Post: #51

(05-30-2015 02:04 PM)DjembaDjemba Wrote:  The IQ tests, poll taxes, and disproportionate votes based on income have been tried in numerous places around the world, and have failed time and time again. Usually violently.

They have been tried? Where?

Post: #52

(05-30-2015 02:41 PM)Samseau Wrote:  

(05-30-2015 02:04 PM)DjembaDjemba Wrote:  The IQ tests, poll taxes, and disproportionate votes based on income have been tried in numerous places around the world, and have failed time and time again. Usually violently.

They have been tried? Where?

Off the top of my head; USA, Brazil, Russia, China, in no particular order all experimented with one or more of the above mentioned. For the two latter it ended with communists eventually overthrowing the kings and kingmakers. In the former, it led to riots, protests, and eventual change to what you have today.

Post: #53

(05-30-2015 02:48 PM)DjembaDjemba Wrote:  

(05-30-2015 02:41 PM)Samseau Wrote:  

(05-30-2015 02:04 PM)DjembaDjemba Wrote:  The IQ tests, poll taxes, and disproportionate votes based on income have been tried in numerous places around the world, and have failed time and time again. Usually violently.

They have been tried? Where?

Off the top of my head; USA, Brazil, Russia, China, in no particular order all experimented with one or more of the above mentioned. For the two latter it ended with communists eventually overthrowing the kings and kingmakers. In the former, it led to riots, protests, and eventual change to what you have today.

I've never read up Brazil but it was never tried in Russia, China, or the USA. In the USA the right to vote was only prevented from non-property owning men.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_righ...ted_States

Voting shouldn't have been extended to as many men as it had, and that pretty much spelled the doom of the USA over the long-term.

Voting should have been extended to other groups based on certain qualifications, but it did not and resulted in the current disaster we have today.

I suspect that had the internet been around back then, and property owners could have communicated with one another more effectively, they wouldn't have extended the right to vote as they did.

But I agree with you on one thing - in a democracy, whatever politician grants the most power to the most people will always end up in a position of greater power. For example, many property owners probably voted for their own disenfranchisement because they believed, incorrectly, that they would get more votes for their particular political party and end up getting more power.

George Washington famously predicted that the end of the USA would come about because of political parties, and he himself felt that political parties should have been banned outright. He was right. If a new democracy were to be created, no political parties should be allowed, and instead citizens should only vote as individuals as a community of their state.

Post: #54

A little off topic, but I would read up on the Russian revolution of 1905. It created a pseudo democracy, most the of reforms were rolled back 1907 and the voting was changed to create 'weighted' system whereby peasants and non-russians had a smaller portion of the vote. During the war the peasants eventually rebelled and the king lost his head.

Whether we agree with the parties in power or not, democracy can and does work better for the common person. It's worked well in Canada and Australia. Sure there's problems, but I'd take this form of government over modern Russia or China's any day.

It's sad to say, but I'm not sure if it gets any better than this in terms of governance, sans small nation states like Singapore.

Post: #55

That was the fastest poll I ever participated in. I didn't even have to think, I just acted.

Post: #56

(05-30-2015 10:38 AM)britchard Wrote:  ^The only problem with that rule is that the elite billionaires and millionaires would just be able to vote in who they wanted each time, with policies that only benefit them.

It's a reasonable idea, perhaps there could be a cap at the amount of votes an individual could have.

Not necessarily. It should be determined by how much income tax one is assessed. Most billionaires purposefully set up their taxes to avoid paying income tax and instead are more affected by capital gains.

That would encourage billionaires and wealthy people to start collecting a large salary which would be subject to fed and state income tax.

Post: #57

To look at this rationally, we have four overall choices....

#1) A Dictatorship. Govt answers to no one else and rules above everyone else. I don't think anyone here wants this.

#2) A full, or close enough to it, Democracy. As we have in the USA today and across much of the western world. While it feels nice to give every single person a chance, it simply is not working. Some people have no desire to do anything more than the least amount possible to get by. Giving them the equal say on how a society is run as someone who is heavily invested and very motivated for a better future is unjust. The extremists on each side and the uninformed who simply do not care are pushing the west over the cliff with an out of control ever expanding govt.

