Posted on 12/01/2010 1:48:10 PM PST by rightwingintelligentsia
Tea Party Nation President Judson Phillips recently hosted a radio program where he declared that Americans who do not own property have less of a stake in the community and suggested, in the past, it made sense to deprive such citizens of the right to vote. The tone-deaf statement is not significant because it represents the view of the Tea Party at large (it doesn’t), but is important because it evidences a serious problem for the movement: without a formal hierarchy, various “leaders” associated with the Tea Party can quickly damage the larger brand with their absurd comments.
The Tea Party Nation is one of the most prominent organizations in the Tea Party movement, having sponsored the National Tea Party Convention last February that was criticized for its $550 attendance fee and where Sarah Palin was paid $100,000 to speak. Thus the influence Phillips has is legitimate, yet like other prominent Tea Party members before him who ended up in hot water for indefensible statements, Phillips offensively opines on an issue with which no rational person is concerned.
(Excerpt) Read more at mediaite.com ...
Yes, and the fact is that renters actually pay the property taxes. If they didn’t the landlords would sell.
They shouldn’t have the right to vote since they aren’t the ones paying the bills!
They are paying the bills. Their rent pays the property tax bills.
It failed 81% against to 19% in favor.
BTW, our school enrollment has been declining the past 5 years.
>giving women the right to vote was the dumbest thing that ever happened.
Republicans did this...right?
I like that "any form of government assistance" part. Does "any form" include Social Security? Medicare? How about all the farmers who benefit from federal farm subsidies?
Be careful, or we'll wipe out half the Tea Party movement. ;-)
Once Upon A Time In America, people were very responsible, law abiding people who took pride in doing for themselves......owning property is a big responsibility that some of today's Americans can't seem to hold onto......the T.P.President isn't all wrong.....who elected him anyway? Once Upon
Good point! What you want to do is distinguish between taxpayers and taxeaters. "Taxeaters" would also include government employees, for example.
There is one class of government employees that has the strongest claim to the right to vote, those who join the military and put themselves in harm's way. They have paid more than mere money.
Unfortunately, the taxeaters already get to vote and will never vote to give it up.
Yes, it would be very difficult to define properly, but that's not the biggest difficulty. The biggest difficulty is that the taxeaters will never vote to give up their vote.
Conservatism is a reality based approach but unfortunately some conservatives live in a fantasy land where we can simply return to what things were over 200 years ago.
“...no problem with the general idea that only people with $X (whatever that number may be) in personal assets should be allowed to vote.”
Brilliant. I propose that everyone whose net worth is more than yours be allowed to vote. Those at or below your level should be excluded.
Now start squealing.
This needs a description of what property is. I see homeless people carrying their property around in a bag. Is this supposed to be real estate or does an automobile qualify.
A modification on this proposal might be to distribute votes based upon the amount of land that each person owns. People with more land should have more votes than people less landed.
A further modification would be to refer to very large landowners as Duke rather than Mister. ;-)
Unless they live in government housing everyone regardless of whether they rent or own property pay taxes.
Now if you wanted to say that anyone not paying taxes either through income tax, or property tax cannot vote it would weed out all of those people that get earned income tax and live on government subsidies in government housing then it would be better.
We have people that do not pay income tax and actually get back money from income tax and live on welfare in goverment housing voting for the party that promises them more welfare.
I assume you'd exempt those of us accepting Social Security payments?
While we're at it, why not take away women's right to vote as well? I can't emphasize enough just how laughable such ideas are in the context of of a modern republican society. They can only serve to damage the Tea Party brand.
How about if our elected leaders simply follow the Constitution and honor the Founders' principle of limited, minimal government, instead of just appeasing the mob?
Enough said.
It is essential that the Tea Party *not* have a “leadership” or hierarchy, for a critical reason.
Hierarchical organizations, from the government, the RNC leadership, any number of interest groups, and organizations that would strive to take over the Tea Party movement, are *unable* to interact with non-hierarchical organizations.
Oddly enough, the best example of this is the “Rainbow Family”, that uses a matriarchal, decentralized organization to defeat efforts of local, State and federal police to stop their activities. There are no leaders to arrest, negotiate with, coerce, bribe, threaten, or otherwise to interact with.
This is so frustrating for the authorities, that the RF asks for a volunteer to be designated as the “official garbage truck driver”, as a sacrifice for the authorities to arrest. Those who volunteer know that they could spend six months in jail for being “A Rainbow Family leader”. As soon as they mount the garbage truck, they are then arrested.
But this should be a powerful lesson to the Tea Party. As it remains a decentralized organization, it will not be prone to suffer from attacks from outside its ranks by organized and dedicated opponents seeking to defeat the Tea Party agenda. Granted, they will still attack, but it will have far less impact.
One of the illusions of hierarchical organization is that it makes an organization more effective. But this is only true in the *absence* of other hierarchical organization that would compete with it. But all the tricks are known about how one organization can attack and defeat another organization, if they are hierarchical.
I agree. This smacks of discrimination. And, since so many DEMS are wealthy, they would control the elections.
People need to think these things through before opening their mouths to engage their feet.
This was precisely Benjamin Franklin’s argument against a property qualification.
Franklin: I am afraid that by depositing the Right of Suffrage in the freeholders exclusively we shall injure the lower Class of freemen. This Class possess hardy Virtues and great Integrity. The revolutionary war is a glorious Testimony in favor of Plebeian Virtue-our military and naval men are sensible of this Truth. I myself know that our Seamen who were Prisoners in England refused all the allurements that were made use of, to draw them from their allegiance to their Country-threatened with ignominious Halters, they still refused. This was not the case with the English Seamen, who, on being made Prisoners entered into the American Service and pointed out where other Prisoners could be made-and this arose from a plain cause. The Americans were all free and equal to any of their fellow citizens-the English Seamen were not so. In antient Times every free man was an Elector, but afterwards England made a Law which required that every Elector should be a freeholder. This Law related to the County Elections-the Consequence was that the Residue of the Inhabitants felt themselves disgraced, and in the next Parliament a law was made, authorizing the Justice of the Peace to fix the Price of Labour and to compel Persons who were not freeholders to labour for those who were, at a stated rate, or to be put in Prison as idle vagabonds. From this Period the common People of England lost a great Portion of attachment to their Country
I'm not sure why people have a problem with this sort of thing. This is pretty much how this country operated for nearly the first 100 years of its existence.
That’s an interesting perspective from Franklin. His motivation appears to be not just one of justice, but of ensuring that all citizens would maintain a sense of connection to their government.
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