irateplatypus

in the run-up to the election i've seen lots of creative ways to get people registered as voters. freshman being accosted when they arrive at college, homeless people loaded onto buses and shipped to registration kiosks, and countless other schemes to "get the vote out".

how do you think this effects our republic? LET ME BE CLEAR ON THIS: i'm not suggesting that homeless people shouldn't have the right to vote... or that their participation should be actively curtailed. i do, however, have reservations of the impact that a large mass of voters participating in an election who have a poor grasp of the issues and aren't normally attuned to the voting process suddenly becoming a force a month before an election.

if the backbone of democracy is a well-educated electorate... are we polluting our ideal by registering thousands of people who normally don't give a flip about government or politics? does more voters always mean a better democratic process? should all people be encouraged to participate regardless of how aware they are what is going on in our nation?

i'm kind of leaning towards "no". as in, more votes don't necessarily mean better elections. but... i'm so wary about equal representation hurting as a result of a smaller percentage of citizens comprising the electorate.

i'm open to your opinions, gimme some pro's and con's.

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If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

Ustwo

We are already at a situation where more people vote then pay income taxes. One of the lies of the democratic party is that somehow the poor/middle class pays the brunt of the governments bills. Its a lie, but that never stopped a democrat from creating class envy and dividing the electorate before now did it?

Unless we all have equal stakes in the Republic it will have long term problems. Getting more uneducated people to vote only give a warm fuzzy to people who think voter turn out is somehow important.

Ironically being its the democrats who wish to get these groups to vote, one can only assume they need the uneducated, uninformed, and apathetic to win.

Edit: Homey needs to proof read more often.

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Mephisto2

Can we discuss one thing, ONE THING without resorting to Democrat/Republican bashing?

The topic is how do you get more people to vote.

With regards to the topic issue itself...

So, not having a certain level of education means you should lose your rights as a citizen?

What standard of education do you think should be the cut-off Ustwo? And who decides?


Mr Mephisto

djtestudo

Technically, isn't the question irateplatypus asked whether we should be doing this much to register voters who don't care enough about voting to register themselves, and whether this affects the electoral process by bringing in uninformed voters?

__________________
"Final thought: I just rented Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. Frankly, it was the worst sports movie I've ever seen."
--Peter Schmuck, The (Baltimore) Sun

irateplatypus

you got it dj

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

Mephisto2

Well, for staters the questions posed (all four of them) have nothing to do with either the Republicans or the Democrats, so we can leave that childish name calling out of this thread for once.

Now, let's examine each question in turn.

This seems to be asking if it is valuable registering as many citizens to vote as possible. I think it is. You may not.

No. You are fulfilling your ideal. The ideal being "one man, one vote"; not "one man with a nice house and car, one vote."


Yes it does. By definition, a democracy is a form of government where the people rule. "For the people, by the people" if you will.

If, on the other hand, you only allow a sub-set of the population to vote, then you have an oligarchy. Not even the most cynical political pundit thinks that the American system is an official oligarchy, to the best of my knowledge.

Of course they should. Otherwise you do not have a true democracy. If you select the alternative course of action, who decides those who are allowed to vote? You would revert to an old-style 19th century oligarchic system where only property owners (or similar) would be entitled to vote. And that's the thin end of the wedge.

What next?

Only those who have completed high school?
Only those who have completed college?
Only those who have in excess of US$1M in assets?
Only those who are registered party members?

Where do you stop?

I recommend you read Heinlein's SciFi novel (often overlooked as a political satire) "Starship Troopers". In that, only soldiers were permitted to vote, as they were the only ones who were willing to put their lives on the line.


Mr Mephisto

pan6467

Hate to tell you this but there are a lot of uninformed voters that vote just by party on both sides.

Or voters that vote solely on 1 issue and could careless what the rest of the platform is.

There could be a candidate that says, "I'll never take away your guns" and the rest of his platform could be crap but he'll still get quite a few votes for him and against him just on that one issue. Same as a candidate saying, "abortion is a woman's choice and I will make sure it's legal in all 50 states" and the rest of his platform only the people who truly follow his campaign understand because he doesn't talk about them. Votes for, votes against.

Point is, the homeless have every right to vote. EVERY MAN AND WOMAN IN THIS COUNTRY HAS THE RIGHT. To say someone can't vote because they don't know the issues or are uneducated is as bad as in the old days when the South had the Grandfather clauses and the reading tests in order to vote.

BTW, a vast majority of the homeless are very intelligent people who have made wrong choices, have given up the American dream for one reason or another or have mental diseases. They don't need to be treated as stupid or uneducated, but rather just are in need of help and rehabilitation.

