Whoa, the world has turned upside down. In this from another thread, I actually agreed with Magnet Man.
I believe that every citizen should have the right to be able to earn the right to vote. That is, demonstrate their knowledge of the extremely basic facts necessary to make an informed voter decision. Such as: knowing the three branches of government and their checks and balances; that we are a nation under the rule of law established by the Constitution; that a change in the rate of taxation doesn’t necessarily result in directly proportional change in government revenues; or who their representative is; are vital to making informed voter decisions. But the number of people who would qualify to vote by just possessing these four bits of hyper-basic knowledge, I would venture to guess, is less than 50%–not even including answering who their representative is.
In fact, any such test could be two selection multiple choice, open book. Bring any materials you want including cheat sheets or a booklet you could get from the government with all the questions and answers. Whatever. You would only be required to demonstrate enough understanding of the question to be able to pick the right answer out from a “lineup”. Politician’s exploitation of a voter pool containing a large proportion of ignorance is how we’ve come to where we are now.
The only discrimination would be against those who are unable to, or apathetic about, being able to at least pointy-talkie such minimal information. If you don’t care enough to at least take this short simple test to qualify for the vital function of voting, you don’t care enough period.
Obama’s electoral heads recognized the components for getting him through both phases to the path of the presendency was rife with the correct balance of constituents that would obtain his goal. I.E. the young voters who want to move from the status quo and into a more anarchistc form of ‘valueless’ concerns. Secondly, the black vote. Even though this wasn’t outwardly expressed, it became apparent through news coverage. I suppose no matter how I paint this picture, I will be viewed as a racist…which I am not. I would vote for any man or woman regardless of ethnicity or creed who wants the same type of conservative government I do. If that person would have a Christian background, that would also be a plus for me. Being that candidate didn’t meet those requirements this last election I voted for the next best thing.
I feel most of the votes cast in the democratic direction were based on more of emotional and ideological veins. There is no doubt Obama is a charismatic speaker, but he holds no worthwhile values I can sidle up to.
He went after the young vote catered along with the rest of the world’s core beliefs for acceptance to gain the election using distribution of wealth as backdrop for this endeavor. I’m sorry, I’m not here to work for other’s benefit so other’s may take my money because they don’t want put forth effort. If people need help, they need to look to their churchs for it till they can get on their feet. The U.S. Government is not a nursemaid or any other type of benefactor so some may be parasites on society.
The trouble is most Americans don’t know enough about how it’s government workings to make common sense decisions about voting. If the democratic congress and senate would like to give up some of there salary along with democration constituents, then please do by all means. Leave my earnings alone.
So Liteninbolt, I agree with you (as long as you don’t try to legislate your Christianity, which I assume you aren’t advocating), but what are your thoughts on the franchise? Who should be able to vote?
The reason why minors don’t vote is because they’re stupid. The assumption here is that by the time someone reaches their 18th birthday they’re sufficiently knowledgeable about the nature of government and politics. But we all know this assumption is bad.
I’m all for a mandatory test that anyone who wishes to vote has to take and pass.
What does being 18 necessarily have to do with it? I don’t know this for sure, but I’ll bet that the statistics would show that 18-year-olds are less likely to vote in the first place than they are to vote without understanding what they’re voting for.
IMO, it’s worse that before going to the polling place, I make the effort to read about the issues, reflect upon them, evaluate the pros and cons, step outside of my ideological comfort zone – all that stuff – and some 40-year-old just follows some handout from his church that tells him how to vote.
But I can’t take away his right to do something that I consider moronic without jeopardizing my right to come to my vote my way. Experience has left me with a low (and highly suspicious) opinion of human nature when it comes to the desire of some to usurp fundamental rights whenever it serves their purpose. The only way I can keep my own freedom to vote my mind is to accept that the same freedom applies to others who may vote without using theirs.
And tests can always be front-loaded, so I don’t much care for that idea, either.
I’m highly sympathetic to such a test. But it does create some problems. After all, who writes the test, how are they administered, and how have people been taught the answers? The first two can clearly be manipulated by whichever group(s) are in power to maintain their power. That clearly runs counter to the purpose of a democracy or a democratic republic. I’m not necessarily opposed to that idea, but if one’s goal is to further the enterprise of a democratic republic that ought give them some pause. The third option is more subtle but is possibly more important because of that. Since the American educational system is tied to local property taxes, the quality of one’s primary education is directly correlated to one’s economic status. Throw on various geographic discrepancies and ‘economic status’ can be expanded to ‘socio-economic status’. In order to account for this, provided that the first two issues have been sufficiently resolved through a system of checks-and-balances, the test would either have to be sufficiently easy that those who received even the most paltry and deficient primary education could pass or it could willingly exclude those who the government has already failed. If the test geared towards the lowest-common denominator then all that matters is apathy and since very few states have same-day registration, apathy is already accounted for. On the hand, if the test knowingly excludes certain segments of the population then it simply becomes a tool to disenfranchise those the government has already failed. Seen this way, this third issue is really just a re-iteration of the first two but in a more hidden form.
Amen. But, to play the devil’s advocate, the reason for justifying giving 18 year-olds the right to vote is that’s the age they can be accepted into the military, or drafted to die in war or whatever. I’m torn on that particular issue and I can see both sides.
Why not (any) voters?
And then there’s the socialist’s “right to do something that I consider moronic without jeopardizing my right to come to vote my way”. Both are more often than not based on blind faith rather than reason.
Knowingly “excluding certain segments of the population” is a valid concern, but so is the current system. A test does exclude some, but only those who aren’t sufficiently motivated to acquire the minimal knowledge and pass a minimal test.
Well, my Christian faith does direct a lot of my thinking, but I will try to keep it on a secular level so it’s more relevant for this topic.
I would like to see more people educated in this aspect of this democratic process. To have a better understanding of the underpinnings of government. I assume most high school students took a government class concerning the different branches of the government etc. If you did enforce education with a test it would certainly seperate the wheat from the chaff. This would have to be an across the board situation involving all legal aged people to participate. But alas, it still will boil down to person’s leanings of wants and desires. Forgive me for saying, but common sense won’t prevail with educated idiots.
That’s my point, whether it’s indoctrination or teaching, having the wisdom vote responsibly will only occur in the 1 percentile range. 18 year olds rarely act on logic. Older people with life experience may apply wisdom. 18 year old minds are still malleable and complacent. Yet we still use the young to fight wars. Between being taught and showing wisdom along with common sense, it’s still a long shot for logical thinking. Environment, emotional status and state of mind usually have the upper hand.
Do you think it’s fair for minors to pay taxes on iteams, when they don’t even have the right to vote? ? In America, you can’t vote until your 18. Do you think that it’s right that as a minor you are expected to obey the law & pay taxes, but you can’t vote for the people who are making these laws and who are raising your taxes.
You pretty much addressed you own initial concerns when you said:
I’m going for the lowest common denominator so as to keep objections to a minimum, and apathy wouldn’t be an issue since they’d have to show up and answer from memory or look up the answers in a book, and then later on to vote. This seems trivial to many of us policy wonks, but it would exclude much of the “franchisable” chaff.
The only administrative requirement would be that they could receive no outside help that would allow them to answer by merely punching a or b without even reading the answer. And the only intellectual requirement would be the ability to read with some comprehension (if they can’t comprehend, their answers would average out to 50%), and a minimal amount of motivation.
I share your initial concerns, but, beyond what I’ve said here, I can only say that it would have to be better than the system we have where the ignorance of many voters makes them so subject of manipulation.
I disagree with your 1 percentile. Wisdom would indeed be a factor, but only because its percentage would be increased. Voting responsibly would be as it is now, watching out for number one. The only difference would be the lessening of emotional demagoguery. That and removing the truly apathetic would greatly lower the number of emotional/criminally ignorant voters.
You don’t get rights until you can accept the responsibility for yourself at some, necessarily arbitrary, age. Until then you are either the ward of your parents/relatives or the state, without said rights or responsibilities. We could attempt to adjust it on an individual basis, but that would be a lot of effort for very little gain. I suspect variations in the maturation bell curve would look more like a spike.
I can agree with that. Though I don’t really see a difference between that and disallowing same-day registration. Both counter apathy and it is reasonable to think that so profoundly ignorant a person would be apathetic, almost by definition.
Assuming people understood the way our government operates, have a thorough knowledge of the constitution, bill of rights, etc., do you think this would give voters the ability to determine what policies would benefit them and our country the most? It doesn’t seem like the two are linked…
It means that the blind faith most socialists pursue is no different that the blind faith practiced by church-goers.
Economics/taxes is the link. There are people, who vote, who believe that the government should have a lot more hand-outs since all they have to do is to print more money to cover it. A more common belief is that the economy is a zero sum game no different than their check books. In fact, the greatest improvement in the franchise would be accomplished by a minimal education in just this one area–which is totally avoided (if not misrepresented) in most schools.