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Let's restrict the right to vote


Argus

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Okay, it might not, but the logic is there. The more idiots are allowed to vote, the more morons we get in office.

It seems to me, that rather than trying to increase the number of people voting, even possibly forcing people to vote, we should be working to decrease the voting lists. Voting should not be automatic. It should be something you have to work at, something you gain as a respectable, responsible member of society. Maybe then people would appreciate it more and take more care of how they use their powers.

So.

Existing and previous members of the military get to vote. Same goes for the other domestic uniformed services, ie, police, fire, EMTs and paramedics. Land owners get to vote, as does anyone who has graduated from a college or university. Also, if you are a recognized professional in a field which has taken some time and effort to acquire significant skill, ie, master electrician, for example, where your income is over $50,000 (78% of all personal income taxes collected came from Canadians with incomes over $50k. These people make up 23% of the population).

Who doesn't get to vote?

If you pay no tax (8 million supposed taxpayers pay no tax) you do not vote. If the tax you pay is so low that it does not cover even a fraction of what you get from government in services, you do not vote. If you never graduated from high school you do not vote - unless, of course, you qualify under another option. If you are eking out a living as a stock clerk or something, you don't vote.

Final chance.

Of course, in an egalitarian society we ought to allow people with demonstrated abilities and demonstrated determination to have a say. Anyone can vote so long as they work at getting the vote. That could mean doing volunteer work for a few years time, for example, and passing some tests on political knowledge. How many people d you think care enough to bother?

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Ah yes! SLAVERY! Wait! ... haven't we been there before??

I vote Argus off the voting list, just because of persistent assholery!!! :lol:

Perhaps we ought to restrict answers to people who don't need the help of a calculator to figure out how many toes they have.

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Terrible system, Argus. If people have no say in society, then their obligation to it is diminished. In the case of children, parents have a say on their behalf. In the case of adult immigrants, they had a choice to come here. But the obligation to soceity of those who were born here and have no say and those who were brought here and have no say is meaningfully diminished by such a system.

But, for the hell of it, I will play ball with the individual points.

Okay, it might not, but the logic is there. The more idiots are allowed to vote, the more morons we get in office.

Never head of the Manchurian Candidate, eh? But any system that assigns full citizenship based on intelligence is a morally bankrupt system. It is only a reciple for depriving contributing members of society of their rights.

It seems to me, that rather than trying to increase the number of people voting, even possibly forcing people to vote, we should be working to decrease the voting lists. Voting should not be automatic. It should be something you have to work at, something you gain as a respectable, responsible member of society. Maybe then people would appreciate it more and take more care of how they use their powers.

In theory, perhaps, but who gets to decide? The Politburo?

Existing and previous members of the military get to vote. Same goes for the other domestic uniformed services, ie, police, fire, EMTs and paramedics.
I think if I were making an official "roll" I would make medical personnel a different category from military/police/fire because I think the justification is significantly different.
Land owners get to vote,

No, just no. Owning land should never be a qualification, in and of itself, of getting to vote. As per your earlier objections, lazy idiots who do nothing of value can own land, therefore it cannot be used as a justification for allowing people to vote.

as does anyone who has graduated from a college or university. Also, if you are a recognized professional in a field which has taken some time and effort to acquire significant skill, ie, master electrician, for example, where your income is over $50,000 (78% of all personal income taxes collected came from Canadians with incomes over $50k. These people make up 23% of the population).

Maybe, though I have some reservations about allowing people to vote just because they are educated. Not everyone that is educated is politically inclined or politically competent.

Who doesn't get to vote?

If you pay no tax (8 million supposed taxpayers pay no tax) you do not vote. If the tax you pay is so low that it does not cover even a fraction of what you get from government in services, you do not vote. If you never graduated from high school you do not vote - unless, of course, you qualify under another option. If you are eking out a living as a stock clerk or something, you don't vote.

In conjunction with my objection to land owners not automatically getting the vote, I will add paying tax is not enough: You must be paying from income that you earned from production, even if it is just the production of more money. To simplify, you must be adding value, not merely possessing it.

Of course, in an egalitarian society we ought to allow people with demonstrated abilities and demonstrated determination to have a say. Anyone can vote so long as they work at getting the vote. That could mean doing volunteer work for a few years time, for example, and passing some tests on political knowledge. How many people d you think care enough to bother?

You would have to be careful about what kind of volunteering you would allow to count, I think. But tests are a bad way to go, I think. I would find the relevance of their content to be highly circumspect, because the nature of the politics that matters today is very fluid. At minimum, such a test should not include any purely historical questions, because as bad as it makes us feel to think that many Canadians do not know who the first Prime Minister of Canada was, it hardly matters one whit to current elections.

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Under your proposed system, I would not get to vote. I thought I might for a second, as I am a master glassblower, with over 16 years experience, but then you excluded me with the $50000 cutoff. Art is not lucrative enough, so not only can I not afford to own land, now you want to further marginalize me. My opinions are worthless, since my focus is not on getting rich.

Perhaps it would be for the best though. As Douglas Adams once said, "Anyone intelligent enough to deal with politics is intelligent enough to stay the hell away.

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There is a problem - these days - It's the nerd factor - Just like with movie actors. They were the same people you knew in highschool who were the nerds - not cool - and not very smart - and kind of short...well those that run for political office are NEVER the cream of the crop...Smart people do not run for office or run off to Hollywood to be a "star." - Until the so-called smart enter the game - idiots will rule - until there is nothing left to rule - then the smart ones will take desperate politcal measures and responsibility. By then it will be to late...and we are getting close to the too late line.

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Terrible system, Argus. If people have no say in society, then their obligation to it is diminished.

Do you really think most people today feel they have any obligation towards society? I mean, really?

Never head of the Manchurian Candidate, eh? But any system that assigns full citizenship based on intelligence is a morally bankrupt system
.

Why? Seems to me that in most of life, the smarter people gravitate towards the top, and everyone tends to listen to them and take leadership from them. In politics that often doesn't happen, perhaps because so many fools go out and vote without having a clue or making an effort to determine who they ought to vote for.

I think if I were making an official "roll" I would make medical personnel a different category from military/police/fire because I think the justification is significantly different.

I don't really care what the category is. The point is to restrict the vote to those making an actual contribution to society in some manner or other, those who have actually taken time and effort to acquire a skill, to acquire knowledge, to make something of themselves or to help society in some endeavor.

No, just no. Owning land should never be a qualification, in and of itself, of getting to vote.

Yes, I'm aware it's old fashioned and has certain historical injustices attached. :P

However, if you own land you pay taxes, probably a lot of them.

As per your earlier objections, lazy idiots who do nothing of value can own land, therefore it cannot be used as a justification for allowing people to vote.

Almost anyone who owns land would qualify under some other aspect anyway.

Maybe, though I have some reservations about allowing people to vote just because they are educated. Not everyone that is educated is politically inclined or politically competent.

No, of course not. Lots of people who are educated at cretins. But you'll never get a system whereby everyone involved is politically astute and has good judgement. I'm just trying to siphon off the greater part of the dross.

In conjunction with my objection to land owners not automatically getting the vote, I will add paying tax is not enough: You must be paying from income that you earned from production, even if it is just the production of more money. To simplify, you must be adding value, not merely possessing it.

No, this is just your socialistic philosophy speaking here. I'm speaking practicality and logic. If you're putting money into the pot you should have a say in how it's spent, regardless of how you acquired that money.

You would have to be careful about what kind of volunteering you would allow to count, I think. But tests are a bad way to go, I think. I would find the relevance of their content to be highly circumspect, because the nature of the politics that matters today is very fluid. At minimum, such a test should not include any purely historical questions, because as bad as it makes us feel to think that many Canadians do not know who the first Prime Minister of Canada was, it hardly matters one whit to current elections.

Sure it matters - as an indication to what effort you have put into educating yourself, into familiarizing yourself with your country. Do we really want someone who doesn't even know who our first prime minister was voting?

You're speaking a different language. Your concern is clearly with injustice and fairness to the individuals concerned. My thoughts are more with what actions would produce the most knowledgeable, capable and energetic voting group who would watch what was going on and vote accordingly. Ie, it's the end results and the best interest of the country that I'm interested in.

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Under your proposed system, I would not get to vote. I thought I might for a second, as I am a master glassblower, with over 16 years experience, but then you excluded me with the $50000 cutoff. Art is not lucrative enough, so not only can I not afford to own land, now you want to further marginalize me. My opinions are worthless, since my focus is not on getting rich.

Perhaps it would be for the best though. As Douglas Adams once said, "Anyone intelligent enough to deal with politics is intelligent enough to stay the hell away.

The point is that if you really wanted to vote, you would be able to make the effort and acquire it, however low your economic means.

There is no way of doing this without marginalizing huge numbers of people who deserve to vote. I readily admit that. You cannot disinfranchise millions of people and think every one of them is too much of a loser to vote. There will be intelligent, capable people who take the time to know what is going on and vote quite earnestly who would lose their vote, and there will be moronic imbeciles who go vote based on whatever commercial they heard on the radio last week still able to vote.

