The Glade 4.0

Would they then be allowed to vote on state and local matters?

Education I would agree with for primary education. I would argue that most 4-year degrees from secondary education still means something.

Totally up to their states; as the Constitution and Tenth Amendment allow.
Not really; they just form a voting block that's disproportionately likely to vote for larger government, as evidenced by 2008.

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Absolutely nothing. Nothing says you're gonna play well when you sit down at a poker game, either. But if it's your money on the table, you can do what you want with it.

Luck is a valid survival trait, too.

Survey says "No".

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In my opinion, yes. I can't speak for Khross, and I suspect I'd be less liberal than he on this subject. I'd limit it to land ownership, if I could.

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In time, this too shall pass.

But it doesn't indicate the ability to vote responsibly, which was DE's postulate.



In what way? property taxes go to state and local coffers, not national. I'd say having a job that pays federal income taxes is more of an investment in the nation than owning a piece of property.

It isn't about having intellegence, it's about having a stake in the scope, and performance of your government.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

I explained that already.



So? Either you piss it away, or you purchase something that gives you a stake in the system. It also can't be "readily" lucked into; that's a fairly uncommon occurance.



No one said anything about a test of ability to vote responsibly. The point is that if you have a stake in the system then you suffer the consequences of voting. If you're not owning a buisness or property or in the military, you don't.



I think that voting should require a high school diploma (which should also be harder to earn), but I don't see that educated people are any more likely to vote responsibly if they have no stake in the system. Noam Chomsky is highly educated. He's also got absolutely moronic political and social viewpoints.

I should also point out that people with money are also more likely to get a college education, so that really holds no advantages in relation to being a property owner.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I think you are confusing the population of people in the midst of earning their 4-year degrees with the demographic that already earned them and are out in the workforce.

No, that wasn't my postulate. I don't care about ability to vote responsibly. I care about incentive to do so. People are responsible when there's an incentive to be responsible; "ability" generally has nothing to do with it unless we're talking about people so impaired as to be incompetant to execute responsibility of any kind.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

My position isn't that folks should vote responsibly, it's that they should have an investment. If they aren't responsible, they'll lose their investment, after all.I'm also a proponent of greater states power and less reliance on federal government. The strength of a republic is like a chain, in my opinion - it's as strong as it's weakest link.

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In time, this too shall pass.

But from what Khross said, I gather people can buy a business license, do nothing with it (in effect, it'd have no more value than the receipt you'd get when you pay a poll tax), and then vote as irresponsibly (by whatever definition; I'm sure various people define "responsible" voting in various ways) as they want to. If a business license is reduced to a poll tax receipt for many who'd not qualify to vote in any other way, what exactly does this gain anyone, except to bring back an old, discredited system that was used to disenfranchise people?

Why not just demand a poll tax for non-property owners and be done with it? Seriously, that's what I see being advocated here.

Beryllin:

It's not a poll tax. But, whatever, you keep mis-stating my position because you think your lies mean something. So, let me explain this to you clearly:

52% of this nation bear 0% of the cost of running this nation at any level. Why do they get to dominate what this country does? Simply because there are more of them?

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Khross:

Where does the 52% number come from? The last data I saw had it at almost 49%, not that it's a huge statistical difference, it's well within the margin of error. I'm just curious about the source of the data.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Aside from the fact that Khross hasn't said "just buy a business license and you can vote" (he's pointing out that it's easy to get the license and start a buisness, not saying the buisness license is the buisness), who cares what a poll tax was used for in the past?

That's just a guilt by association fallacy. It's no different than saying that superhighways are a discredited idea because Hitler used them.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

DE: I beg to differ. You stated:



as the basis for defining property ownership as a common denominator.

I would also take issue with assuming that you cannot have a stake in the system without owning something. Property ownership represent only one sort of stake in the government. I'd argue simply holding a job represents a far more realistic basic common denominator in having a stake in the system.



Not in my experience here in silicon valley where insta-millionaires based on market fluctuations, buy outs, or company stock going through the roof is a fairly common occurrence.

I'm a property owner today, not because I worked and saved for 10+ years (which we did with >10% of every paycheck going into a saving account) but because when my company got bought out I made more money overnight than we'd been able to save in all those 10+ years combined.

Getting bought out reflected no ability or skill of my own, it's not something I could have worked towards. But under this proposed system, without representation all manner of federal housing laws, land use laws, labor laws, lending, bank & investment laws, etc could have been passed that would have forever kept us "chasing the dream". Without the housing bubble burst and our buy out I'm not sure that we would have ever been able to afford housing here.

So no, there is no convincing me that property ownership, aka money, is a fair basic common denominator for the ability to retain voting privilege.

I would agree that our current system is replete of examples of the Have-Nots take too much from the Haves. But this proposal goes far too far in re-balancing the equation.

UNLESS

You limit the federal government in ALL forms to regulating ONLY matters that directly impact property ownership. Khross has already said that these pseduo-citizens would not pay into federal taxes but hasn't defined what role the federal government would have in this brave new world. I'm sure the FFs are rolling in their graves at what the Central Government has become, but nonetheless there are still functions that a nation in the modern world needs that the FFs did not anticipate.

So what exactly are you begging to differ with?



Ok, so you take issue with it. I take issue with your position.



While fascinating, that's just Silicon Valley, and really is not generalizeable to anywhere else.



So what? I didn't argue that people needed to have any skill or ability; I pointed out that Khross wants people to vote reponsibly as do I. I don't see that responsibility is something that occurs based on ability; it occurs based on incentive. When you put someone in a position where they don't need to be responsible, they **** off. When you put them in a position where they do, they either are responsible, or they aren't and then they get tossed out. Same here. I don't give a **** if someone lucks into the ability to vote for a while; if they's an irresponsible shithead they'll lose it soon enough.



In other words, you've made up your mind ahead of time, and are arguing against positions people haven't taken.



Why? What is "too far" and how do you know this system goes past it?



This paragraph makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Dedolito:

It'd be Constitutionally limited. As far as things go, I just want people to be informed, make intelligent decisions, and not continually vote for the best packaged product. Barack Obama didn't win because he would make a good President; he won because he had the best marketing division. My general belief is that people with a vested interest in this nation will find themselves able and willing to vote under the system I've proposed. Those who don't, wouldn't be likely to vote or consider the issues anyway.

And, for the most part, it would solve the city state dilemma we currently face.

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Because they're people? Who live and breath and eat and die, just like you? People who perhaps have dreams and ambitions but circumstances they have not yet figured out how to overcome have kept them from being as successful as others?

I am not in favor of amending the Gettysburg address to read: "Government of the people who can pay, for the people who can pay, by the people who can pay, shall not perish...." Nearly every argument you've put forward has as its basis economics, Khross: Buy land. Buy a condo. Buy a business license. Serve 6 years in the military. Pay with money, or pay with time.

It's not directly a poll tax, but the effect is morally identical, imo. A business license, purchased for no more purpose then the ability to vote, is morally equivelent to paying a poll tax.

Beryllin:

Really? Expecting people to earn the things they want is morally equivalent to a poll tax? When did you become a socialist, Beryllin?

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Is it an atrocity that people under 18 can't vote?

There's already limits, and if voting is as important to you as you make it out, why cheapen it by limiting it to people who's sole accomplishment in this world is (hopefully) graduating from their parents home?

If something is worth having, it's worth striving for. If it's not worth striving for... what's it's worth?

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In time, this too shall pass.

Expecting people to pay for the ability to vote is morally equivalent, yes. There are lots of things I expect people to pay for. Voting is not one of them.

Beryllin:

That's rather ironic. You want people to be free to influence a government when they contribute nothing to the cost of its operation, while simultaneously bemoaning how our government is run. Seems to me you don't really understand the consequences of universal suffrage or the fact that history has proven it to be the greatest threat to freedom and liberty man has ever encountered.

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What happened to you, Khross? When did you lose sight of, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and are endowed...." Do you still believe that, or are some men more equal than others according to their ability to pay, or the hand that God dealt them somehow makes them less equal so that you get to vote and dictate to them the laws they will live under? In all my arguments against same sex marriage you never saw me sink that low: that I would deny homosexuals the ability to vote on the issue, same as I could, even in all my vehement opposition to that proposition. They have every right to have their voice heard at the ballot box, just as I do. You, imo, cannot say the same.

One has nothing to do with the other.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Equality of opportunity, or equality of outcomes, Bery, which is it?

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