And you don’t think anyone living in that stage of life should get to vote? Why not?
Do you really believe those who didn’t figure out a way *chose *not to find the way ?
The simple truth is : it’s fucking hard crawling out of the ghetto, even with the strongest spirit, can-do attitude and all that American Dream crap. It’s the lucky exception rather than the rule. That’s why they call it “the ghetto”.
Hell, most of the time it’s not even within the realm of the possible. How could anyone be expected to find a decent job as a single parent with no higher education, no family support and obviously no money to hire a babysitter, afford transportation to and from a workplace, pay for medical bills and so on and so forth ?
And btw mswas, those supposed friends of yours who like welfare just fine (just curious, is your best friend black, too ? ;)), you seen any of them since the 1996 reforms ?
Can you afford any more stereotypes or did your WIC run out for the month? :rolleyes:
Most of my friends before 1996 were living with their parents because I graduated HS in 1996.
I am sure they never consciously thought of it as such, but that does not mean they didn’t make choices along the way.
And they were I guess all raped and denied abortions (not that I advocate that) such that being a single parent was in no way a result of choices they made? What, their man ran out on them? Why were you sleeping with a man objectively likely (because he’s probably done it with other women) to run out and leave you? Why don’t they have any family support – is it because they were estranged and, again, is that a guaranteed-nonvolitional situation?
Millions upon millions of people have escaped literal ghettos, starting from a position in which they literally possessed not a penny and not a word of English. So yes, I’d venture to say it’s well within the realm of “possible,” because anything that has happened (over and over and over) is definitionally possible.
Demonstrably possible for some != necessarily possible for all
Hmm, no, no I wasn’t thinking in terms of that kind of sob-story stereotypes. But all the same, nice way to blame the victim.
No, the scenario I had in mind was more… mundane : you’re 15, she/he’s 15 too, you’re both young, hence pretty fucking stupid, baby happens. It can happen even with the best of care *not *to have it, and even if it’s the first and only time you two fucked. Abortion isn’t for everybody - it’s a hell of a choice to make after all, even when you don’t have a layer of religious bullshit to deal with on top of it.
Anyway, stereotypically, it’s the girl who wants to keep the baby and the guy who freaks out and bails, but the opposite is possible too. And there you are, 15, life fucked, or at least life with a big, big lifetime hurdle in it.
Is that an unlikely scenario ? Is that choosing to get impregnated by a serial babymaking rapist ? Oh, yes, yes of course the poor could very well choose to abstain from sex alltogether. By giving into their hormones, they made the conscious choice to live in poverty for the rest of their lives. Brilliant, empathetic thinking there, kind and compassionate.
And maybe they don’t have family support because the family is dirt poor and working three jobs to make ends meet already. That tends to happen, in the ghetto. But if you want estranged, I can work estranged - how could that *ever *be volitional ? “Lord, I wish my dad would beat me so I could 'strange him. Now I’m stuck with his loving emotional and financial support. FUCK !” ?
And I did mention that the people making it out of such shitty but alltogether common situations were an exception ? I really, honestly hoped that’d be enough to avoid that absurd, syllogistic “Nuh-huh ! People have made it out, so everyone can !” line of reasoning. But that’s me : Kobal2, the über optimist.
Right, to this day, the Lower East Side of Manhattan teems with ragpickers, monoglot in Polish or Yiddish, poor as churchmice, shunned by a bigoted society, living in eighth-story walkup tenements with windowless airshafts.
Except it doesn’t. Not a single one.
This was the question I was responding to, and my response was that while they may not like, and might have been too shortsighted to foresee, the outcome of their choices, choices were made along the way.
In law, a person is presumed to “intend” the natural and foreseeable outcomes of his actions or omissions. Sleeping with deadbeat losers, dropping out of school, taking drugs, selling drugs, not working hard, not working at all – those are actions largely corellated with poverty. Corellation isn’t causation, but most of us look at the numbers and say yeah, I’m sticking with school and monogamy and avoiding teen pregnancy.