Of course some of you who believe that you are perfect because you live lives where you have never wanted for anything or have "no mental disorders" wouldn't understand that.

Sorry but having lived in a car for 6 months because I suffered from immense depression and couldn't get through life at the time, even though my family wanted to help me. I take this issue very personally, people do not consciously choose to be homeless and should not be treated any less of a person than anyone else, including the right to vote.

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Ustwo

Being a two party system, and the question being should everyone vote, you can't have a theoretical debate without bringing up specifics. Its not childish to point out how the two are related unless we are talking about Candy Land. Now please enough with name calling

I recommend you reread it, you had to give service but it did not have to be combat related, it just had to be hard and in the states benefit. Heinlein is one of my favorite authors, 3/4ths libertarian and 1/4 republican, about the perfect mix.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Journeyman

Ehhhh yeah, unless elected officials manage to screw a lot of non-constituents out of a decent education. It's been done before.

As I see it, I don't want tax dollars going to pictorial-polling for people who never learned to read, but I don't want people who grew up in shitty educational districts having no way to change that situation for the better.

Mephisto2

Huh?
Why should I reread it? You've lost me now. Where did I say anything about combat?

The point is that is was written as a satire, showing what can happen when the state tries to control those entitled to vote. And that seems to be what you are supporting.

What if Kerry was elected and said that in future, only those who voted Democrat were entitled to vote and all Republicans had their citizenship rights revoked? Let me guess... you wouldn't support that now, would you?


Mr Mephisto

guthmund

I'm confused...when has the electorate ever had a backbone of well educated voters?

It's the same now as it was in the beginning. Promote yourself, insult your opponent, confuse the voters in any way you can. Rinse. Repeat.

There is a core of truly well educated voters out there who can see pass the past the partisan, no, the political line to find the nuggets of truth beneath the bullshit. The rest of us toe the party line and spout the party rhetoric and whatever's left just don't give a shit. Are they there? Absolutely, but they've never been a very big part of the electorate and never enough to really matter.

That out of my system...moving along. Everyone should vote. Stupid people have the right to spout their stupid opinions and vote for a litany of stupid reasons just like the rest of us idiots. I think it's a shame that we have to beg, plead, cajole, bribe and in some cases, actually lead divisions of our society to the polls. It may seem distasteful, but it is what it is. To disfranchise a portion of the electorate, regardless of reasons why, well....a pig is still a pig no matter how much lipstick you use.

Modern politicians understand the situation. They can't deny the right to vote to anyone without raising alarm (with good reason, I might add). However, this untapped pool of potential voters is impossible to resist and so they adjust their campaign strategies accordingly. Slap logos behind the podiums with catchy slogans; start spouting catchphrases and speaking in soundbytes; manipulate the media, medium, and language in every way, shape and form to support what they said (or didn't say).

That was long.

You can't stop people from voting; you can't keep groups (regardless of their political affiliation) from leading people to the polls. I don't think it screws up the electoral process as much as everyone might think because the idea of an well-educated electorate is myth along the lines of Nessie, aliens among us and the Illuminati. How can you skew an already skewed process?

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irateplatypus

wow, we've already been off-track twice in less than an hour. God help us all.

ok, i've seen a couple references from Mr. Mephisto... so i'll pick on him.

ok, i don't know how many times this needs to be said. i put it in caps at the start of the discussion so as to head these sorts of inflammatory remarks off at the pass. i'm at a loss on why it went there so quickly. no one is proposing that someone's rights be taken away.

::sighs:: people who choose not to register by themselves or prefer to sit at home on election day are not disenfranchised. that's a buzz word of our political times that seldom applies to reality.

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

Locobot

In an ideal democracy the entire population would be well-informed knowledgable voters. However, any attempt to ensure that voters are well-informed would introduce a slew problems so severe that they would undermine the democracy and lead to it's collapse. If you don't think these things have been tried in U.S. history you need to research Jim Crow laws--specifically literacy tests and poll taxes. Not exactly a positive precedent to build upon.

So we're left with the task of seeing that voting rights are available to as many people as possible and that those rights are exercised.

It's funny to me that USTWO thinks that only Democrats are supporting voter-registration campaigns despite the fact that they are distinctly, by law, unpartisan. MTV's "Rock the Vote" and "Vote or Die" ads are completely free of partisanship (an alien concept for USTWO I realize).

Mephisto2

LOL

Actually I thought we were having a good open discussion on several threads. I apologise if you believe I'm going off track and invite you to point this out ot me.

I thought we were discussing hypothetical or rhetorical questions. I know you didn't suggest their rights should be revoked. I'm at a loss as to your (inferred) frustation here.

