snowy

Notably, sales tax in states that have it account for a good portion of state revenues. In Washington state alone the sales tax usually accounts for a quarter of the budget. That's pretty significant.

That said, I think voters who don't pay income taxes (such as myself, a student who doesn't make enough to pay taxes) have just as much or more stake in federal government. Those of us who live below the poverty line (yes, many of us college students do exist there) are dependent on government benefits of some kind to attempt and improve our existence, be it financial aid, food stamps, or health care programs. State-funded higher education regularly takes hits in the name of balancing the budget, and I get to watch my tuition rates go up. Yippee.

Universal enfranchisement is the only way to go. We've established that time and time again. The people have the right to be represented, and to choose their representation. In today's society, we have no other choice but to let everyone vote--and despite the fact that I may disagree with how some people vote, I strongly support voting rights and getting EVERYONE's vote out and counted.

__________________
If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Ustwo

So what you are saying is because you don't pay for the federal goverment, you should decide what other people pay to benifit yourself. Classic example of why the system is bad. As for sales and state taxes and the like, its a totally seperate issue from voting in Federal elections.

__________________
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.

Stompy

Um.. all other BS aside, why would you ask people to help CHOOSE something when they know absolutely nothing about it? In the end, you're taking a shot in the dark and are ultimately doing more harm than good.

I think that's half the reason why our country is becoming increasingly screwed up. Hell, even politicians try to pretend like they know what they're doing when they clearly DON'T, and it ALWAYS turns out ugly - worst part is, they get away with it!!

Take, for example, Hillary Clinton during this GTA fiasco. She knows nothing about the game and instead relies on what others tell her to draw her conclusions, which are so flat out WRONG it's sickening.

Most Judges know NOTHING about modern technology, but make rulings on it day in and day out.

Voting for a president is a pretty serious thing... please tell me WHY you would want to count the vote of someone who doesn't know one single THING about the thing they are voting for. Please please please, just explain that.

__________________
I love lamp.

pan6467

You know everything there is to know about your job?

NOONE in congress is ever going to know everything that is why they have aides and pages. A vast majority of congress (whether I like their politics or not) are damned efficient and do very good research.

And who would determine who knows enough to vote?

And what of the people who can't read but know more about politics then most who can read?

What of immigrants, who have become citizens but have trouble reading English?

I'm sorry the Constitution and the Amendments that follow guarantee EVERY CITIZEN the right to vote.....

Once you start adding requirements such as "literacy tests", you open the floodgates. Then you start saying only taxpayers, then only land owners, then grandfather clauses, then only people who pay this much or more in taxes, and so on.

The poor and underpriveleged will revolt, and unlike the poster above I wouldn't be so sure that they would just burn down their own buildings.... and when the vast majority of our military and police come from the poorer sections....

__________________
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?"

politicophile

False. The Constitution prevents you from barring someone from voting because of:
-Their race
-Their previous condition of servitude
-Their gender
-Their failure to pay a poll tax
-Their age, if it is 18 or greater

If the country, or a state, decided to prevent people from voting for a different reason than the ones listed above, it would only be unconstitutional if the courts decided it violated Amendment 14. Otherwise, I don't see how it could be overturned.

If you want to bring the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and other legislation into it as well, though... things turn out differently.

I also wanted to say that the slippery slope argument above was very funny. "If you start requiring literacy as a qualification for voting, there will be a violent revolution!"

__________________
The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

pan6467

I did say the Constitution AND Amendments. You are wrong tho, the Const. did not bar anyone from voting. The individual states did.

Amend. 14 is the only place where it says "male" and thusly if females did vote it became illegal.

However, the 15th Amend. states: It also gave Congress the right to: And the 19th gave the right to women.

The 24th stated: the 26th stated: So the Constitution pretty much covers whoi can vote..... which is anyone over 18 and a citizen of the USA.

This was a power given to Congress by the many amendments and therefore impossible to overturn, unless it infringes on the rights.... which the VRAof1965 does not.

