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fucktoyprincess -> RE: Who should vote? (5/22/2013 3:11:40 PM)
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ORIGINAL: Arturas
When I put some options out there and asked for opinions I never said a restriction on voting to only those who have a stake (a financial stake) in America was in the Constitution. Matter of fact I don't see any restrictions on rights ever being placed in the Constitution.I am certain that restrictions on voting did not need to be in the Constitution, nor marriage for that matter, for those restrictions to exist.
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The voting requirements of the Constitution reinforce a class, religion and racial system that left 94% of people outside of the system. Is that really what you want?
What article(s) or Bill of Rights Amendment(s) enforce such voting requirements or restrictions on citizens of a certain class, religion or race? I've not seen any myself.
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Because taking away the right to vote from a poor person who doesn't own property means, in reality, you are giving someone even less of a stake in their country than they have now?
Stake in this context means a financial interest, they have contributed to something financially and have earned a right to say where that money goes, to defense, to building roads, to food stamps. Why did the founding fathers think of "stake" when deciding who can vote? Well, simply because when you vote for anything or anybody you are likely either directly or indirectly voting on how America spends it's money, and so quite sensibly they thought if you did not contribute and have a "stake" then why should you have an equal say in how that money is spent?
Now before we leave that point, nowadays the situation is not that those who do not contribute financially have an equal say, instead it is that they have a greater say now that non-taxpayers outnumber taxpayers and unfortunately the wise founding fathers were right, we are broke and those who did not contribute are voting to take it away from those who did. Do you want that to continue?
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And how, exactly, does that improve things, except for the top x% of society (who already get more than their fair share already?)
I am not in that top x% and it would improve my lot, a lot. A balanced budget improves everyone's lot in life including the poor and we cannot reach that ever again with those without "a stake", those not paying taxes, voting to take from those who do have "a stake".
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To roll back is to ignore all the historical development to this point (it would be like saying let's just reinstate slavery because slavery existed when the country was founded.) So what? Things have changed. Get with the program. I mean seriously
How am I close to saying "let's just reinstate slavery" or for that matter "let's go back to having a King" because I surface a problem and quote an article on how the Founding Fathers thought about voting eligibility. If you are a history buff you would know these same founding fathers wanted to free slaves but it was politically impossible.
Thanks for the post, btw.
If you are proposing a new rule about voting, why invoke the founding fathers AT ALL, when the system they devised is one, even you wouldn't support? Then argue your system from its own merits - the founding fathers have nothing to say about the system you propose. Again, even the founding fathers didn't think everyone who owned land or paid taxes should vote. Their argument is quite different from yours.
My point about history is that not everyone who had a stake in the country was allowed to vote. Is that clearer?
According to you and your analysis of "having a stake", I guess you think Catholics who owned land and paid taxes in 1776 did NOT have a stake in the country? Or slaves, who worked, but were not paid for their labor and therefore could not pay income tax, did NOT contribute to the welfare and economy of the country (interesting because last I checked plantation farming actually contributed a lot to the U.S. economy and would have been impossible without LABOR.) Are you suggesting that plantation owners picked their own cotton?
Even your own proposal does not stand up to scrutiny. As for taxes, you are forgetting about the myriad of other taxes that people pay outside of income tax.
Utilities charge prices, known as rates, set by political appointees who regulate the industry. Embedded in those rates are generous sums to cover corporate income and all other taxes. So unless someone is off the grid, they are paying taxes.
States that tax groceries (rate if not fully taxed): Alabama, Arkansas (3%), Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois (1%), Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri (1.225%), Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee (5.5%), Utah (1.75%), Virginia (1.5% + 1% local option tax), and West Virginia (5%).
In New York, some types of food are taxed, but others not. Some examples - lemonade, pet food, seltzer water, vegetable plants and seeds (to grow vegetables) are all taxed.
Most services are taxed. Clothing is taxed in many states. The list goes on and on and on. A person literally needs to be off the grid and growing their own food (where if they don't own land??) not to be paying taxes.
So explain to me why only people who pay income tax or property tax deserve to vote when many other people also pay taxes?
As for balanced budgets, economists disagree about whether a balanced budget actually benefits everybody. A lot of economists would say a resounding "no" to that. But you are entitled to be in disagreement with the experts.
But fundamentally, the idea that only those who are employed are landowners have a stake in their country does not stand up to scrutiny in light of the last 250 years of history. Again, please go and read some world history about universal suffrage.
You are free to propose whatever you want. But don't defend it by pointing to the founding fathers (who did not use your proposal) and be willing to actually look at your proposal on its merits and defend the proposal in light of where we are as a society, country and as a world, TODAY. Otherwise the proposal really doesn't hold up very well.
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