Hungarian mothers to get extra votes for their children...

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cdfox7
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18 Apr 2011, 8:00 am

zer0netgain wrote:
A similar idea is being floated about people's right to vote being more fair based on how much they contribute to society.

1 man = 1 vote

If you pay $25,000 a year in income tax, you get an extra vote.
If you pay $50,000 a year in income tax, you get two extra votes.
Etc...up to 4 extra votes.

Make it so those who bear the burden of taxation get more say than those who do not.


Using that idea of income tax weighted voting, will be asking for trouble as the artificial persons (in the eyes of the law) who pay tax might use that to get the vote.



naturalplastic
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18 Apr 2011, 11:00 am

It reminded me of 3/5 rule too.
The slaveowner didnt actually get more than one vote, but congressional representation (then as now) was parceled out by population. So black slaves were counted as 3/5 of person when totalling a states population before calculating the congressional seats.

This way blacks were 3/5ths "represented" in congress despite the fact that they were not allowed to vote.
Which in effect meant that free whites (slaveowning or not) in slaveowning states got more congressional representation per capita. So whites in slave states in a roundabout way did get more power per capita in congress than whites in free states.
Whites in the south wouldve prefered that blacks be counted as full humans. Whites in the north and abolitionists of either color in either region wouldve prefered blacks not be counted as "people" at all for this purpose so that the non slave states would get the voting power.

Though giving extra votes to mothers (or widowed dads) for each child they have is not as outrrageous as rewarding you for living in a slave state it still rather questionable.

On the plus side it gives power to people who are responsible for children,and have a stake in posteriety, in education, and so forth. So maybe its fair to give moms more of a vote. But it puts more power into the hands of people with larger families. I would think it would also encourage a higher birthrate.

In a big multi ethnic country like the usa it would do more than favor moms and kids, it would also favor certain classes, races, and religions, that tend have larger families.

Europe (on both sides of the Iron Curtain-both before and after the fall of the iron curtain) had a declining birth rate for decades
My guess is that this voting thing maybe a bid to bolster the birthrate of Hungary-which may well have a lower than replacement birth rate.

Hungary is probably one of the few countries that could get away with this because it is both ethncally homogeneous and has a low birth rate. Third world countries should not try this because of their high birthrates. Any large diverse country like the USA, or India, shouldnt touch the idea.



ruveyn
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18 Apr 2011, 1:18 pm

zer0netgain wrote:
A similar idea is being floated about people's right to vote being more fair based on how much they contribute to society.

1 man = 1 vote

If you pay $25,000 a year in income tax, you get an extra vote.
If you pay $50,000 a year in income tax, you get two extra votes.
Etc...up to 4 extra votes.

Make it so those who bear the burden of taxation get more say than those who do not.


I like that idea, a great deal. This egalitarian one person one vote business is nonsense. The strong, the productive and the rich should rule. The rest should just be content with the crumbs that their betters throw at them.

ruveyn



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18 Apr 2011, 1:26 pm

ruveyn wrote:
zer0netgain wrote:
A similar idea is being floated about people's right to vote being more fair based on how much they contribute to society.

1 man = 1 vote

If you pay $25,000 a year in income tax, you get an extra vote.
If you pay $50,000 a year in income tax, you get two extra votes.
Etc...up to 4 extra votes.

Make it so those who bear the burden of taxation get more say than those who do not.


I like that idea, a great deal. This egalitarian one person one vote business is nonsense. The strong, the productive and the rich should rule. The rest should just be content with the crumbs that their betters throw at them.

ruveyn


This idea is terrible. A good reason to oppose the Hungarian system would be that it opens the doorway up to ideas like this. I would be favour of the poor having extra votes but then that politicizes the electoral system to a ridiculous degree. Maybe we should stick with what we have after all.



