If they are that harmful that we can deny them the right to meaningfully participate in a democratic society, maybe we shouldn’t let them out.
I admit that I have not properly set up my arguements, so I will try my best. One at a time now:
I feel it is of prime importance to know what you are participating in. First, it is useful to understand how the system that makes the laws to which you must abide functions. It is useful to know the limitations of government, why some of them are there, and it may even be useful to know how these are changing.
Now, I have not brought up the idea of the usefulness of the issues in an election. People vote for the canidate that best supports the issues which they support, this is common sense. I yeild to the fact that it is a legitimate question to pose “Is knowing the issues enough?”. I still feel that this answer is no. Supporting this claim would lead to the concept that people who vote are hoping that the canidates they support get elected to office and magically, everything is allright. I feel that knowing how policy is made gives the voter even more information by which they can make their decision.
As another side point, to which I am unsure how I side on it, the concept that a citizen who participates in the democratic process has a civic duty to inform themselves how the process works can be made. I will leave this up to other posters.
Yes. It is harder. I know this personally. I cannot and will not refute that point. I feel that there is potential in all people. Society may disagree, due to circumstance. When all is said and done, everyone has the ability to educate themselves in any area in which they choose.
The question being then is “Do they want to?”.
I pose that question to all “groups”, rich, poor, all races, all religions, etc., equally.
I guess my fundamental point is that a person should know the system in which they operate.
I mean, would you consider it reasonable, Mithrilhawk, to also restrict or outright declare what they should purchase so their economic behavior doesn’t influence the market for the rest of us?
To me it sounds like what you’ve be saying is that a person MUST know the system in which they operate. Otherwise you wouldn’t let them participate.
If we were simply talking about what a citizen should do I’d be right there with you, arguing that they should be active, aware and knowledgeable. But the OP was stating that voter MUST be logical and, I suppose by extension, knowledgeable. People may not be concerned about foreign policy but intimately knowledgeable about pension policy. However, they do not know the succession process in the event of both pres. and vp being killed. Should they be allowed to vote?
That would be influencing the market.
Besides, how does your question have anything to do with restricting the right to vote to those who aren’t certified malefactors?
Would I want a white collar ex-con making decisions on who should run the country? It depends on the criminal and the crime. By the way, I do know that IT’S PART OF THE SENTENCE, but that doesn’t make it right. Most infractions are forgiveable (there are very few things I find absolutely unforgiveable)…
Particularly if the penal system says the person can move about freely in society after serving his or her sentence.
If someone is working and paying taxes and living honestly amongst the laws and social constructs of America, they should be allowed a voice.
It may be useful to know how the system works, but that doesn’t mean you need to know the detail of it. To take the British example, you don’t need to know the stages that a bill must go through to become law, to know that the houses of parliament collectively make law.
Also, just because it may be useful to know things about the inner workings of government, but I don’t see why that means those who don’t know such things shouldn’t be allowed to vote at all.
[QUOTE]
Supporting this claim would lead to the concept that people who vote are hoping that the canidates they support get elected to office and magically, everything is allright.
[QUOTE]
Why must the alternative to knowledge be delusion? It is possible, and I would say likely, that those who don’t know about the detail of the working of government know that their vote only gives their chosen candidate a chance of an opportunity to represent them, and that the candidate is only human. All that is needed is to follow the news, and see how the people they elected act, and in some cases to respond with protests, and the like.
I would suspect those who are uniformed about how government works may be more cynical about politicst rather than over-estimating the ability of politicians to get things right.
But, even if it is the case that those who are ignorant of such matters think that some sort of magic happens when their candidate gets into power, why does that mean that their view of the best person for the job is invalid? They would presumedly not change their decision if they knew that the effect of the politicians would not be so grand, as they would still expect the same politician to do the best, even if the best wouldn’t be expected to do as much.
Actually, in the great majority of states felons regain the right to vote once their sentence and parole periods are over. According to this site only 10 states permanently disenfranchise all felons, a further four disenfranchise certain offendors.
“ex-offenders” (ex-murderer? but anyway…)
I stand more well informed. Thank you.
Moderator’s Note: Y’all seem to have worked this out for yourselves, but yes, as Lib pointed out, accusations of trolling don’t belong in the public fora. So it won’t happen again, right? Goood.
Carry on.
Well, apart from the whole “affront to the process of democracy” thing, the arguments for which are so obvious that I don’t need to discuss them again, I can’t understand why you’d even bother with trying to implement a “voting test”.
America uses a voluntary voting system. Most people voting are doing so because they have an opinion and they want to express it. The few that don’t understand the issues at hand will surely balance each other out, and most of all, tests cost money to administer. Is there really a need for another piece of pointless bureaucracy that only takes money from where it really is needed? Rather than administer a voting test, why not use that money to improve healthcare, increase funding to schools or give tax breaks to rich people?
It wouldn’t be America if your rules and regs were in place, now would it?