zer0netgain wrote:
Philologos wrote:
zeronetgain:
if people who cannot adequately reason or understand what the issues are were not allowed to vote, the Powers would have to devise a new system.
The whole of American politics is designed to minimize the effect of informed thought.
Likely true, but I find it amazing the ignorance of the history of suffrage in America.
The Founders didn't allow non-property owners to vote. There was a darn good reason for this as the property owner was the most directly affected by government choices. It's easy for someone with nothing to lose to support government programs that hands them something of value at someone else's expense.
Women could not vote...largely because women did not own property. I agree that gender is no reason to deny voting rights, but I would have preferred they reserved it to property owners...or gave the property owner more votes (2:1) than a non-property owner.
Minorities could not vote. Again, this is wrong when it's solely based on ethnicity.
The problem in saying everyone should vote is that there is no balance to prevent what the founders saw as the inherent flaw of democracies (hence why America is a Republic, not a democracy)...when the populace realizes they can vote themselves largess from the treasury, elections become all about picking the person who promises the masses the largest chunk of the pie and not about what is good governance for the present and future generations.
Well, guess what? I don't own property (other than my car), and I do vote. As a matter of fact, I
do have as much a stake in this country as a property owner - I live here. On top of that, I have a child, whose future is of importance to me - that also gives me another stake in our society. So I want the very best for my country.
And by the way, people who risk their lives for the sake of their country by joining the military are often from the non-property owning underclass - are you seriously going to forbid them the right to vote after their sacrifice?
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer