Quote:
Originally posted by Rodney
No, shouldn't be illegal. If you actually don't care, then you'll show up on election day basically ignorant of the issues and vote at random or according to old information. How does that help democracy?
Personally, I wouldn't be against not giving people the vote until they did some public service thing -- a certain number of hours of volunteer work, military service, employment in an important service profession like education, EMT, or whatever. Everybody would be able to qualify in some way, if they made the effort. And if they didn't care to make an effort for the community, why should they be able to make decisions about it?
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Why? because the decisions politicians make effect them, whether or not they do community service. Your idea is actually the stuff of quite a few dystopain films/movies - and not disimilar in principle to the property qualifications on voting, or refusing women the vote. Giving the vote to people with the time and inclination to do voluntary service, and at the same time effectively denying the right to vote to, for example, a harasses single mom working two jobs just to make ends meet, who cant afford childcare to do your volunteer work and doesnt wok in an area you deem important to the community... to me a system that works that way is abhorent and alien to human decency.
The principle of representative democracy is that people who have power are responsible to and accountable to the people who's lives they effect - a world in which only one "type" of person is allowed to vote becomes something other than a democracy. Oh, Brave New World!!