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[misko27]

I'm just unsure why this is necessary. Are elections being swayed by homeless and mentally ill? If not, then you're just arguing that in principle not everyone should have the right to vote. And in principle, as I and wierd discussed a bit earlier, abrogating the right to vote raises issues. Even if you aren't "contributing" to society, you still follow it's laws, and are affected by how it chooses to spend its money. For example, if a country runs the risk of being invaded, wouldn't everyone share the danger, not just the taxpayers?

And that's not to mention the practical issue of what happens when you remove people from the process by which the government legitimizes itself.

No, it should be a left.

(seriously people, six pages and nobody did this, I'm disgusted by this community sometimes)

[/thread]

[Flying Dice]

As some people probably realised, my mind brainfarted together "vote" and "be eligible for office" in my above thread.

But yeah, I think it is pretty important to keep organised crime and such out of positions where they can use their authority to do harm.

tfw your government is already owned by white-collar criminals

[scriver]

As some people probably realised, my mind brainfarted together "vote" and "be eligible for office" in my above thread.

But yeah, I think it is pretty important to keep organised crime and such out of positions where they can use their authority to do harm.

The danger here about making exceptions like that is that you could label ANY political opponent you don't like as a member of "<x group we don't allow to vote or in office>" and suddenly they're not a political threat anymore.

No, I don't think that would be in any danger of happening from an exception for organised crime-inals and corrupt officials.

As some people probably realised, my mind brainfarted together "vote" and "be eligible for office" in my above thread.

But yeah, I think it is pretty important to keep organised crime and such out of positions where they can use their authority to do harm.

tfw your government is already owned by white-collar criminals

So you're saying it wouldn't be a necessary or a good thing to keep the authority from being subverted because it has already been subverted? That's not very good logic.

Or did you just not read the previous post where corruption was directly specified?

[helmacon]

The only reasonable restriction I could see is the completion of a class on the basics of how your govenment works, and what meaning your vote actualy has. Notice I said completion, not pass. A non-graded course.

Even this is unrealistic though, because the implementation of that standard could be manipulated. How and where is that class provided? I would say through schools, but that creates other problems. What happens if someone drops out of school before taking the class? What happens if someone is homeschooled? I don't think there's a fair way to restrict voting rights, even on a reasonable premise. 

[Baffler]

Maybe there could be, on the ballot, a box where you have to write in the reason you voted for whoever you voted for. What you put doesn't actually matter, as long as you put something coherent, so "I like jumprope," "LaRoche is a lizard person," or "Praise KEK" are all perfectly fine, but a blank ballot or one with "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz" on it would be invalidated. It's just a matter of filling the ballot out properly, so even someone who got theirs thrown out last time because the reason they gave was a drawing of dickbutt can vote again without issue if they do it correctly this time around.

That's about as fair as I think it can be made, near as I can see, but it still seems pretty pointless for how much more work it would make counting the ballots.

[Frumple]

Even this is unrealistic though, because the implementation of that standard could be manipulated. How and where is that class provided? I would say through schools, but that creates other problems. What happens if someone drops out of school before taking the class? What happens if someone is homeschooled? I don't think there's a fair way to restrict voting rights, even on a reasonable premise.

Y'know, there's a thought. Probably still a bad idea 'cause the ratio would slide up over time, but what if instead of your suffrage being hinged on that class, completing it (and sure, only completing it) marginally increased the weight of your vote? Very marginally, like .001% of a vote or something (which'd end up being somewhere over a three thousand votes, if the entire US population was able to vote), but a non-zero amount. Conceptually, that would still allow you to preference people with at least something of an inclination towards civic mindedness, while still making sure everyone has the vote, that the skew is small enough it's not really feasible cost wise to manipulate, and that there's very little functional effect if you don't do it, for whatever reason.

So far as class distribution goes, one idle thought would be to just crowd source the thing. Anyone that completes a course is immediately and unquestioningly certified to certify other individuals, with no limits on venue -- phone course, online, friggin' smoke signals, doesn't matter. No oversight, either -- if someone wants to sit down with a bud, have a drink in complete silence, and call it done, that's all good. Basically the entire point wouldn't be anything even remotely approaching a means test or meaningfully impactful on the vote, but instead be a way to incentivize people communicating with each other with political participation as a backdrop, and letting human psychology and social inclinations deal with the rest of it.

[Flying Dice]

As some people probably realised, my mind brainfarted together "vote" and "be eligible for office" in my above thread.

But yeah, I think it is pretty important to keep organised crime and such out of positions where they can use their authority to do harm.

tfw your government is already owned by white-collar criminals

So you're saying it wouldn't be a necessary or a good thing to keep the authority from being subverted because it has already been subverted? That's not very good logic.

Or did you just not read the previous post where corruption was directly specified?

More poking fun at the rather fantastic notion of a resurgence in old-fashioned organized crime syndicates securing positions of power in local and regional governments when the national systems are rigged in favor of criminals who are vastly more effective and possess a far stronger stranglehold on society. It's like worrying about letting the cat out of the bag when you've got a leopard breathing down your neck. Certainly a thing to be concerned about, but not even remotely the highest priority in that field of interest alone.

Plus, of course, the fact that that wasn't really what we were talking about-as you recognized. Incidentally, removing restrictions on the rights of felons (barring stuff like serious sex offenders), working for less incarceration and more rehabilitation, eroding the negative social conditions which generate blue-collar crime, getting rid of incarceration being attached to petty drug crime, &c. would do far more to head off the former sort of criminal involvement in elected offices than a direct attack on the same. Can't have elections subverted by the criminal underclass if society doesn't support its existence.

[alway]

This is something I've been puzzling over the last few days.

Should suffrage be limited to certain groups of people?

What do you all think?

We should restrict it!

For example, those who attempt to disenfranchise others shouldn't be allowed to vote.

(This is for limited suffrage, not universal suffrage. People shouldn't be restricted to vote by race, gender or whatever else, just by what they've achieved in their lives.)

Those who think the conditions of the lives of others are entirely undetermined by random chance, circumstance, and systemic biases shouldn't be allowed to vote, as they clearly don't have an understanding of how society at large actually works and the effects it has on people.

Should people who put nothing into a system be allowed to influence the direction the system goes? If so or if not, why? How should the right to vote be limited if it was to be limited?

Those who put corporate welfare and making wealth for the wealthy above human beings shouldn't be allowed to vote, as they clearly don't understand the entire purpose of society existing to begin with.

And above all else, those who think themselves above and better than others merely because they were born into a privileged place in society should not be allowed to vote. In particular, those who work to undermine and strip the basic human rights from others while considering their own rights as entirely unassailable and a thing they have clearly earned (according solely to the political beliefs they hold about their place in society).

In short, you should not be allowed to vote.

[helmacon]

This is something I've been puzzling over the last few days.

Should suffrage be limited to certain groups of people?

What do you all think?

We should restrict it!

For example, those who attempt to disenfranchise others shouldn't be allowed to vote.

(This is for limited suffrage, not universal suffrage. People shouldn't be restricted to vote by race, gender or whatever else, just by what they've achieved in their lives.)

Those who think the conditions of the lives of others are entirely undetermined by random chance, circumstance, and systemic biases shouldn't be allowed to vote, as they clearly don't have an understanding of how society at large actually works and the effects it has on people.

Should people who put nothing into a system be allowed to influence the direction the system goes? If so or if not, why? How should the right to vote be limited if it was to be limited?

Those who put corporate welfare and making wealth for the wealthy above human beings shouldn't be allowed to vote, as they clearly don't understand the entire purpose of society existing to begin with.

And above all else, those who think themselves above and better than others merely because they were born into a privileged place in society should not be allowed to vote. In particular, those who work to undermine and strip the basic human rights from others while considering their own rights as entirely unassailable and a thing they have clearly earned (according solely to the political beliefs they hold about their place in society).

In short, you should not be allowed to vote.

How do we determine these things?

[Strife26]

This is something I've been puzzling over the last few days.

Should suffrage be limited to certain groups of people?

What do you all think?

We should restrict it!

For example, those who attempt to disenfranchise others shouldn't be allowed to vote.

(This is for limited suffrage, not universal suffrage. People shouldn't be restricted to vote by race, gender or whatever else, just by what they've achieved in their lives.)

Those who think the conditions of the lives of others are entirely undetermined by random chance, circumstance, and systemic biases shouldn't be allowed to vote, as they clearly don't have an understanding of how society at large actually works and the effects it has on people.

Should people who put nothing into a system be allowed to influence the direction the system goes? If so or if not, why? How should the right to vote be limited if it was to be limited?

Those who put corporate welfare and making wealth for the wealthy above human beings shouldn't be allowed to vote, as they clearly don't understand the entire purpose of society existing to begin with.

And above all else, those who think themselves above and better than others merely because they were born into a privileged place in society should not be allowed to vote. In particular, those who work to undermine and strip the basic human rights from others while considering their own rights as entirely unassailable and a thing they have clearly earned (according solely to the political beliefs they hold about their place in society).

In short, you should not be allowed to vote.

How do we determine these things?

Big data analysis of social media posts.

[wierd]

I'm safe then. I dont use social media. (besides, I already stated my views on the matter a few pages back.)

[Strife26]

I'm safe then. I dont use social media. (besides, I already stated my views on the matter a few pages back.)

That's a pretty clear of Hipsterism, and we know that

those who think themselves above and better than others merely because they were born into a privileged place in society

is grounds for disenfranchisement.

[wierd]

I'm safe then. I dont use social media. (besides, I already stated my views on the matter a few pages back.)

That's a pretty clear of Hipsterism, and we know that

those who think themselves above and better than others merely because they were born into a privileged place in society

is grounds for disenfranchisement.

No, on both.

I just never saw the need to broadcast every aspect of my life publicly.

Also, the latter, I already addressed my views about this limited suffrage stuff.

As somebody who's IQ is absurdly high, but fully comprehends his own social deficits, I can directly attest that raw test scores alone is not a useful metric of utility or value.

That black guy who was the child of former slaves (and thus supremely economically and socially disadvantaged for his time, and likely prevented from attaining higher education), and had a terrible job? He invented the traffic light. And a gas mask that saved lives.

The value of an individual to society is not based on things like your education level, or how pretty you are, or how rich you are. It is based on what one does, and if they go out and do stuff with their talents.  It need not be things like Mr Morgan either, who invented life saving and revolutionary technologies-- NO, it could just as well be the home maker who makes a difference in the local punk kids' lives, and turns them away from lives of crime.

I don't believe that there even really *IS* a universally applicable metric by which one can define "useful" and "essential' people. The only way to assure that they do not languish, and are not prevented from using their talents, is to assure true universal engagement in governance. The only "advantage" to imposing limits, is to silence sources of argument that the in-crowd finds disfavorable. This is not useful if the goal is genuine improvement and happiness of the human condition.

[Azzuro]

I have another argument: the reason why we're even having this whole discussion is that people aren't voting the way you want them to. However, the idea of non-universal suffrage is inherently anti-democratic: you can't claim that the benefits of democracy expressing the will of the people and then turn around and say some peoples' will shouldn't be expressed. The problem doesn't lie with the right to vote, the problem lies in the systems by which a democratic government is elected. For example (as in the US), just because a new administration is elected, should the new administration be able to undo every last piece of legislation enacted by the old administration? Western governments often conflate the civil service with political parties: while the people should be able to change the direction of government policy by electing new political parties, the government as a whole should be resistant to sudden change.

By analogy, it's the difference between an aircraft which is statically stable and one which is neutrally stable, where the political parties are the pilot. The civil service should always be opposing new policies or changes in existing ones to a degree, such that the minority after every vote don't feel they're unrepresented.

[Max™]

Was trying to explain my position to the missus: if the only requirement to be able to vote was stating you want to vote, anyone wanting to disenfranchise others will have to start from scratch.

Right now it's just quietly accepted that felons, undocumented immigrants, and the directly disenfranchised groups (minorities and the poor in various locations with voter id/etc laws) can't vote.

Someone wanting to add to that group can do so from behind a layer (or several) of obfuscation and they're just adding some amount onto a larger amount.

Having everyone capable of representing their wishes (even if not always their interests necessarily) means those trying to be disenfrachised would far outnumber those wanting to remove their rights, this would be a much sketchier political fight than "well, felons can't vote, so let's just add to the definition of what a felon is" like we have now.

Prison conditions are shit, confining people individually is torture, using prisoners as slave labor is outrageous, but the people who would be most invested in trying to fix the laws which allow this: former prisoners, are by and large disenfrachised, which is fucked up, and people who benefit or even directly profit from the prison situation end up having all the say for said prisoners, which is so fucked up there aren't words that express the string of consonants and growling noises it should elicit.

Yet this is how it has been all our lives, and it's easy enough to justify an argument like "well, if you want to vote, you shouldn't go to prison" from a nice safe distance. Shouldn't be undocumented, shouldn't live in certain parts of the country and be the wrong color/below a certain income level either!

Ultimately I would rather someone I disagree with be allowed to vote than anyone be prevented from taking part in government when they wish to do so.