Laugh if you will but there are plenty of people who believe that government is too strong and if you took their right to vote away.... I think that may be the straw that breaks the back. I don't think a small revolt is too far away anyway. It's not a question of if but rather when.

__________________
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?"

alansmithee

None of those say that a person's right to vote can't be taken away for other reasons. Case in point: felons aren't allowed to vote. You could deny someone's right to vote as long as it isn't for one of the reasons you nor politicophile mentioned. The right to vote isn't constitutionally guaranteed for everyone 18+.



You are right, there are many people who feel the gov't is too strong and would revolt if voting rights were limited. Many of these people live in cabins in the middle of woods and shoot on sight anyone who tresspasses on their land. This is not the majority of people. There would be some mild outcry, but I don't think there would be the great outcry you predict, as many who lost their voting rights would go about their lives.

As for the revolt you speak of coming, I have seen no signs of this whatsoever. There might be some random kooks, but for the most part people realize the futility and senselessness of revolting at this point in time.

Ustwo

Don't confuse what you want to happen with what will happen.

I'm afraid there would be no revolt to speak of. If there is a revolt in the US it won't be from the poor, but the producing middle class.

__________________
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.

politicophile

pan,

Do me a favor and reread my previous post. I spelled out very clearly the provisions in the Constitution (and the amendments, for God's sake) that dictate how voting may not be limited. You won't find anything about literacy tests in there: trust me. As for race, gender, etc, no shit Sherlock: I already pointed out exactly those provisions.

__________________
The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

pan6467

That's very true felons do lose their right, but they did it to themselves by committing the crime. Otherwise everyone over 18 has the right and it cannot be taken away.

I would disagree, you take away a person's right to vote for no reason and there would be a revolt, it may take a year and be disorganized at first but I would bet there would be a revolt, and not from just random kooks.... I know if my right to vote would be taken away, I would organize with others and die fighting for that right to be given back to me.


But I add this disclaimer: If I fucked up and committed a felony, then I lost that right myself.

__________________
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?"

pan6467

You mean the producing middle class that is paying for an illegal war and Haliburton contracts that don't deliver? You mean the producing middle class that will see jobs head to Central America and jobs sent overseas? You mean the working middle class that is one major illness away from losing everything .... while the CEO's and rich make more and more?

You mean those people?

__________________
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?"

pan6467

I have reread you post and I humbly and deeply appologize. I believed at first you were saying the Constitution barred those groups. It was my mistake and I truly am sorry.

No there is no literacy testing provision, however, I would hope that it wouldn't stand. I think (and I maybe wrong) that literacy tests are covered in the VRAof1965 or a subsequent law.

__________________
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?"

politicophile

Apology accepted. Thank you for rereading my post.

__________________
The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

RangerDick

Yes, those people.

No thread is complete without the shrill cry of "HALLIBURTON' from our resident pack of cassandras on the left.

Well done, Pan. Well done.

pan6467

You mean like our friends to the right who claim because a person can't read they can't contribute to society and shouldn't be allowed to vote?

Personally I'd rather yell about a company that gets paid billions to protect our men and pockets the money and doesn't do the job, then take people's rights away or belittle them.....

But alas I guess I'm just one of those lefties that will never learn.

__________________
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

Pan you don't understand the crux of it.

The poor are just that poor. They are uneducated. They have no resources. They are often in ill health due to lifestyle. They have nothing to unify them outside of being poor.

The poor don't win revolutions. They may get slaughtered in them, but they don't win. So I don't worry about them, they are ineffectual. If they had the ability to revolt they wouldn't be poor in the first place, being poor in the US is almost impossible if you have even a sliver of work ethic and self control.

And likewise we are talking about some pretty basic functions. I'm more for a civics type of test over a literacy, but regardless we are not asking for a lot. It is you who assume all the poor people are illiterate and do not grasp what they are voting for, but you also assume they will revolt for what they don't understand and can't read. At best they are used by others, with empty promises that things will be different when THEY are in charge.

