The completely ignorant voter is not new.
The “completely ignorant voter” was the majority at our founding. That was a time of great upheaval and in a day when the common man toiled dawn to dusk for survival.
Our system was devised to minimize the power of the individual vote and put power in the more informed representative, whether it be to Congress or to the Electoral College.
Voting was not so widespread then. Certain groups did not have right of sufferage.
Stone me for saying so, but the poll tax was a good idea. Those who have no financial stake in the economy have nothing to lose and are dangerous voters.
Universal sufferage is NOT a good idea.
Universal sufferage is NOT a good idea.
I'm certainly not going to stone you. You're right on both counts. As are the rest of your observations.
The irony, however, is that the elite is now well to the Left of the "common man" (and no, I am not a populist). A country run by state legislatures might be considerably to the Left of the country we have now.
In 1775, Edmund Burke, in a famous address to the House of Commons, disagreed with you.
"In other countries, the people, more simple, and of a less mercurial cast, judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance; here they anticipate the evil, and judge of the pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle. They augur misgovernment at a distance, and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze."
We would be a free people if we were as "ignorant" today as we were then.
“Universal sufferage is NOT a good idea.”
Agree. Especially in the new world where the word ‘Fair’ is more valued than being ‘Free.’
I know when I am Free.
No one can decide on what is Fair.
The socialists refuse to define it because they love its elusiveness.