You asked four specific questions. I suggested four answers. Where have we gone wrong? I'm honestly confused as to your reaction.

And who said they were?

Again, it seems to me that you pose some questions (many of them rhetorical) and then don't go anywhere. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Let's put it another way. Answer your own four questions to guide the discussion along.


Yours, with respect as always,
Mr Mephisto

Ustwo

You said putting your life on the line, which was not a requirement. He said even if you were blind, mute, and deaf they would find a job for you to earn your franchise.


Point is you miss the point a bit. Heinlein was a hard core right winger such as myself. Most liberals choke reading his books but if you want to think of it as all satire, be my guest. I think many liberals would like to think its satire as its even more shocking to them then 'A Modest Proposal' by Swift, but alas for them, its pretty much the same sort of idea he espouses in all of his books.

I’ve read essays where left wingers try to explain everything he wrote as a giant satire, they almost beg for it, but after reading most of his works a basic theme emerges with is self reliance, no final authority, and self responsibility.

Plus any author who calls socialism a disease is worth reading.
You got apples into my oranges.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Mephisto2

OK, that's fair enough. But I think you're nitpicking. You should know what I meant, and seem to be arguing simply for the point of it.

Actually, you're absolutely right and I shouldn't have called it a satire. I'm perfectly cognizant with Heinlein's political positioning. I should not have described it as a satire, as it wasn't written as such. I should have said that I considered it satirical. Mea culpa.

See above.

Like Adolf Hitler? :-)

You've got ants in your pants.

Mr Mephisto

irateplatypus

Mr. Mephisto,

I appreciate your good-natured reaction to our lack of effective communication. Your repeated reference to an oligarchy and a selective criteria for those would be able to vote (as referenced in my post) are outside the relevance of the purpose of the thread. it was clearly my intention to avoid anyone suggesting or interpreting that anyone is advocating curtailing the rights of any citizen within the context of this thread (in order to promote a more focused/civil discussion). this is witnessed by my disclaimer written in caps.

guthmund mentioned the disenfranchised word you were asking about.

i honestly am not sure i have a stance i can stand on in this debate, so that is why was unable to guide the discussion from the start. i'm very interested in testing other's opinions to see if i can establish an informed opinion on the issue.

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

Mephisto2

And conversely, could it not be said that calls to prevent the registration of non-registered voters is a veiled way for the Republicans to subvert the democractic system?

What are "they" afraid of? That a higher proportion of them would support the Democracts? Well, the best way to address that is to promote policies that are beneficial to these less well off members of society, rather than attempt to prevent the exercise of their fundamental rights as citizens of the United States.

Or do you disagree?


Mr Mephisto

ARTelevision

I don't see the impropriety of interpreting the question in partisan terms. It can be said that the call to register the disenfranchised is a veiled way of calling for the registration of more Democrats.

while editing for spelling this was displaced

I have no further comment at this time.

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create evolution

Ustwo

Go Republic!
http://html.themilwaukeechannel.com/...05-143203.html

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Mephisto2

Well, I honestly can't understand why anyone would want to prevent or limit the registration of new voters.

So, as I mentioned in another thread, I would recommend that the US instigate a system of obligatory voting. That way, no one (the Democrats or the Republicans) could argue that their candidate was only elected by a small minority of voters.

In a democracy everyone should vote. I think it's disengenous for a political party, a fundamental constituent part of said democracy, to argue against the widest possible inclusivenss of the electorate.

If one party is "afraid" that all these newly registered voters will support the other party, then they should modify their policies so as to gain a wider degree of support themselves.

Isn't this a basic tenet of a democratic system? The party with the most popular polices (not necessarily the "best") gets elected?


Mr Mephisto

Mephisto2

And that Ustwo is called vote rigging. At least where I come from.

As such, it should be prosecuted as such. I hope we don't disagree on this at least!



Mr Mephisto

irateplatypus

but i think there is a very distinct difference between:

A) not encouraging people who wouldn't normally vote to get registered and vote at the last minute.

and...

B) "prevent or limit the registration of new voters."

do you see the difference? a lack of active encouragement doesn't mean that anyone is being prevented or limited. in fact, i think that is the most populace-minded standpoint (uh oh, i'm starting to form opinions! lol ) for this reason: why should some segments of the population be given focused opportunities to register to vote while others are left to do it on their own? wouldn't it be the most fair to let the people from all walks of life to register if they like and leave them alone if they didn't?

again, i'm not talking about changes in government laws or anything. it isn't a matter or "can we?" or "can we not?", it's more of a "should we?" or "should we not?"

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill