Karmagun now that your position is clear the debate is different.
What does a system with limited voters offer than a democracy does not? If there are truly individuals that are better voters than others then perhaps limited vote governemnts would work better, but I do not think that is the case.
Voting in this country puts into place other individuals who are then responsible for governing by a collaborative process. I think this already blunts the dangers of voting. I don’t think even a perfect screening system for those dangerously inept at voting would provide greater blunting. Not because our system is so great but because I fail to see how those who pass screening according to your definitions would pick different representatives than those who currently vote.
Well, there goes the ‘bear with me’ request. So how about defining whether universal suffrage is acceptable or unacceptable. That sound better?
That really helps the discussion, thanks.
I believe in the equality of people and that they should earn their right to decide government.
Of course it’s vague. It’s a random thoughts that entered my mind, and in this case it entered these boards as well. Yes it is also elitist. What’s wrong with that?
My reasoning is this: when something is free and taken for granted, people do not place much value on it. Hope we can agree on that.
Look at how many people fail to vote for any given election. I find that insulting to the democratic process, considering that the majority of people in the world do not have the luxury to vote.
If we had a simple licence to vote, maybe people would take voting more seriously.
And I agree, it’s not necessarily the case that people who pass the test would vote for different parties.
Well, now we’re getting at the heart of it. This isn’t a “The development of democracy” (should use the small “d” there), it is “the validity of universal suffrage.” Two very different beasts.
No problem.
Who decides who earns that right?
Um, you can’t come in with a vague hypothesis, have no idea how it would work, be implimented, be controlled, etc, and expect to have a “debate” about it. Debates generally involve arguing for your side and proving that a point or opinion is more likely to be true than another. You raised a question and haven’t placed one iota of support for it other than, “I think it would be right.”
I think you are missing why this is the case. It has to do with how much people subjectively value something, and yes having to do work for something alters the subjective value of something but it doesn’t always do it the way you’d expect and it has a good deal to do how much that thing is already valued. People can value the right to vote because it indicates something about the country they live in, they feel it gives them control over the process or because registering to vote does already entail a bit of a hassle (you can be called for jury duty).
It seems clear that you want to make people take voting more seriously, but I think more civics education in high school would accomplish this. If you want to put additional hurdles in the way of voting you are only going to deny the vote to those who already take it serious enough to go out and vote.
The OP seems to indicate though that you think there are some that do vote but don’t take the process seriously or don’t vote correctly because of some deep defect. I think that this is mostly incorrect. There are only a few who don’t take the process seriously who bother to drag themselves out to vote. I also don’t believe there is any defect that makes people bad voters.
True. However, you ignore the fact that the possibility of harm is different in the case of each activity. You are trying to dishonestly conflate the two. Similarly, that something is a harmful activity is not, in itself, cause to regulate it. As I showed in my previous post (the majority of which you conveniently did not respond to) the negatives of restricting voting would far outweight the benefits.
What’s wrong with that? If you’re posting an argument intending to fundamentally restrict certain people’s rights, and your plan is only vague, it shows that you care little about society and your thought has little merit. Also, your plan for change is elitist, as you admit. Democracy is the domain for all, not the domain of the elite. It is not for you to tell the rest of the population whether they can vote or not, regardless of what they believe.
I think, for instance that Fred Phelps beliefs are evil. Should he not have the right to vote?
I am not sure how to take that question. Do you mean:
The test will be biased for certain, you should know that. It’s a rethorical question.
I am interested in denying voting rights according to test results. How should we accomplish that in a fair manner?
I want to see what your reply is, so I can proceed to smash it to bits because I don’t agree with your premise anyway.
There is no difference between defining evil through laws and defining evil through voting licence. The only difference relates to the sanctity of universal suffrage. Can you see that?
No, it suggests that people can be idiots.
Great. Now that’s the best rebuttal so far.
Come on. It was a comparison for argument’s sake. Both are potentially dangerous activities, that’s all. It helped create the argument in the OP. What more do you want me to say about that? There’s hardly any other similarity between driving and voting.
I agree with your second statement; in fact, I am against regulating activities that do not harm others, at least. But the point was not about regulating all harmful activities. I said that since some harmful activities are regulated, and voting can be dangerous to your health, shall we regulate voting as well?