#3) A Republic, or close enough to it. Only a certain % of society has say on how society is run. Much like how the founding fathers set up the USA. I think most here would agree this is the best solution, but how do we pick out that % of people who gets to make the decisions... So choice #3 breaks down into....

a) A set of criteria. I have already read some great ideas in this thread. A basic IQ score of 90 + not on the govt. dole + ___ + ___. Really some good ideas in this thread. And I think they are reasonable, but they would be tougher to enforce and maintain as time goes on. I would be good with any of the solutions listed here.

b) Just make it so women cannot vote. This seems the easiest of the solutions. It cannot easily be challenged or changed. Without women voting and men getting their confidence and their patriotism back, they would take a more serious role in life. The non-feminist women who are brainwashed by this crap the feminist are pushing would go back to their natural role of wives and mothers. You would still have the ugly feminists protesting, but they would be silly noise in the back ground.

I know women who take the right to vote very seriously. They follow the news and what is going on and who will give their kids the best chance at a good future. And I know men that don't care at all and behave like adult children. So it isn't the most fair solution, it is just the most simple and the best for society as a whole.

Remember, women are the majority of voters. In the USA in 2012 women were 54% of the voters. The women are virtually running this country and they are running it right into the ground. And those who will suffer the most are the helpless children being born into it in the last 10 years.

Post: #58

(05-30-2015 03:05 PM)Samseau Wrote:  

(05-30-2015 02:48 PM)DjembaDjemba Wrote:  

(05-30-2015 02:41 PM)Samseau Wrote:  

(05-30-2015 02:04 PM)DjembaDjemba Wrote:  The IQ tests, poll taxes, and disproportionate votes based on income have been tried in numerous places around the world, and have failed time and time again. Usually violently.

They have been tried? Where?

Off the top of my head; USA, Brazil, Russia, China, in no particular order all experimented with one or more of the above mentioned. For the two latter it ended with communists eventually overthrowing the kings and kingmakers. In the former, it led to riots, protests, and eventual change to what you have today.

I've never read up Brazil but it was never tried in Russia, China, or the USA. In the USA the right to vote was only prevented from non-property owning men.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_righ...ted_States

Voting shouldn't have been extended to as many men as it had, and that pretty much spelled the doom of the USA over the long-term.

Voting should have been extended to other groups based on certain qualifications, but it did not and resulted in the current disaster we have today.

I suspect that had the internet been around back then, and property owners could have communicated with one another more effectively, they wouldn't have extended the right to vote as they did.

But I agree with you on one thing - in a democracy, whatever politician grants the most power to the most people will always end up in a position of greater power. For example, many property owners probably voted for their own disenfranchisement because they believed, incorrectly, that they would get more votes for their particular political party and end up getting more power.

George Washington famously predicted that the end of the USA would come about because of political parties, and he himself felt that political parties should have been banned outright. He was right. If a new democracy were to be created, no political parties should be allowed, and instead citizens should only vote as individuals as a community of their state.

Incorrect. You read the article you linked, dude?
From the very same...

Quote:Literacy tests, poll taxes, and religious tests were some of the state and local laws used in various parts of the United States to deny immigrants (including legal ones and newly naturalized citizens), non-white citizens, Native Americans, and any other locally "undesirable" groups from exercising voting rights granted under the constitution.

Like I said earlier in this thread, literacy tests were used for overtly racist means. I've actually never heard of the poll taxes or religious tests, but I doubt those had any more benevolent intentions.

Post: #59

(05-29-2015 12:34 PM)Honorable Man Wrote:  In the 1959 novel Starship Troopers Robert A. Heinlein imagines a country where only citizens can vote, and the only way to become a citizen is to enlist in a branch of the military. Since I read it this year, I've been unable to shake this concept as a reasonable way to determine the voting population. Is this foolish?

What I like about Heinlein's point is that only people with skin in the game are allowed to vote. In Starship Troopers, that meant being a veteran. In early America, it meant you had to be a landowner (though land grants were frequently a reward for military service). That seems to me to be the key point: only people who are invested in society get to vote. You could cut that lots of ways, for example you have to be one of:

1. Pay income taxes above a certain percentage of net income
2. Own real property
3. Caregiver for a child
4. Veteran

Post: #60

A video on women's liberation: