces a potential future problem with a very real and immediate one.

Your inclusion of anti-fluoride in the list shows a strong desire for overreach, too. The only thing bad that comes of that is...the person who believes it enough to avoid all fluoride (including in toothpaste) gets more cavities. That's certainly not grounds for disenfranchisement.

I also disagree that religious faith, or lack thereof, should be a criterion for getting to vote. There's no way to prove or conclusively disprove the very existence of a god, let alone which religion and sect (or lack thereof) is right!

OP's original idea seems fine enough, but attempts to make it so that it's just a way for particular ideologies or scientific theories du jour to get to go unchallenged is BS.

[Liriena]

Lmao nope. Name-dropping the word "logic" is a surefire way of convincing me that you're not engaging in logic.


By that logic, the existence of any state that enforces any sort of norms on ownership can never be libertarian. So I guess every country that bans slavery and monopolies can't call itself libertarian.


Says the guy whose explanation as to why "libertarian socialism" is a misnomer is a rather embarrassing indicator that his political education began and ended in conservative Facebook memes.


Why are you so needlessly agressive about semantics?

Says the guy dropping a wiki article.

I'm sorry. What's your argument here, exactly? That your vague, unsubstantiated brainshart of a "logical" explanation as to why "libertarian socialism" is a misnomer is more reliable than an online encyclopedia that cites plenty of sources on the matter? That sounds a tad bit arrogant.

Socialism is an oppressive system that uses aggression against people who you consider to be the bourgeoisie.

[citation needed]

And again, by that logic, any political and economic system that uses aggression against certain people is arguably oppressive. Which means it could be argued, for example, that your country is currently under an oppressive system since your state violently represses people for possession of drugs, including marijuana. It could also be argued to be quite oppressive that your country often requires that people get "permits" in order to congregate in public to protest their government, under threat of police repression. And that's without getting into the fact that your country still uses constitutionally sanctioned slave labour in its prisons and concentration camps.

You can't be for leaving people the fuck alone and at the same time be for forcing people to give up their stuff. that's nonsensical. We've been through this before.

At the risk of indulging in a threadjack, you might want to put a pin on the "forcing people to give up their stuff" thing, since modern capitalism was built largely on unilaterally seizing other people's land and exploiting their labour, and in the latter case it was not always with the consent of workers. The United States only exists the way it does because it systematically seized and privatized the territory of a pre-existing population, and also because it violently seized a sizeable portion of Mexico's original territory.

Also, socialism usually makes a distinction between private property and personal property? Which means nobody's coming for your toothbrush or your Xbox, dude.

And this is without getting into the main thrust of the argument behind why libertarian socialism is not "oppressive": because, within the framework of socialism, the status quo is the oppressive one. And in that framework, seizing the means of production is an act of liberation. The key difference between libertarian socialism and authoritarian socialism is that libertarian socialism generally does not entrust the means of production, and the economy and political system as a whole, to a centralized state. Rather, it stands for a descentralized, horizontal, cooperative and voluntary approach to politics and economics.

''aggressive''. I mean, why are you?

An unironic "no u"?

I'm impressed.

[Genivaria]

No, if anything we should make voter registration automatic at the age of 18 and make voting day a national holiday where everyone gets the day off to go vote.

[Nakena]

This is an extraordinary patrician thread.

No surprise the plebius is not in favor of the idea.

No, if anything we should make voter registration automatic at the age of 18 and make voting day a national holiday where everyone gets the day off to go vote.

That is not a bad idea.

[Liriena]

No, if anything we should make voter registration automatic at the age of 18 and make voting day a national holiday where everyone gets the day off to go vote.

And maybe, just maybe, make voting compulsory (though not under penalty of prison, of course).

[Tobleste]

To be clear, I am not talking about restricting voting based on:
-Race
-Gender
-Religion
-Creed
-Sexual Orientation

What am I talking about restricting voting based on? Property rights, and/or intelligence, to the extent that intelligence can be measured, along with restricting the extent to which the popular vote can decide elections. Does this have any precedent?

Property rights-based restrictions have existed in the past in the United States, although they were eliminated largely by the time of Andrew Jackson's election in 1828, and fully so by 1856, when North Carolina abolished them. This arguably led to the proliferation of populist-based parties in the United States, starting with the Jacksonian Democrats.

This was not the end of popularization of the political system. Whether it were the passage of the seventeenth amendment (which ended the process of senators being elected by the states, and replaced it with popular election of the senators) or the

Additionally, we have seen the attempts to eliminate the last attempts the founders made at protecting the federal government from popular opinion with many states passing a measure that would legally bind their electors in the electoral college to vote for whoever the popular vote winner is, and the repeated attempts by both sides in the now-populist Senate to "Bork" the Supreme Court (looking at the Kavanaugh and Garland appointments). What was once constrained to the House of Representatives and state legislatures has now spread to the whole nation. I ask you: is this conducive to a good political system?

Though IQ is not often a good indicator of intelligence in all cases, it can certainly be correlated to other factors. I'd like to share with you some generally troubling facts about the American populace.
1. This basic scientific knowledge quiz with results suggesting that the average American does worse than if they had just guessed randomly about them on several questions, and not much better on the rest.
2. Only 34% of Americans can name all 3 branches of gov't.
3. American students perform exceptionally poorly on geography and foreign relations-based questions
These indicators suggest that Americans are ignorant, to be generous. As George Carlin once said, "Think about how stupid the average person is, and then realize that half of 'em are stupider than that."

To summarize this lengthy introduction, NSG, America used to have barriers against the masses getting control of the government, and has since shed those barriers. The masses, especially in America, are overwhelmingly undereducated. Should we introduce measures to curb how much influence the average person's vote has, understanding that this is the case?

In my opinion, we should. Voting, and especially citizenship, should be based on passing the US citizenship test. Graduation from high school should include the requirement that this test be passed. Additionally, America should preclude anyone who does not pass standardized math, geography, and English proficiency tests from voting. Furthermore, America should roll back the seventeenth amendment. The average American does not deserve to vote if they cannot understand the complexity of what it means to run the most successful republic on the planet. Of course, I'd also advocate the end of property tax-based education funding before this occurred, to level the playing field.

Ideally, people who vote would be capable of doing it with the proper information. The problem is that any effort to prevent some people from voting will be politicised. If you say that passing a test is necessary for voting, in Alabama they'll make "Is gun control a bad idea?" a question and fail anyone who says no while in California, they'll let you pass if you write your name correctly.

[Nakena]

No, if anything we should make voter registration automatic at the age of 18 and make voting day a national holiday where everyone gets the day off to go vote.

And maybe, just maybe, make voting compulsory (though not under penalty of prison, of course).

Has this helped anything to improve things in Argentina politically? Or prevent them from getting worse?

[Al Mumtahanah]

Nice way of heavily disenfranchising people who aren't white. Quite clever.