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Should the Poor not be allowed to vote

Should the Poor not be allowed to vote

  • The poor should be banned from voting

    Votes: 1 33.3%

  • The richest 10% should be banned from voting

    Votes: 1 33.3%

  • The top 1% should be banned from voting

    Votes: 1 33.3%

  • Only the middle class should be allowed to vote

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    3
lpast said:
Or should the top 10% not be allowed to vote, since their money influences all politics. I laugh at certain forum posters who say that the poor shouldnt be allowed to vote because they only vote for who is going to give them something...that is one of the most disgustingly disengenuous statements ever uttered on this foru...because the RICH vote for who is going to give them something and they PAY them millions to do it for them in lobbiests cash and gifts to superpacs...its hypocrisy to the ooomph degree.
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This has probably been said before, but I didn't make it past the first page when I realized that this thread was going to be filled with ridiculous posts.

Relative to the world, voting is a privilege. Relative to the United States, voting is and always should be a right. The idea that only those who pay income taxes or only those who do community service or only those who do "whatever I think measures the value of a citizen" should be able to vote is preposterous. Not only does that give government leaders (and those who pay them) far too much power over determining who has no say in the government, it completely disregards the facts that everyone pays taxes in some form, everyone is affected by the government and certain classes will no doubt be completely taken advantage of.

I can imagine the wonderful system where only people who pay income taxes can vote. Those who do pay income taxes will most likely be in the middle and upper classes and many of those people's interests would be harmed if the lower classes had the right to vote so in order to prevent this from happening they elect the politicians who will ensure that they are never able to attain that right. What a great country.

Some people are so ridiculous. Everyone should be allowed to vote, even them.
 
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Higgins86 said:
talking more about the fact you wanted to excute them as citizens by taking the vote away, not texas style!
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drama queen nonsense
 
jamesrage said:
So by your logic so are the days of free speech, right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures without a warrant, the right to peacefully assemble and other rights are only for the world of 1787?
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I do not know how you jumped to that conclusion.
 
haymarket said:
I do not know how you jumped to that conclusion.
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"The Founders wrote a document for the world of 1787 when we had an isolated backwater nation of 4 million farmers and small merchants on a part of the Eastern seaboard. Those days are long gone. And so are the Founders ideas of skin in the game."
 
Higgins86 said:
wow thats a honour considering your a multi oscar winner in the catergory of drama queen
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this is coming from some guy who has been here less than a month? massive fail on your part
 
Higgins86 said:
lol didn't say you had to like it, chin up champ!
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You merely demonstrated you really have no clue about the subject. I have been called a lot of things on this board but not "drama queen". I tend to get bashed for being "insensitive" not wetting my pants over stuff that the thin skinned gets agitated over
 
The idea that only those who pay income taxes can vote will just destroy the vote status.
If lower classes can't vote they will become lower then lower. middle and high classes will have more influence and power to choose or kick who they want. seems to me like this switch to a monopole look like.
more moneys will be involved and more will be paid to gain 1 vote. more corruption.

One day we may hear even: only the ones that got master degree can vote. - again stupid and no sense


what's the problem with how people are voting now? It's not like there are voting 100% of a population and/or managing the voting process is so hard.
 
TurtleDude said:
You merely demonstrated you really have no clue about the subject. I have been called a lot of things on this board but not "drama queen". I tend to get bashed for being "insensitive" not wetting my pants over stuff that the thin skinned gets agitated over
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whatever you say big guy
 
Coin said:
The idea that only those who pay income taxes can vote will just destroy the vote status.
If lower classes can't vote they will become lower then lower. middle and high classes will have more influence and power to choose or kick who they want. seems to me like this switch to a monopole look like.
more moneys will be involved and more will be paid to gain 1 vote. more corruption.

One day we may hear even: only the ones that got master degree can vote. - again stupid and no sense


what's the problem with how people are voting now? It's not like there are voting 100% of a population and/or managing the voting process is so hard.
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exactly you can't let the minority rule over the majority just not very democratic
 
Coin said:
The idea that only those who pay income taxes can vote will just destroy the vote status.
If lower classes can't vote they will become lower then lower. middle and high classes will have more influence and power to choose or kick who they want. seems to me like this switch to a monopole look like.
more moneys will be involved and more will be paid to gain 1 vote. more corruption.

One day we may hear even: only the ones that got master degree can vote. - again stupid and no sense


what's the problem with how people are voting now? It's not like there are voting 100% of a population and/or managing the voting process is so hard.
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one of the reasons why we have such a huge deficit is due to government over spending. One of the main reasons why that happens is that too many politicians find advocating or engaging in massive spending actually gets them elected

and how does that happen? they promise a majority of the voters in their district or state, or city more and more spending but they also tell the majority that the majority won't have to pay for this increased spending. rather the rich will

the majority continues to demand more spending because they don't get taxed more and more to pay for it.

Now the GOP is not blameless, They are afraid to cut off the addicts so they keep the public teat supplied with milk but they don't raise taxes on the rich to pay for it (whether raising taxes on the rich actually brings in more money for say more than a year or so is a dubious proposition).
 
Higgins86 said:
exactly you can't let the minority rule over the majority just not very democratic
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it is a legitimate argument to note that if the top 10% pay a majority of the taxes they should have a majority of the say concerning how federal income taxes are raised
 
Harry Guerrilla said:
I think paraphrasing Heinlein, says it best.
"Something that is free, has no value."