It’s because I view all people as morally serious actors with free will that I expect some modicum of participation as a responsible member of society, for which (in a big government world where most of what government does is spend money taken from its citizens), I don’t think it is to bad a proxy to say “you should at least have some role, even if a small one, in paying into the system before you start to get making input into decisions about how the system will spend the money of others who are net payors.”
Do you follow that rationale to the bitter end ? It seems to me that such line of thought would logically lead to the idea that people who are *bigger *net payors in the system (i.e. the upper upper crust) should have a bigger say in where the system should spend that money than those who don’t contribute as much. So, no votes for the poorest, more votes for the richest ?
(FTR, I think your reasoning is spurious. Even if we assume that the poor and those on welfare will all vote to increase welfare (which is not a given - I’d go for quality public schooling myself, hoping my non existent kids get the chance I didn’t and all that jazz) - that’s built into the fabric of democracy. Everyone votes for himself, and for what he wants. That’s the whole point.
The poor vote for more help for the poor, the rich vote for fuck everyone and leave my money alone, a compromise is worked out.
But cut the poor, the idealistic students, the old folks living in a home, the young couples renting a cheap flat etc… from voting, and you end up with 100% fuck everyone and leave my money alone. With no welfare, no labour laws, no minimum wage, no maximum work hours, no medicare, etc… etc…, in other words without every social progress made in the last 200 years. You’re back to the 1850’s.
Which might *seem *just dandy if you happen to be in the upper tier, which most libertarians are… but you ever read *Germinal *? Don’t want to spoil it too much for you, but it doesn’t have a happy ending. For anyone.)
I don’t know if this was missed, but in this proposed system, what would be the rule for couples? A married couple who own a home with two wage earners…two votes or one? What if only one worked? Does gender come into play?
Here’s an old thread on Mark Twain’s “The Curious Republic of Gondour.”
I didn’t see anyone bring up this point. Maybe I missed it. It disproportionately disenfranchises urban dwellers. If I lived in Ohio, I’d own my house. Since I live in New York, I rent. In NYC, even multi-millionaires rent, some places.
Interesting. You and I see eye to eye on this matter, I believe.
And it’s also interesting that that discussion mentionned something akin to an idea I had and toyed with for a time before figuring I’d be the only one interested in (also, I got bored and moved on :)) : strategic voting.
In this system, each person receives a voting point every time he gets the opportunity to vote for a representative, and is henceforth free to use them in whatever election she opts to. City, region, state, nation, the election of '98 and the ‘14 one - all working on the same individual voting unit pool. No restriction on the number of votes an individual can dump in a given ballot - he can even give X votes to one candidate and Y to another, just in case, if he so chooses. Possible “expiration date” on points to avoid too much stockpiling. Sale of points not allowed, no inheritance of dead siblings’ points.
That way, a person could give more weight to the issues she’s really concerned with, opt to bluff and let the opposing side dump their voting capital on inconsequential issues, choose to grin and bear it for a while in order to accumulate votes in preparation of La Revoluçiòn and so on.
It would add interesting layers of complexity and strategy to the voting process, and allow for closer representation of what We, The People (a trademark which happens to include the bums and welfare recipients 
) really want.
Yeah, I’ve noted herein and in the other one that I’d IRL use income tax payments as a proxy for stakeholder status, these days. And I wouldn’t even set the bar that high.
I’m pretty sure you don’t want to hear my answer to that one. 19th Amendment repeal is a topic for another thread.
:smack: Is this all an elaborate joke, then? Or do you really wish to deny women, as well as poor people, the vote? Did you just step out of your time machine, HG Wells? What’s next, debtor’s prisons? Slavery?
Well, as you know, there is a significant volitional element to being a slave, and… 
The last bit was a joke. Requiring people to pay some tax as a prerequisite to voting, not.
It is an admirable suggestion in that it strips away a layer of hypocrisy. After all, we refuse to allow convicted felons to vote, and as Will Rogers once remarked, its not a crime to be poor in America, but it may as well be.