Restrict the Right To Vote

Because all the stupid people get to vote and he cant control that in a democracy. Didnt he make this clear already.

 

Taking any kind of test in order to vote is stricly against the constitution. And I can almost guarantee you that any attempt to use testing to determine who could and could not vote would be critcized as an attempt to disenfranchise blacks simply because of past experience. My assumption and conclusion were both based on historical evidence.

 

All I am saying is that our form of government is a hybrid of democratic and republican principles. As I indicated Democracy is not that easy to define because there is no universally accepted definition of it. You seem fixed on the idea of a pure democracy. As far as I know there has never been a pure democracy. Rather nations have always had democratic elements combined with other forms of government. In the United States we have a democratic republic.

 

But in amending the constitution, we may effectively change our government. Wasn't it labeled peaceful revolution by a founder? Look, i understand your point of view, even if you don't understand mine. And most people would agree with you.

I like democratic principles, such that ALL eligible citizens are entitled to vote and elect officials. But then you have degenerates herded to polls like cattle. Brain-dead crack-heads stumbling into voting booths. A line should be drawn. Not with intelligence per se, but, lets say 'Aware' & 'Upstanding' citizens, with no regard to race, sex, age, or wealth. Any non-felon, passing a basic test requiring effort and time, and not on government welfare? (not sure, i can't solve all the worlds problems.)

The founders explicitly founded a Republic, where as defined as a government that was created to protect every individuals unalienable rights. This is quite powerful, and they placed in hand in hand with the word 'Republic'

So the gist of it is:

'REPUBLIC' should be a term much better understood and celebrated, as we do "Democracy".

 

I conceeded that historical evidence shows stuff like this in the past was racially motivated in my last post. However, He never mentioned race in this discussion except to state that this was not racially motived but based on percieved levels of intelligence and betterment through schooling, and people taking government handouts.

I am a person that takes things at face value when it comes to postings, emails, instant messages etc. In this instance if I don't read something that directly implies racisim in the original statement or do read something that excludes it, then I myself cannot base my opinion by injecting that issue into it. I can only base it on the facts given to me. I learned a lesson long ago to make as few assumptions as possible when "reading" someone's statements or questions and when I do have to make an assumption, I try (but am not always successful evidenced by my assumption of your post I critiqued) to assume that they were always said or asked without the intention of offending someone. By default I would assume that his ideas were not meant to be racist and by his statement later that I should not consider it in my opinion because it is his intention they be evaluated on other merits, namely the founding fathers ideas of our government and the constituionality of the idea.

I agree that these ideas can't be passed and I would base it on some laws and acts pased based on the Civil Rights movement. These laws, while they were passed to help correct a grevious wrong in our society (racism), are there to protect all citizens no matter what "protected group" they may or may not fall under and therefore to create a law that would disenfranchise anyone at all (not just people of a particular race or ethinicity or other protected group), which is what this would do, would be wrong in my opinion and I could not support it. I think you see we agree in principle, and essentially for the same reason, I just feel like I can't inject such a large issue into a conversation without being told to do so by the initiator when this is a hypothetical situation. You obviously feel different and I can appreciate and respect that. I apoligize for forgetting one of my cardinal rules by making some assumptions I shouldn't have.

However, were I to take into account our history and that the issue would inherently be involved, I will agree that in our society today, in all probability, the first and most prevailing defense to these suggestions by the public would be to say or imply that they are probably racially motivated before ever looking into the legality of it based on our constitution and laws. Because of that, I don't think any politician in his/her right mind would touch this with a 10 foot pole.

 

Check me, but I believe that passage is from the Declaration of Independence. Not the Constitution.

 

A true democracy would have citizens directly voting on everything. California plays around with this in the form of its propositions. They are useful at times, but I would argue the voters cause more mischief through propositions than they are worth.

As Red says - who defines degenerate? Who defines aware and upstanding?

The "problem" I think you're trying to solve is not caused by who gets to vote. It is caused by who chooses to vote.

If enough people decide they don't like the direction things are going, they will hit the polls and vote for something else. That happened this time. It will happen again. For instance, I think the House is going to find itself balanced, if not in GOP hands, far sooner than most expect. When folks feel threatened, they vote. They CHOOSE to vote.

I think the rules are just fine exactly as they are.

You seem to have a lot of political energy - I bet there's a candidate out there who would love to put that energy to good use. Like helping like-minded citizens CHOOSE to vote the way you would like them to.

 

guys (&gals?) , i've enjoyed the debate, and hope to continue on this topic in the near future, but duty calls. I'll be out of pocket for a while.

But my interest in peaked, and have already started rereading my bio on Jefferson. Looking for bios on other founding fathers as well (Franklin?). And maybe something on the Roman republic, small r history. And yeah, maybe something on 'democracy'