The idea is that the end result will see Maybe 75% of the idiots no longer voting, along with perhaps 20% of the people who deserved to vote now disinfranchised. But that will still produce a voting block considerably better in terms of knowledge and intelligence than what we have now.

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I can see what Argus is saying, but it will do more harm than good. Changing the voting age might do some good. Not many young people are into politics or even care about it. I was one of them, now I am more aware of things, and want to be able to make a difference. However, with the options we have had in Canada I have not been able to conciously vote in favour of one party/leader over another. They are all bad options to me. They all have some of what I like, but never the majority of what I support.

Lets restrict who can get into parliment/congress/senate/ ect ect ... Ususally you have idiots voting an idiot in.

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No, this is just your socialistic philosophy speaking here. I'm speaking practicality and logic. If you're putting money into the pot you should have a say in how it's spent, regardless of how you acquired that money.

You may be speaking practically on this point, Argus, but not logically. A wealthy person who does nothing themselves is in fact putting nothing in the pot: they are not creating the wealth that is being taxed. Your system should be operated based on wealth creation, not wealth ownership. If it operates at all, of course.

You're speaking a different language. Your concern is clearly with injustice and fairness to the individuals concerned. My thoughts are more with what actions would produce the most knowledgeable, capable and energetic voting group who would watch what was going on and vote accordingly. Ie, it's the end results and the best interest of the country that I'm interested in.

If your goal is to create this knowledagle, energetic voting class, then why not require everyone to go the effort/knowledge path to voting?

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The point is that if you

The idea is that the end result will see Maybe 75% of the idiots no longer voting, along with perhaps 20% of the people who deserved to vote now disinfranchised. But that will still produce a voting block considerably better in terms of knowledge and intelligence than what we have now.

Define "idiot" please?

And why disenfranchise 'worthy' people?

Only about 60% of us vote anyway. I don't think fewer voters is the answer.

Edited by tango
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The more idiots are allowed to vote, the more morons we get in office.

And who are the people writing the rules of acquiring power? Those who are in power, want to stay in power, of course.

How can you be sure those you restrict from voting due to their economic situations or educational achievements will not be voting for candidates that have a plan to get them out of their plight? And you would categorize these people as "idiots"?

I'm guessing this is the same type of discussion the fathers of democracy had when the noblemen and dictators of the world were freshly deposed and overthrown. To introduce these types of restrictions would not be far from the "Animal Farm" situation in which some are more equal than others depending upon some arbitrary (or strategically crafted) set of criteria.

If there would be any definition of "idiot" we have to begin by identifying those who make important far-reaching decisions on the 6second sound-bite. Any university or college educated person, whose ever written a thesis or a discussion paper, can identify that solutions and proposals are not presented within 6 seconds. The fact is, problems are complex and so are their solutions.

But marketing and campaign people know that complex solutions to complex problems don't sell products nor win votes. They do play on the lowest denominator of the intellectual pool.

Explaining that taxes are used for roads, infrastructure, society, environment in specific programs take longer than 30seconds and will lose the interest of any voter. Spewing "No new taxes", "Get your house in order", "Common Sense" catch the voters' attention in seconds. Explaining the detrimental and contradictory effects of these catch-phrases take minutes.

The "Green Shift" was a comprehensive plan that balances tax refunds and incentives with tax penalties against environmentally-detrimental behaviour. It was a complex plan for a complex problem. Critics said it was too difficult to understand - which in itself was a disguised statement about the intellectual level of the general population. "Green-Shaft" was a catchy phrase that caught on no matter how wrong it was.

If there would be any kind of criteria, this is the kind of idiot-factor we should have as a criteria.

Was my post too long?

Edited by daniel
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Do we really want someone who doesn't even know who our first prime minister was voting?

Sure we do.

People vote from different perspectives, and historical knowledge isn't an indicator of someone's dedication to making the best decision they can. What is an indicator is the effort someone puts in to belonging to the democracy. This is why I'm against initiatives to allow people to vote online, and other initiatives that seem to target the laziest and least interested citizens.

If we elevate the level of debate, and step back efforts to dumb-down and easy-up the democratic process, then we can achieve what you're talking about without having to restrict anything.

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I had to laugh when I got to this line. Thanks.

It's nice when a member quips out something that brings about laughter - it makes one feel grateful for the generousity of the other...BC makes me laugh most of the time...I adore his posts - If they are to advanced for my not formally educated mind - I step aside and wait for an opportunity to have some fun and learn something.

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People who were not born here should not be allowed to vote under any circumstances from now on. Voting should be a privilege for real Canadians only. Coming here on a plane 2 years ago doesn't give a person enough knowledge of my country to be able to decide my fate.

I wouldn't be allowed to vote in the desert country or the jungle country so why should they be allowed to vote here?

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