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Some of the most intelligent people are also the most greedy and selfish. Without cunning, how would any corrupt governments continue to stay in power? (Think of Dick Cheney. Very intelligent, very evil. But how can one "measure" morality when it's a matter of opinion?)

And some of the most intelligent people are also incredibly foolish when it comes to politics--there are so many different types of intelligence.

As for IQ tests, they're bogus and biased and based around cultural leanings that not everyone shares.

I'm sorry, it's just not that simple.

I agree on everything except Dick Cheney being intelligent. He and Rumsfeld did create havoc even during the 70;s.

No, you forgot race-based voting, which although not supposed to happen, did happen in the US south with the help of certain laws to eliminate black voters. One of the things used were voting tests, which were impossible to pass and used to discriminate against blacks and not whites, these were banned with the passing of the civil rights act of 1965. Really though, both questions should only be answered by minds who can comprehend all that changes when they make their choices on such things, even what you mentioned should only be approached by a voter who recognizes the overall costs of taxation and government growth vs the benefits of partially subsidized surgery and frankly, I am certain that many voters would not think about such things and vote based on some form of weird preference or emotion. The average citizen is ignorant, in order to overcome this requires effort that the average voter wouldn't want to put in, and as such the average citizen would not put that in, however, if faced with some emotive rhetoric for one side or another he might vote and these votes being ill-conceived are more likely to be bad.


I can agree with that, however, morality tests cannot be implemented, we can just hope that even the most evil people recognize that if the system comes crashing down then everything else falls with it.

That part is true, which is why I was opposed to the IQ test. IQ != political knowledge which is what really is necessary for making rational political decisions.

This isn't an issue of intelligence, this is an issue of understanding, understanding may correlate with intelligence but the 2 are not the same.

Race-based voting also did exist in South Africa and Rhodesia [present Zimbabwe]. Foreigners, children and in some countries mentally dysfunctioned people cannot vote today as we speak. There has also been various variations on voting inequality, like for example the system where people bought votes that was present in Sweden until 1907 [yu could buy up to 44 votes].

I was just addressing that because you didn't reference what I was thinking about in your comment. I am sure that many variations in voting inequality have been done and I am sure that many many more are possible but never been tried.

I did not mention race-based inequality in voting processes not because of ignorance but because these factors have occurred in societies which were unique anomalies for their time [the 19th and 20th century democratisation]. For example, discrimination of ethnic minorities in Europe during industrialism was more about integrating them in the new nation-state than to expel them or put them in a subordinate position. CSA was the last true slave-based society [and one of the few slave-based societies based on race], while South Africa was another unique case where a white minority tried to systematically first exploit and then expel a more and more overwhelming African majority.

I did not say that you ignored them out of ignorance, I simply said you ignored them. I only brought it up because it tied back to the whole issue of testing for voting in which my comment back there tied back to. It hardly matters what is an anomaly if it is relevant, and the race-based society is relevant to the discussion at hand because of how it used a method that was one mentioned in a negative manner and because of this laws were created to prevent that.

Rather, a discriminated group were given the very same privilegies as everyone else [except women]. But in some states, blacks did not have voting tights until about 1915.

Are we going to just argue semantics back and forth? This entire thing started when you quoted my comment while not appearing to address what I had said. I just wanted to make sure that we were both on the same page.

*Tirelessly rebutting*

All capitalist and statist structures should be replaced by a confederation of communes and co-ops.

http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secIcon.html

My ideal government is the one that doesnt tell me what to do and what to pay for..

AKA Libertarian, let the people TRUELY decide, not just decide which moron is going to, inturn, tell them what to do