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18 Apr 2011, 3:01 pm

I think it's a great idea.
Mom and Dad should each get an extra 1/2 vote per child, unless one of them is not supporting the child or is deceased. In those cases, the other parent gets the full extra vote. Why shouldn't children be represented, and who better to represent them than their parents?
Parents voting on their childrens' behalfs still follows the rule of "one person, one vote".
One rich guy getting lots of votes does not follow that rule.



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18 Apr 2011, 3:08 pm

YippySkippy wrote:
Why shouldn't children be represented, and who better to represent them than their parents?


Children won't properly understand the issue at stake in an election. Result: it would be abused and would end up with the parents voting for them.



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18 Apr 2011, 3:23 pm

^^^ Um....yes, the parents would vote for their children. That's the idea.



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18 Apr 2011, 3:30 pm

No it's not really fair then, is it? Really, it just means the adults getting another vote.

It's a stupid idea.



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18 Apr 2011, 6:41 pm

YippySkippy wrote:
I think it's a great idea.
Mom and Dad should each get an extra 1/2 vote per child, unless one of them is not supporting the child or is deceased. In those cases, the other parent gets the full extra vote. Why shouldn't children be represented, and who better to represent them than their parents?
Parents voting on their childrens' behalfs still follows the rule of "one person, one vote".
One rich guy getting lots of votes does not follow that rule.


Especially considering that a rich guy has other means to push his agenda.


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18 Apr 2011, 7:29 pm

I think it's a slightly odd way to go about it, but I am in favour of giving children more of a voice.

As someone without children, I'm not sure how I would feel about a fertile woman on my street getting more votes than me though. I'd rather see the age of voting lowered.

I was pretty politically aware by the age of 10, and probably would have taken voting very seriously. And I'd have objected greatly to my mum voting for me. Teenagers often seem to be the most politically fired up people in society, judging by twitter, or at least fired up by certain issues. Just because we may not think they have the best judgement, I'm not sure it is our right to deprive them of a voice, any more than it was right to deprive black people, women or working class men a voice.

How about dropping the voting age to 14 for a start. They can't cock it up any more than we already have.



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19 Apr 2011, 2:09 pm

Henbane wrote:
How about dropping the voting age to 14 for a start. They can't cock it up any more than we already have.


Well said.


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19 Apr 2011, 2:17 pm

Fuzzy wrote:
ford_prefects_kid wrote:
This is more like the 3/5s compromise where white slave owners got more votes because they had black slaves, rather than when black Americans actually got the right to vote.

Considering the children aren't actually voting, their mothers are just getting to use them to overrepresent their own views.

Stupid idea.


Except that almost all mothers have their kids best interests in mind whereas a slave owner does not.


Yeah... which translates to mothers over representing their views. Mothers already vote based on what they feel is best for their children.


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19 Apr 2011, 2:27 pm

LKL wrote:
@ Vex: yes, and single fathers with custody as well.

I don't have any kids, but I actually like this idea. Maybe it would introduce a little bit more of a long-term perspective than the current 'get through the next election cycle' system.
I like the theory of this idea. It sounds fair to give all citizens a say.

On the other hand, it is no really a surprise the idea comes from a conservative group. Because mothers tend to be more likely to belong to a side of the political spectrum than the other...


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TeaEarlGreyHot
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19 Apr 2011, 2:29 pm

Mothers voting on what they think is best does not give the children a voice.

Not that children need a voice anyway. They're still learning how the world works.


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cdfox7
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20 Apr 2011, 1:07 am

TeaEarlGreyHot wrote:
Mothers voting on what they think is best does not give the children a voice.

Not that children need a voice anyway. They're still learning how the world works.


It only gives a mother a voice to express her own political view vicariously for her children.
Anyway with using a weighted voting system there will be a good chance that mothers with be power players in a political system.



cdfox7
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20 Apr 2011, 3:44 am

This though just came to me about this regarding the extra vote per child.
Using this type of voting system would more or less encourage women to have more children to get more votes.

If you look at weighted voting in the context of company shareholders.
The vote per share system encourages shareholders to buy more share in a company to get more power.