I think everyone should have to earn the privilege of voting and running for public office.
Not through taxes or money'd payments but through community service.
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:D "Service Guarantees Citizenship" great book.


De Toqueville wrote about how early American communities would often come together to provide public support for those who were suffering, but would then not allow them to vote, the argument being that you have just created a class whose incentive will always be to vote themselves more benefits from others.

In the past I've called for some basic poll testing - simple stuff like "Name the three branches of government". You could draw the questions from the citizenship exam; which you could also make High School Seniors take in order to get high school diplomas and vote for the rest of their lives. I wouldn't be totally opposed to restoring our original link between going on public assistance and the exercise of the franchise - in fact, it would make me much more comfortable with the notion of supporting others, as I would know that they would lack the ability to turn an attempt to provide a good into a public danger.
 
everyone? felons, children, the insane? a 31 year old child rapist who is violently schizophrenic should be given a degree of control over the most powerful government in human history? he should be allowed to counteract the vote of a 31 year old working mom?
 
One of the more shameful legacies of the past decades has been what has been allowed to happen to American workers at the lower end of the earnings spectrum. While workers at the top end have become fewer and fewer with the outsourcing and offshoring of high pay-good benefits union jobs, those at the lower end have been suffering.

We are talking here about more than 10 million American workers who earn the minimum wage. (Contrary to corporate propaganda, only 28% of those getting paid minimum wage are teenagers. Most are single women or men as head of households). The minimum wage in America reached its high point in the late 1960s in terms of real buying power, and thereafter went into a deep and steady free fall of more than 29% decline in buying power under Reagan during the 1980s. In the early and mid 1990s the decline was slowed somewhat with modest increases in the minimum wage legislated by Congress, but has fallen sharply was again since the last increase in the federal minimum wage in 1996, now approaching almost a decade ago.
In terms of 2001 dollars, the minimum wage in 1979 was worth $6.55. It fell to $4.62 in 1989, rose modestly in the early and mid-1990s, but today in 2003 is equivalent to only $4.94 an hour. The minimum wage is 21.4% less today than it was in 1979. If you want to restrict the vote for the people that don't pay income tax then how about levelling the playing field a little for them?
 
most of us got minimum wage jobs out of the way by the time we entered college or the military. Life isn't fair, and nature is a cruel arena. I don't have a duty to pay more and more and more taxes to carry and fund the lives of people who most often made stupid decisions that led to their "poverty"
 
TurtleDude said:
most of us got minimum wage jobs out of the way by the time we entered college or the military. Life isn't fair, and nature is a cruel arena. I don't have a duty to pay more and more and more taxes to carry and fund the lives of people who most often made stupid decisions that led to their "poverty"
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little harsh to say its often stupid decisions that lead people to poverty, even people coming out of the military are taking up munimum wage jobs.
 
Higgins86 said:
little harsh to say its often stupid decisions that lead people to poverty, even people coming out of the military are taking up munimum wage jobs.
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the truth, the environment and nature can all be harsh. but it is the truth
 
Higgins86 said:
little harsh to say its often stupid decisions that lead people to poverty,
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not really. the number one cause of poverty is divorce, and number two is failing to marry the other parent of your children in the first place.
 
Higgins86 said:
little harsh to say its often stupid decisions that lead people to poverty, even people coming out of the military are taking up munimum wage jobs.
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Certainly it's true sometimes... stupid decisions do tend to put people in bad conditions. I was born poor but were it not for the farm land left to my family we'd have been in dire straits. That land sold for a decent amount of money. My father had a H.S. education and was a truck driver and a farmer... my mother was a seamstress and cook with 8 grades of education. However, what they had they provided to their kids to better themselves and we all have done better than our parents both educationally and in our ability to make money, keep jobs, invest, etc... My parents were poor, all of us kids are middle class to upper middle class.

Agreed that military are in dire straits when they get out today. No one wants to hire them even though they have more experience and ability than many of the current work force at a very young age. Not sure when that happened, but it is a damn shame that they have to take minimum wage jobs. Their qualifications (in general) are worth more.
 
TurtleDude said:
the truth, the environment and nature can all be harsh. but it is the truth
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very true and I admit myself that everything I have now is due to a good work ethic that my Dad drilled into me, that being said im not going to turn my back on the poorest. Yes some of them are lazy, drug addicts etc but a good majority are not and deserve a shot. The average compensation of a CEO in 1980 was about 40 times that of the average worker in his company. Today it is more than 500 times! This is the kind of **** that needs to stop.
 
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Higgins86 said:
very true and I admit myself that everything I have now is due to a good work ethic that my Dad drilled into me, that being said im not going to turn my back on the poorest. Yes some of them are lazy, drug addicts etc but a good majority are not and deserve a shot. The average compensation of a CEO in 1980 was about 40 times that of the average worker in his company. Today it is more than 500 times! This is the kind of **** that needs to stop.
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You do understand that being against more and more government, more and more taxation of those of us who already are carrying the burden for millions who either cannot or will not pay for what they use is not the same as opposing charity or the same as turning our backs on those who are truly needy.

and its the shareholders of a corporation and market demand that should determine executive compensation
 
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