It might sound strange to you, but I care a lot about society. And if my thought has little merit, maybe it’s because it is just a little thought. I wanted to share it with people on this board, because I respect many of them.
You see, it’s something that could come into your mind when an idiot goes through a red light and causes a cyclist to break hard and fall. ‘Look at that idiot! Can you believe that guy has the same say in how society should be as I do? I would never do that!’. That’s all.
Where do you get the crazy little idea that I am interested in denying voting rights to anyone? This whole premise is that you are interested in opposing voting rights, and I am not.
Welcome to debating.
I propose an option 4. I meant what I said. How do you prevent a future government from revising the questions or scoring in a manner that prevents their opposition from voting?
Nope. Unfortunately for you, in this country we have something called “innocent until proven guilty.” It is not illegal to consider commiting a crime, or believing in commiting a crime. It is only illegal if you actually do it. What you propose is to enforce a legal restriction on people who have done nothing wrong.
Come on. It was a comparison for argument’s sake. Both are potentially dangerous activities, that’s all. It helped create the argument in the OP. What more do you want me to say about that? There’s hardly any other similarity between driving and voting.
I agree with your second statement; in fact, I am against regulating activities that do not harm others, at least. But the point was not about regulating all harmful activities. I said that since some harmful activities are regulated, and voting can be dangerous to your health, shall we regulate voting as well?
Interestingly, I know exactly how you feel. I see someone proposing a system to restrict voting rights based on ideological points of view, and am shocked that this person has the same say in government that I do. I fear that our country will become a fascist dictatorship within my lifetime.
But I don’t try to deprive that person of their right to vote.
There has been something nagging at me from the moment I read the OP and I finally, thanks to gex gex, realized what it is.
Karmagun you do realize that if stupid/dangerously evil people are having a true impact on the government they have to be the majority? Since your proposition, even in the ideal case, only excludes a few ultra jerks it just doesn’t matter except to give some people the right to go “Ha ha I have the right to vote and you don’t!” Which is a pretty bad plan given that the kind of people you probably don’t want voting are the kind of people who’ll stab someone for doing that.
To be slightly more serious I honestly don’t think you’ve come anywhere close to managing to justify why we need to switch from a democracy to an oligarchy of sorts. I understand it is a whim of yours but you are clinging to it as a position to defend despite the lack of substance to it. I think if you came up with something more concrete and sensible it might be a valid position, but I can’t tell right now because your side isn’t really developed at all.
If you want a fair test, how about the test of service, a la Heinlein? Serve your country for X years, knowing that your life might well be on the line, to get the vote.
I can. And I can see too that if my opinion/belief/whatever is deemed evil by the laws, I can try to change the laws by casting a vote. But if I’m deemed unworthy to vote because I hold this “evil” opinion/belief, I’ve no hope of anything changing ever. Even if, say, the majority of the population eventualy agree with me, it won’t change a thing since in this case the majority of the population will be denied the right to vote (except if we lie while taking the test, that’s it)
Let’s assume for instance that it had been implemented, say 75 years ago. There’s a fair chance that, say, homosexuals would have been deemed unworthy to vote. As a result, homosexual behavior would still be punished by laws, even if the general opinion had evolved in the same, much more tolerant way it historicaly did, since nobody supporting gay’s right would be allowed to vote.
It’s not like our currents moral standards are guaranteed to never change. Your system prevents any change from happenning, ever. Had it been implemented when your constitution was drafted, since there has been an enormous change in the values, way of thinking, etc… since then, most americans wouldn’t be allowed to vote. And the test would never had changed, since only the people agreeing with its content would pass it. So, you would be governed by a tiny minority of “super-citizens”, allowed to vote, who would all have a XVIII° century mindset. Wouldn’t it that great?
Of course, it wouldn’t work this way. People would “cheat” when passing the test so they could vote. Which makes the whole concept pointless.
If it’s the result you want to achieve, you don’t need a test. You could state, for instance, that only people doing X hours of community service (providing they’re physically/mentally fit) could vote. So, you help cleaning the streets on saturday, then on sunday you can vote. Even this would be objectionnable, but it would at least be less subjective than your “licence”. If you’re right and people don’t place value on what is taken for granted, then, it would have the same result.
Actually, if the value is proportionnate to the effort required, it would probably be more efficient, since a lot of people would rather pass a silly test than spend their week-ends working in a homeless shelter or such…
Sorry, that is not a debate. If you don’t agree with my premise, then a sincere question about how I would put it into practice is just being cheeky.
Constitutionally.
I am surprised that your passion for disagreement is stronger than your open-mindedness. Can’t you just play the game?
No. They could just be the marginal minority that tilts the balance.
Your last paragraph is more of a challenge. Ever since I started this thread I have not had the chance to expand on how to apply it in practice, because I’m forced to play in defense.
All I got was a ‘everybody should vote’ dogma that didn’t inspire me to develop the idea. There’s nobody here even willing to play devil’s advocate and come up with a way to implement the system.
Not ever, just every x years.
Not if the test questions evolve with society.
No. I haven’t even had a chance to think about the questions. And see my reply above.
The licence is not subjective, it depends on what the questions are. If the questions are related to what is endorsed in the constitution, then they are objective insofar as they relate to what it means to be an american (in your case; I’m in europe).
To all: if you don’t agree with curtailing universal suffrage, then there’s no point in going into the details of defining the test.
One more thing, consider this: you allow your fellow voters to vote in favour of state killings (the death penalty) but you are not willing to allow for a system which only takes away your vote, not your life. I think there’s a twisted reasoning there.
Not at all. Laws defining evil (which they do not really do - they only define what is not permissable in society) govern actions. Your plan would take into account people’s thoughts (or, more accurately, people’s honest expression of their thoughts), and would give suffrage to people based not on their actions, but on their beliefs. In our democratic societies, we do not have thoughtcrime. We value freedom of speech, and since speech is the expression of belief, we value freedom of thought. Your proposal would not only violate the sanctity of universal suffrage, but would violate the sanctity of freedom of thought and speech.
Who is to determine idiocy? I think John Gray is an idiot. Other people think he’s brilliant. To give one person the option of determining idiocy over another suggests there is some universal standard that can determine such things. Any determination of evil, or idiocy, or any other value you care to place on the thoughts of other human beings must be subjective. That’s OK if you’re just calling other people names (“Damn, Ann Coulter’s is a dumb bitch!”). But the subjectivity of these judgements shows why no person should be permitted to deny another suffrage as a result of these subjective beliefs.
Great. Now that’s the best rebuttal so far.
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Thanks. Actually, I took this, and a lot of the rest of my argument, from what I remember of an essay written by John Stuart Mill discussing freedom of speech. Since I consider voting rights to be inherently related to freedom of speech (voting is, after all our most directly effective means of communicating with the government), I find that many of his arguments for freedom of speech apply to universal suffrage. While I’m paraphrasing many of his points, if you’re interested, you’d be better served by reading his text. I believe it was called something like “On Liberty of Speech” or something like that.
Come on. It was a comparison for argument’s sake. Both are potentially dangerous activities, that’s all. It helped create the argument in the OP. What more do you want me to say about that? There’s hardly any other similarity between driving and voting.
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I’m pleased you admit there is little similarity between driving and voting. There is little similarity even when purely discussing the dangers. However, since your flawed comparison “helped create the argument in the OP,” it is likely the argument in the OP is greatly flawed. An argument relying on a faulty comparison is not a strong argument.
There are plenty of things more immediately dangerous to your health that remain legal for all adults. Smoking, for instance. Yet tobacco remains legal. Democracy has many safeguards to minimise the chance a government will harm its citizens. In the U.S., for instance, the President is seperate to the House, the courts are seperate to the government, and the whole thing is governed by the constitution. I am not saying harm isn’t caused by governments, but your plan is not an adequate way to correct this situation. Instead, it would make things astronomically worse.
It might sound strange to you, but I care a lot about society.
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Odd then, that you do not show concern for the voices of those who make up society.
Since it is just a little thought, I wouldn’t hold on to it too tightly.
Yeah, we all have our “If I was supreme-ruler of the universe things would be done a lot differently round here” moments. I recognise that the :smack: moment resulting from seeing some moron do something stupid in their car is not the basis for a system of government. I also recognise that, for whatever failings the moronic driver in the other car has, he is also a fellow human being, and hence I have no more right to restrict his opportunity to change society than he has to restrict mine.
