Posted on 05/24/2012 4:40:20 AM PDT by bestintxas
While I voted in the primary yesterday, I saw one women come up to the booth, look at the machine display for awhile, then turn around and asked the monitor
"Don't they have a straight-party ticket here?"
The monitor had to explain to her that this was a primary only on who from each party should be on the November ballot.
My question is simple:
Should some imbecile like that even be allowed to vote?
No wonder we have Obama as President, when idiots show up knowing nothing about why they are even there.
“The founders only allowed male property owners to vote. Were they elitist communists?”
_____________________________________________
I can put up with only so much garbage from some elitist for one night. You really lower the standards for Free Republic.
Take the free from everyone but rich land owners?
Maybe all members of FR should be land owners in order to post here.
I owned hundreds of acres when I was in the US, but sold my property. Should I now be banned from voting or posting?
I am off to bed.
I would argue that Heinlein had an excellent take on the matter.
I was a Safety Manager in Mental Health/ Mental Retardation Centers (more than one in 26 years). I have seen Union members bring paperwork into long time residents who have never talked, read or walked or done anything but lay in bed and be turned. Rep says” How are you today?” Resident “Ooooh ooh, yuggle, yugle” Rep: “ Do you want to vote vote for Bill Clinton?” OOOOOh ooooh yuggle yuggle yugle” Rep: “OK. That’s a good choice.” My compatriots in MANY old folks homes have verified the same scenario with comatose ( or close to it) residents there. I brought it up to my state representative and he said we can’t discriminate against this person and that person. Sheesh!
I accept your concession.
If women’s suffrage hadn’t been enacted, I don’t think FDR would never have gotten his Great Society legislation passed. Our deficit would be almost non-existent and our government would be much smaller.
You would never hear politicians pontificate about touchy feely issues or use the phrase ‘for the children’.
Yes we should, and at one time we did. Democracy’s fatal weakness of “bread and circuses” has been known for over 2,000 years. “If you give the masses the power of the vote they will vote themselves bread and circuses until the nation’s coffers are empty”. Restricting the vote to land owning males was the founders attempt to limiting the vote to those who would use it responsibly. I don’t know owning land should be the criteria today but there needs to be something. My father, a successful businessman and multi-millionaire, long held you should not vote if you received any money from the government. Another one I like is you don’t vote unless you pay net taxes after any government money. I think the question is moot at this point. The masses now outnumber the productive and it’s not likely the masses will give up the right to vote after having it and using it to vote themselves (through the DemoCraps they elect to Congress) largesse.
Interesting ... yes.
Wrong, though, IMO ... and you'll recall that the only practical support he gave for his (fictional) take on it was that "it works". Well, DUH! Of course "it works". It's a work of fiction and the Author, in His Omnipotent Majesty declared it to work.
Here in reality ... I think he was on the right track, in the sense that those whose only stake in the community is what they can get from others with little or no effort on their part are unlikely to make wise decisions in selecting leadership. Note that the founders of this Great Republic limited the franchise to male landowners.
Society was “greater” when women and children were taken care of by husbands and fathers, and failing that, by the local church.
No representation with taxation! ..taxpayers only.
You must be a property owner and pay taxes, or serve in the military.
Robert Heinlein proposed that no one who had not served in the military could be a citizen, and thus vote.
This would be a hell of a lot different country if that were the case. I suspect we'd have a lot less likely to try to be the world's policeman if that were the case.
How can we have objective standards for voters when the dead still vote
Are the dead considered property owners????
Absolutely, “ Service is Citizenship”. I’d modify that slightly to include the Conscious Objectors, put them in non-combat, support service roles. AmericaCorps doesn’t count.
I'm 100% in favor of requiring ID.
I could be convinced that a Poll Tax wouldn't be a bad idea, as well. I dislike people who pay no taxes, yet still get to vote themselves more largess from the government. A poll tax, however small, would require that they have some skin of some sort in the game.
IMHO, it would also weed out a lot of the people casting multiple votes, and/or people who know nothing, but still show up to pull a lever.
“Duh. My point is...what if they don’t own the property? A lot of junior soldiers use their parents’ address as their home of record.”
Then I suggest they have a strong incentive to get to be a property owner.
Because in your little world, those putting their lives on the line for your freedom don't rate a vote unless they buy property too.
Of course, by your little fantasy, somebody whose property was forcefully seized under eminent domain (rendering them a non-property owner) would be ineligible to vote unless they hurried up and bought some more property before the next registration deadline. Sounds like a great scam for some democrat mayor or city manager somewhere...use eminent domain or find some little tax arrearage or tax discrepancy with all the Republican voters just after the registration deadline for the next election, rendering them all ineligible.
Of course no democrat would ever try something like that...
The land ownership requirement could be problematic. I know some real sponges that own land.
How about a ban on voting if you take any form of government money? This one thing would eliminate the practice of the takers voting themselves raises
“Because in your little world, those putting their lives on the line for your freedom don’t rate a vote unless they buy property too.”
You are so far outside the fence here it is scary.
I never said for them not to vote. Read what I actually said rather than you making up something from what you call “your little world”.
Why is it so difficult for you small mind to imagine that EVERYONE needs an incentive to own a piece of the American pie by hard work? That, friend, was all I said, period.
You guys with agendas are really bothersome.
I did. You responded to my assertion that many junior service members aren't property owners and would be disenfranchised. You replied, "Then I suggest they have a strong incentive to get to be a property owner."
Now, unless you failed miserably to communicate what you were actually thinking, the only reasonable conclusion is that those junior service members should go buy property. In the context of this conversation, and this thread, that is the implied condition for enfranchisement. If that's not what you meant, then you need to work on your written communication skills.
"Why is it so difficult for you small mind to imagine that EVERYONE needs an incentive to own a piece of the American pie by hard work?"
Why is it so difficult for your small mind to imagine that those who are serving honorably, or those who have served honorably don't already merit a vote, regardless of their status as property owners? you don't think they have any "skin in the game"? You don't think a young soldier who's wearing this nation's uniform with pride and has deployed three times in the last six years deserves as much say in this nation's governance as some fat-ass trust fund limousine liberal who hasn't worked a day in his life, and just happened to inherit daddy's estate?
Yes, the Founders required that voters be land owners, and also that voters be male. Both for good reason.
“...even the illiterate must be allowed to vote
in a free democracy...”
Ah, my friend, but the Founders did not give us a ‘free democracy’...they gave us a Republic.
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