Black voter registration effort launched at ‘Black Panther’ screenings

  • Thread starter Thread starter gam197
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Not intended to be. This is the system in which we live; most of us think it’s a good one. Calling democracy a cancer isn’t exactly a compelling argument either – it’s your opinion.
 
Perhaps you shouldn’t tell people to leave the country for disagreeing with opinions that you hold but can’t rationally justify.

Democracy is bad because it separates the exercise of political power from responsibility for it (since the effect of any given voter is minuscule). It is like cancer insofar as its negative effects can be limited by limiting its scope.
 
There are many that would be good. E.g. restricting it only to heads of household who own their home, raising the voting age, disqualifying those whose ancestors recently immigrated, requiring a test of political knowledge.
Click to expand...
How do we determine who is a “head of household?”

That whole criteria just seems like a way to restrict the vote to mainly wealthy white men.
Mass democracy is like cancer.
Click to expand...
It is. So would be an elitist electoral system favouring rich, white men.
 
So I take it you are all for this? What is the definition on recent? I am Second generation American on my Mothers side (Sicilian) Come from a long line of poor southern folk on my Daddy’s side. So would I qualify? And that political knowledge test thingy - what kind of questions would be asked?
 
I’m not ‘telling’ you to do anything. But you’ll clearly never be happy in a constitutional republic.
 
So do we tax those folks who cannot vote? As I recall we fought a war over that. It was in all the papers…
 
Last edited:
Peebo said:
Australia has had compulsory voting for over a century…I believe the reason being that because of the previous poor voter turnout…now it’s up in the 90% plus…and they have one of the stablest democracies in the world
Click to expand...
I greatly prefer mandatory voting over partisan driven voter drives. I think it would positively change the dynamics, if it was deemed an outright obligation of citizens.

What does Australia do to non-voters?
 
I’m proposing general ideas, not a specific piece of legislation. So I can’t answer every possible question.

A knowledge test should ask questions about how the political system works (e.g. how many members of Congress are there for this state, who is the current governor, who succeeds the President after the Vice President). Excluding recent immigrants for a few generations would be a good idea.
 
Arkansan said:
40.png
Stephen_C:
40.png
Arkansan:
There are many qualifications that could be imposed that would correlate with responsible voting.
Click to expand...
So which ones would you impose? and how would you define “responsible voting”
Click to expand...
There are many that would be good. E.g. restricting it only to heads of household who own their home, raising the voting age, disqualifying those whose ancestors recently immigrated, requiring a test of political knowledge.

Mass democracy is like cancer. Ideally, it should be gotten rid of, but barring that it should be restricted as much as possible.
Click to expand...
So you actually don’t really care at all about voting rights as it pertains to the United States, or about registration, or really even about democracy per se. You have your own private view of what a proper “democracy” is, one that has pretty much been rejected for over a century throughout the West.

Here we were having a discussion about something real, when all you wanted to do was create some justification for some bizarre semi-democracy where only propertied men get to vote.

Well good luck with that, mate.
 
But on my Father’s side been here a long lone time. Would that qualify me? And it may just been only a few generations on my Mothers But my grandpa and grandma came over in 1907 Would that be considered more then a few generations? Or would we have to go by the strict interpolation? If so would I at least get half a vote? Maybe since I served. Could I get a waiver to allow me to vote?
 
Last edited:
Arkansan said:
I’m proposing general ideas, not a specific piece of legislation. So I can’t answer every possible question.

A knowledge test should ask questions about how the political system works (e.g. how many members of Congress are there for this state, who is the current governor, who succeeds the President after the Vice President). Excluding recent immigrants for a few generations would be a good idea.
Click to expand...
But you’ve just rejected the way democracy has worked in the United States for over a century (and much longer, since restrictions based on property were removed a long time before that). And wow, a few generations of “recent immigrants” get excluded as well.

I don’t think you’re being very serious here at all. The system you advocate would be unconstitutional, no one would ever seriously put forward an amendment to make your desired system happen. It literally is up there with expecting a pink unicorn delivery or Elvis returning to Earth in a UFO. It’s some sort of fascist fantasy that you hold, and will never happen.

So, do you have anything serious to offer, or is it just more nonsense like the above?
 
Except property qualifications were dropped in both countries over a century ago, as both countries moved towards the universal franchise. But really, the idea of the “head of the household providing he has some property” is the least of this poster’s egregious ideas. The whole notion of “voter tests” and excluding “recent immigrants for a few generations” strike me as little more than the regurgitating of the kind of voter suppression that went on in the Jim Crow era.
 
It’s been floated up here in Canada, but has never received a very warm reception. As in the US, it’s not even clear here if mandatory voting would pass constitutional muster, as the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the Canadian constitution are very protective of democratic rights, and that would likely be viewed by the courts as being a negative as well as a positive right; in other words the right to not vote would be as protected as the right to vote.
 
But realistically all of your criteria amounts to the same thing - the demographic to hold voting power should be rich, white men.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top