I know the effects of people with (in my opinion) stupid ideas having a say. A few years ago, a politician rose to prominence in my country (Australia). The politician, Pauline Hanson had a lot of extreme right wing beliefs, and was generally regarded by much of the population to be a racist nut.
She had no hope of becoming leader of the country, but she did tap into a vein of dissatisfaction amongst some groups in society, and found a certain level of support. She formed her own party and they actually won some seats in a state election. She had an impact on national politics, too; her party did not recieve a substantial level of support, but it caused the governing conservative party to shift their policies slightly to the right, in an attempt to win back those who had deserted them for Hanson.
I’ll admit it. I think anyone who voted for Pauline Hanson or a member of her party is a complete moron. And if we could somehow have weeded these people out and prevented them from voting, my country would probably be a nicer place today.
But these people would still exist. Preventing them from voting would not change the feelings they had. They would still feel hard done by. They would still feel that the major parties were not representing them, and that their interests were being overlooked in favour of other people’s. Preventing them from voting would not alleviate their concerns; it would heighten them.
The resulting situation would be a nation split into two. The ruling class would have a valid reason to consider themselves above other members of society. Perhaps they would even consider those “not smart enough to vote” to be less human.
Also, the rightward swing the nation took post-Hanson was only permitted because much of the rest of the population supported it. The minority of Hanson’s supporters may have triggered it, but their voice would not have had an effect if there weren’t other, more moderate people who could find common ground with them.
However, society has far less chance of evolving if members do not have a say in the political process. True, in many parts of the world groups that did not previously have the vote now do. But change should not have to be so hard won. America should not have had to go through what it did to achieve civil rights for black. Women, worldwide, should not have had to go through what they did to achieve suffrage. In your imagined society, the voiceless should not have to struggle as hard as they would have to to be heard.
That you acknowledge test questions could evolve with society shows that there is no arbitrary system of right and wrong. Society is constantly redefining what should be included under those terms. Hence, your questions, and thus, your licence would always be based on some subjective view of ‘evil,’ even if that view is shaped by the tyranny of the majority.
Of course there is. You’re trying to convince me, so I’m asking for more info. Just because I disagree with you now does not mean I must always disagree with you. The more information you give me on your position, the better I am able to determine its merit.
To nitpick, voters only vote to allow a court to make a decision relating to state killings. Your proposal would have more merit, though it would still be flawed, if it proposed a court being given the power to remove a person’s suffrage on a case by case basis.
However, this is all meaningless, because as far as I’m concerned voters should not be authorising courts to authorise the killing of another human being; a country’s constitution should explicitly prevent this.
Thank you gex for your long, well-argued and thoughtful reply.
Maybe we disagree on the meaning of merit in that sentence, then. By ‘merit’ I thought you meant that ‘it is a good belief, since lots of people agree with it’. In that sense, I don’t believe that the number of followers of any particular belief has any impact on that belief’s moral goodness.
In terms of the danger to others than can result from both driving and voting, the comparison holds. If on the other hand you extend the comparison to include other qualities that bind voting and driving together, then that would be fawlty. But I limited the comparison to the aspect of danger, exclusively.
Danger to others is my point. I like the idea of smoking and non-smoking bars. I don’t like the idea of banning things that are harmful solely to myself.
Please don’t radicalise my statement. If anything, I may show more concern for some voices and less for others. Which I think most of us do, but are unwilling to admit to.
I don’t.
But I’m not trying to convince you! I’m sharing a thought and engaging in discussion. I like to be convinced. I like change.
I’ll try and make it a little clearer: our current system of justice includes a number of different punishments that range from the mild and harmless to the drastic and irreversible.
Some of these are deprivation of physical freedom (prison), deprivation of free time (community service), deprivation of life (the death sentence).
What we don’t consider humane punishment, on the other hand, is deprivation of limbs, chemical castration, lobotomy and other assorted tortures.
So all I meant by the comparison with the death penalty is that the collective ‘we’ (not me and you personally) allow for deprivation of life but not deprivation of suffrage (say in cases of actual crimes and not thought crimes). I find that odd.
Ultimately, I agree with you about allowing people to express their faulty beliefs for the sake of avoiding civil unrest, and that punishing people for a thought crime is wrong. That is enough to convince me.
What I didn’t quote from your reply, I agree with.