__________________
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.

pan6467

Pompousity in it's purest form, gotta love it.

Tell the poor they had no chance in Russia, in France, in any number of countries.

The poor always find someone rich that will back them in revolutions, if only for that person's self gain, as you state. The US is very close to it and if the right person were to come along and people felt no hope (and the hope is dwindling), I firmly believe there would be revolution.

Will the right person come along? Possible, probable, but I think there is still hope and light....

Once you implement these b.s. literacy tests, no matter how "civic" in nature, you start a slippery slope.

I just don't see how people who say they want less government and less spending continue to want such extreme government control in our lives.

__________________
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?"

politicophile

I've always thought of Napoleon and Lenin as champions of the poor...

...

...

__________________
The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

TM875

Wow...this question actually led me to more thought than I at first believed that it would.

Should there be a basic intelligence / literacy / civics test before voting...eh, that's a pretty slippery slope. There might be a person out there who can't read due to pervious life circumstances, but still has an intent interest in our nation. On the other hand, there might be someone who went through 11th grade Government class, knows that there's 9 people on the Supreme Court, but has no clue as to what type of person will be chosen should the president be forced to choose one.

~Side note: This was what scared me the most during the 2004 election. I knew for certain that the newly elected president would be choosing at least 1 Supreme Court justice in his term, and, most likely, the new chairman of the Federal Reserve. /end note

I believe that there should be a general association with the issues of the election. There are far too many people that choose a politician because he "looks honest" or "has a trustworthy face" or "seems like a down-to-earth type of guy". That's total crap, especially in today's news-oriented world. At the very least, there should be a little placard in the polling booth that gives some basic info on the politician's individual platform. I don't care what my president looks like, or whether he shakes the hand of a lot of people - I want a guy that agrees with me on the issues and can actually get things done. Imagine that...

__________________
"I've made only one mistake in my life. But I made it over and over and over. That was saying 'yes' when I meant 'no'. Forgive me."

pan6467

Laugh if you want and what came of the revolution was not good but neither will be a revolution here. I didn't say that those revolutions provided model governments or were good for the people did I now?

I was simply illustrating that the poor are usually the ones who start revolutions.

You have 2 parties that preach hatred and you have a massive distrust and growing debt that will eventually have to be paid. We no longer have political debate, we have almost bloodlettings and hatreds and putdowns and fear mongering and finger pointing...... you want to tell me all that is healthy and should this type of behavior continue we're not going to see a revolt?

__________________
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?"

pan6467

Huge difference between giving someone a placard and requiring a literacy test.

(BTW who exactly would pay for these placards and/or tests?.... Hell, we have to cut emergency services, bankrupt our schools and send soldiers over to a war ill equipped, we have a debt so high that we'll never have it paid off in our lifetime or our children's and your wanting to add an expense just so those someone deems intelligent enough can vote. while the others lose their right to vote?)

Voting is a RIGHT..... not a privelege.

I don't know about elsewhere but the newspapers in Ohio cover what the issues are, have pros and cons published: have the candidates listed and where they stand on issues, and so on.


The following is now an overall view of the topic and in no way reflects the above quote I already addressed:


I think it is very elitist and self serving to believe that the majority of people have no idea what is going on. I argue the vast majority do know and the ones who don't vote aren't voting because they feel their voice won't change things.

And why would they feel that way?

Because people like some on this board, want to believe they know more than others what is best and talk down, berate, bully and refuse to listen/read another's viewpoints and refuse to admit that maybe there is some positive in the opposing view.

By getting people into believing their votes don't matter, by getting people to believe how they feel and what they want is irrelevent and to discount them.... not only gets them to not vote but allows your agenda to get through even faster without much fight. But this tactic only lasts a short time before you get enough people mad enough to realize their voice matters and they vote against you.

PS I agree I vote for the candidate best representing my views.... in '00 it was Nader, in '04 it was Kerry, going back in '96 it was Buchanan in the primaries and Clinton in Nov., in '92 it was Clinton.

__________________
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?"