Voting in a democracy should not be a right.
For some reason liberals love to idealize Athens as the home of democracy, our historical tradition and origins.
Apart from 2 things.
1. Slavery
2. Random selection of politicians
I would say we beat them in the first point and the second one they beat us after all a chimp or a house plant could probably do as good a job as some of our officials.
Nevertheless to the point
How can you want to convince people on economic policy that do not understand economics ?
Is it an encouraging sign that when we talk about 'the belief' of climate change or lack there of?
If driving a car is a privilege and not a right, an activity one requires a licence for why should the fate of a nation and world be decided on the whim of people who are possibly contemptuously stupid ? How can you burden people to make decisions many of whom are unqualified to do so and call it a 'right'? Under the same auspices of 'rights' I have the 'right' to express opinions about rocket science, knowing nothing about the topic however I instead choose the right to remain silent.
Socrates asked questions similar to these once in Athens, and they killed him and giving us our own figurative Jesus figure. Only Socrates did not die for our sins, but our ignorance, prejudice and stupidity. If it was wrong for people unqualified to kill Socrates then it should be wrong for people who find it hard to spell their own name ruining democracy today.
Apart from 2 things.
1. Slavery
2. Random selection of politicians
I would say we beat them in the first point and the second one they beat us after all a chimp or a house plant could probably do as good a job as some of our officials.
Nevertheless to the point
How can you want to convince people on economic policy that do not understand economics ?
Is it an encouraging sign that when we talk about 'the belief' of climate change or lack there of?
If driving a car is a privilege and not a right, an activity one requires a licence for why should the fate of a nation and world be decided on the whim of people who are possibly contemptuously stupid ? How can you burden people to make decisions many of whom are unqualified to do so and call it a 'right'? Under the same auspices of 'rights' I have the 'right' to express opinions about rocket science, knowing nothing about the topic however I instead choose the right to remain silent.
Socrates asked questions similar to these once in Athens, and they killed him and giving us our own figurative Jesus figure. Only Socrates did not die for our sins, but our ignorance, prejudice and stupidity. If it was wrong for people unqualified to kill Socrates then it should be wrong for people who find it hard to spell their own name ruining democracy today.
Comments (65)
Also, does anyone understand economics?
A democracy isnt just about the right to vote. The people have a responsibility to be informed, thats part of it. The state of democracy is the west is a result of the voting public sitting on its ass and being content to know nothing. The people have failed their democracy, not the other way around.
In what way?
It's like some dude in MidWest America telling everyone during WWII that maybe Hitler wasn't all that bad and that democracy is a lie.
Socrates was offered exile. It's his fault for refusing it.
Were they mortal enemies with Sparta because the Spartans were like Hitler?
Were the Athenians being lied to?
Granted the Athenians wanted to do the same to Sparta so it wasn't like the Athenians were any better. By that point of the war, no one knew why they were fighting anymore, except that neither side wanted to lose.
Athens at least had the decency to give him a trial. If he had shown up in Sparta with his views, he would have been stabbed on sight.
So...how is your comparison with WW2 valid?
Anyway, sounds like Socrates had a point, rather than just being an asshole.
Also, his execution was on account of his philosophy and against the grain teachings to the youth of Athens.
People form factions to fight other factions. Beliefs are necessary to maintain unity. Otherwise, everyone goes their own way, your side loses the war, and your sister, your mother, and your wife gets raped by foreign soldiers with large phalluses.
Even if Socrates had a point, he presented it at the wrong time and place.
Im not really sure where you are coming from here. I do not recall the war being at all the focus of what he was about. Why would his teachings to the youth of Athens weaken the war effort? When Socrates spoke of soldiery it was from his own experience as a soldier, and wasnt derogatory that I can recall.
Also, Socrates was willing to die for his principals, in fact he did. To suggest he should have put them aside to maintain some questionable unity (questionable that his teachings would effect unity) is to not understand Socrates and the importance of his story.
Furthermore, the "Socrates" you're thinking of is different from the "Socrates" the Athenians back then were thinking of. So technically in your post you aren't even talking about the same person as the one we believe the Athenians executed 2000 or so years ago.
Lol, ok.
Let's put it this way: can you picture Socrates? Can you hear his voice?
Answer: Only if you imagine it. There were no video cameras back then. Any pictures of Socrates come from sculptures made by people 1000 years later, which may or may not be accurate. Any voice you hear when you read the stuff he writes is an invented voice that your mind fills in. Your mental representation of Socrates is different from the mental representations of the Athenians back then (who did see his face and hear his voice). Consequently, when you refer to Socrates in your posts you're referring to a different Socrates then them.
Unlike driving a car or shooting a gun, being a good citizen who understands the decisions that need to be made is not a skill that can be directly measured because the people holding the rulers have their own politics and bundles of interest.
Unrestricted suffrage is the only way to get people to buy into results of elections. Otherwise, there is no reason to support elections when "your" side is getting the short end of the stick.
It is true that clueless people are not helping the republic. The need to educate them for that purpose is not the central focus of our present system.
No no I am not talking about any other right, free speech, religion, guns, you can have guns... But you can't vote if you cannot read Harry Potter.
Seems Fair to me..... We have many people in our society who are recognized as needing additional assistance some to the extent of being warded... Why cannot you not look at Brexit where Cambridge Analytica helped gather target data.... Running a big red advert with bullshit stats on a computer and rather than be skeptical the targeted people voted on that basis... ]
They could have taken their hand moved it to a tab and googled something but didn't... Why? No answer so what is the answer... Pass the parcel of blame.
So now it is facebooks fault, googles, fault, the newspapers fault, politicians faults, anyone but the 2 digit IQ motherfuckers that is who... Now I don't want any eugenics, to put them out of work or anything else but I think one of two things needs to occur.
a) secessionist state... cut the cord, let them go and let nature take its course
b) No more voting for what is a clear and obvious liability to democracy, the dumb fuck.
Whether or not you can or cannot 'think', you are a stakeholder in how you are governed. Your comprehension of how you are governed is irrelevant to that fact that you are governed.
There is good empirical research that suggests the general publics taste of politics is irrelevant to policy making. I will get the study from home once I leave the office if you want to raise the conversation with evidence based premises. Short of anarchy being governed is an inevitability. Moreover plenty of institutions advocate on behalf of people all the time without any interference, for instance NPR's for cancer research or the homeless.
Do you think the cancer patient or homeless set the policy of the NPR for which they are as a non voting passive member the beneficiary of ? I think you are using stakeholder too loosely, idealistically and axiomatically to be really addressing the argument made at all...
The argument is based on a bad analogy. That's all I'm pointing out. Everything else you wrote is irrelevant.
So your deference to a bad analogy is your very own bad analogy... You engage polemic as literal with your own village bicycle kind of lose concept of stakeholder then categorically deny every ostensible edification or clarification of the original argument calling it irrelevant.
No for people like you I move to evidence based claims or nothing because it is fire ball in the sky called the sun obvious, a fruitless endeavor to talk to you otherwise.
It's funny how words acquire such stable positive or negative connotations that people forget about their meaning and remember only the connotation. It's like someone saying "I am not a racist, I just hate niggers."
Just felt the need to highlight that this is ideological garbage. Democracy is the pacifying of those who might otherwise turn to violent revolt by providing alternative means of complaint. That doesn't make it any less necessary, or less of a good idea, but it just worsens arguments like the OP to respond with idealogy.
If democracy were about the governed having a say in how they are governed, they why are children not allowed to vote? Are they not 'governed'?
Nope. Unfortunately they are enslaved. Enslaved to a system that makes them believe they have a say in how they are governed.
Democracy is above all a safety valve. It isn't perfect, but as a safety valve it works brilliantly. Yes, there are ignorant people and those who don't care at all about the actual politics, but it gives the society a peaceful way to change the political course if everything is going wrong. Democracy doesn't eradicate the problems of politics like corruption, but it tends to work better than a system without any trace of democracy.
Without democracy there is no safety valve. The machine either works or ends up breaking up totally usually rather violently. That's a bad thing.
Lazy edgelord rubbish.
What on earth is "edgelord rubbish"? I mean, I'm guessing it's bad...
I think you have taken democracy in your head and thought "this is all it can be"
Excluding the ancient Athenian randomization principle of election.
Excluding the fact that it is only relatively recently that minorities and women got the vote.
Excluding illegal immigrants
Excluding foreigners whom might be affected by your dumb-dumb enfranchizing democracy leading to economic collapses because of your own elected incompetence.
Excluding the foreigners whom are killed and slaughtered on mass despite the majority of people not wanting a war they get it because 'they voted'
I think you are unable to separate the ideal from the real, or you are one of those rare bright-eyed people who trust their government and feel somehow enfranchized by their shitty policy. Tell me in this democracy when often we need 5-10 year plans and things can change at a whim how you can possibly enfranchize any stakeholder. If you don't know what cognitive dissonance means you might have a fruitful self-reflective experience if you google it.
Moreover, it isn't as if I have just looked around the thought "I need a scapegoat" I have more or less identified a group and said they are a threat to democracy and specifically why in some arbitrary nonsensical way... I have exactly NOT done what YOU ACCUSE me of which is blind prejudice. Nowhere have I said 'black people should not vote because they are black' or anything to the effect.
Rather I have pointed out to the incompetence of large swathes in the population being unable to participate in civics anyway. While the media describes them as victims, misguided, preyed upon for this democratic burden you want to impart nobody will say why these people are victims, misguided or preyed upon.
Furthermore this idea that every stakeholder should be enfranchized at the expense of any other consideration or context is exactly the kind of cancer abstraction and justification these postmodern Ponzi schemes, pedaling shitheads use when they think someone should lose their job every time a liberal tear is shed...
They also use the same kind of irrational appeal if a speaker is invited to go to the University in an attempt of deplatforming. In spite of the law of the land, the function of the university or any other opinion contrary to their own.
Your utopian democracy does not exist, it is a fiction of your own mind... A dream no more real than when you sleep at night sadly you are doing it consciously.
FInally, someone said something worth responding too...
Fair point but then do you think we should run it as is or do you think a citizen elect by randomization would be more helpful....
Moreover in principle, if I could point to say the American States where large amounts of the adult population have gradeschool level literacy and numeracy should we just remove the age cap from voting?
I mean part of me is saying this half-jokingly but only half just look at the EU....
I mean I get what you are saying but to me a system of government needs to be able to solve problems. WIth global banking becoming a Quantitative Easing international agenda which in English just means a corporate welfare state and global warming.... I am struggling to find the commitment or structure necessary to bring the deals to the fore and make the changes that need to be made.
I look at what happened with the EU that introduced some very forward-thinking policies, were about as left as one could get in a lot of ways.... Then Brexit happened and has in ways jeopardized the entire project. The media did their usual three-ring circus of paranoia and fear whilst part of a targeted campaign which was an illegal invasion of privacy and against the laws of the U.K. the over capitalization of advertising.... We end up with this mess and in the end what were the adverts
Big red banner ads saying some shit about Turkish Immigrants coming over in impossibly high bullshit rates, Muslims coming to take jobs and so on.
It is racist toxic shit....
So if you expect me to sit here and say no... this is a safety net, democracy at work as it were... No it clearly is democracy destroying what was a carefully constructed vision of EU politics for multiple years.... Run down and run over by a swing vote of dumb fucks being manipulated.
It is absurd.... It isn't like I sat in a classroom and didn't like some kid that couldn't read or something it is 8 years of Bush, Trump and Brexit that will make you bitter... I predicted Trump would win the election the moment he ran.... you know why ? Because I thought that looks like someone who voted in fake-rancher G.W. would go for....
Where is the safety net? As is I mean?
Quoting thedeadidea
Where have I done this?
A strong case can be made that Socrates was guilty as charged. We should not assume that the way we might evaluate these issues post Socrates is the way we would have evaluated them then. Whether one judges him to have corrupted the youth depends in large part on whether you were a patriotic citizen who believed in the Athenian traditions regarding gods and men. It should be noted that Socrates did not deny the charges of atheism. We may approve of the changes he helped bring about, but the jury was persuaded that he posed an existential threat.
As to voting:
It can be argued that since everyone is effected by at least some of the decisions made by the government, they should have a voice is how they are to live. In addition, intellect alone does not assure that one will make the right decision. Well informed, intelligent people often reach very different conclusions.
Your problem here is that Athens itself did not idealize democracy, so your entire debate is founded on a far deeper falsity than you state.
Socrates, who you quote, was no fan of democracy and an idealist and eventually eschewed. Aristotle is the proper origin of modern democracy (I started a separate thread on the issue of slavery (and AHEM women) on that. Aristotle was a realist, not an idealist, and called democracy the best option among worse alternatives. He was rather more practical minded and cynical and not an idealist at all.
With regard to votes, his debate centers on the benefit of oligarchy versus equality for all, the latter of which is of course, appears controlled by the poor, because there are always more of them. And I will try to summarize it because it is quite long. If you have say 2 rich and 4 poor voting equally, one of the poor quickly realizes they can be more powerful by voting with the rich. If there 2 rich and 6 poor, the poor realize they can split in two and each group can partner either with the rich group or the other poor group to win. And the latter example can collapse into the first, because there 1 person realizes, again, he can switch groups to make a 4:4 split. So what naturally evolves is a system where the rich and poor have equal power decided by a tiny swing group, or even a single person.
Does that, by the way, sound at all familiar to you?
So as to who vote for them, Aristotle agrees, with Plato, that it would be nice if everyone were as intelligent as you, but its impossible. Aristotle disagrees however that a small thinking class should have absolute power, because different crafts and skills earn money in different ways. Plato agrees with that latter point too, but Aristotle's point is, if only a small number of people control the power, they will have a natural bias towards the skills they possess themselves (also a sly stab at sophists with Socrates' view). To assure that the society acts in the interest of all proportionally, all people must have equal control in some aspects of a democratic government.
The issue, Aristotle says, is defining which parts of the system should be controlled more by an oligarchic system, and which by individual equality. So he is more of the opinion that both need to be going on at the same time, which is, in fact what happened in Ancient Greece, and which happens in the USA now too, as its almost entirely based on Aristotle's politics, as far as voting goes (doesnt include the legal wing which was instead defined by Locke's ideas on natural rights).
Please note the google translation of democracy
a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.
Note the underlined bolded passage I have not said your definition is illegitimate only too narrow to apply to my argument in the way you want it to that is matter of fact. I previously clarified this and tried to elaborate on it so I will try dictionary games just to point out and make it as emphatically clearly as I possibly can...
DEMOCRACY HAS MORE CONNOTATIONS THAN YOU THINK IT DOES!
If this is still a failure I am at a loss as I have not the finances or your geographical location to sent a marching band by your house and am limited in any way to further make explicit what is implicit in the meaning of the word. Moreso I am loathed to further elaborate this single idea.
More so it is moronic to be on a philosophical forum and insist that ideas and concepts can only be discussed in your normative ideological refrain. If you want to be a good little unthinking normie go on facebook, twitter away there are so many mediums for you already.
Quoting SophistiCat
I am glad you asked so here is you full original post so lets break it down
Quoting SophistiCat
i) note the personal address
ii) the rhetorical question and equivocation to someone I already clearly don't agree with
iii) Again your democracy only definition see previous post + inference of my position by i) + ii)
iv) Rhetorical simile equivocating prejudice by way of (i,ii, iii)
Do you have any other questions?
I take Brexit as a good example of this and the geopolitical instability because there was a targeted propaganda campaign at dumb dumbs that in large part helped swing the vote.
I am asking is there anything more than an appeal of universal rights you can give?
Honestly.
If adults who have the reading, numerical abilities of a 12-year-old can decide the fate of the nation if this is a good idea why can't a 7-year-old who is reading at a 15-year-old level vote?
The voting line of age seems completely arbitray and given how stupid some people are I am not at all afraid of infants voting... Campaigning with tellytubbys bring that shit on.... At least the absurdity and depravity of the current ideological clusterfuck would be shown to be the 3 ring circus in a hand half an inch in front of your face...
Either make the argument that allowing the systemic risk of Brexit is somehow a necessary condition of the political fate of the nation and a necessary pain... or just admit you can't think of reasons why dumb-dumbs should vote either....
I think you made some great points but again we awkwardly get around the "greek" you are in and slave and women out...
I am not pointing out that Athens romanticized democracy, we fucking do.... It is the Barrack Obama photo opp, the liberal propaganda... I don't think alot of people buy into that shit alot of the time and then election time rolls around....
YES WE CAN..... "no you won't"... dreams are broken tears are shed...
then
LETS MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN..... oh for the love of fucking god please no.... Did it happen, why? after 8 years of fake-ranching G.W. Why the fuck is this a thing?
I don't have it in me anymore I have no good reason I can actually give. Brexit though was the tipping point....
More than that though what concerns me is the narrative and shaping of public opinion say "deregulation" as what is honestly a meme.... Deregulation of what? in what sense?
Nope.... Deregulation = GOOD
We get the deregulation under Clinton that then passed to Bush that leads to the 2008 financial crisis. Plenty of people have written intelligent journalism, pointed out the faults but it gets squashed by a political message designed for children... Not for children but for adults with the cognitive, literacy and numeracy skills for children... I just can't do it anymore...
I think many people who would completely try to shut down this kind of thinking of limited freedoms would also simultaneously deny capitalism.... Because they recognize it is not as advertised unless they are insane the better arguments against capitalism do not presuppose evil. But that 'free markets' are an illusionary fiction as right they should instead arguing in some specific sense that rather than social welfare we have corporate welfare... But the same kind of 'not as advertised' criticism or polemic cannot be generated about democracy?
Why?
.
I do not recognize my comment in your reply. I will put it in other words.
Every restriction of suffrage has been carried out by actual agents, duly assigned by whoever has the power to do so. The measures you call for have been called for by others. It was a central feature of the politics of the Jim Crow South.
How will you make sure that your program does not suffer the corruption so blatantly on view in the past?
Firstly it wouldn't be my program in order to formalize it you would need a democratic process of expertize and votes....
Second Jim Crow laws were about a racial hierarchy of prejudice that assumes the white is superior to the black for little to no reasoning. In contrast, I think I have generated sufficient reason as to why ignorance and stupidity is a threat to democratic governments.
Thirdly are you trying to imply that there is some kind of safety net to stop people from suffering corruption now? If so specifically what is it /
Fourth in terms of 'blatant discrimination' with how much-standardized testing goes into determining the collective intelligence of people, the value and success of education and admissions to the better schools or not I don't think my program as it were or how we would get there.... Is in the kind of esoteric nebula of hypothetical possibility and not actually existing in some way already that you seem to think it is...
Fifth my program would not just assess literacy and numeracy but specifically civics, critical reflection and research techniques... Including gestalt activities, being exposed to propaganda and things like Brexit showing why it is a catastrophe and urging people NOT TO LET IT HAPPEN TO THEM. I have no interest on teaching anything else and if you need more constitutional certainty... that is fine...
Sixth my program is not prohibitive in passing but LICENSE citizenship is EARNED and not freely given... Just as reaching a certain age is sufficient for one to try to get a car license to demonstrate sufficient competency...
You want to be an architect you need a license
You want to be a lawyer you need a license
You want to be a doctor you need a license
You want to be an accountant you need a license
You want to own a business in many places you need a license
You want to drive a car you need a license
You want to be a citizen you need a certificate (if you are an immigrant)
In nearly every other sphere of life where one party has some kind of liability or responsibility to another one is required to have a proof of competency... In all cases but one and that is the current Disneyland Democracy being argued for where even the Village Idiot called Frank gets to be a special little snowflake.
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
That is quite a program.
Who will execute it?
I hope he answers: "the lazy edgelord".
Quoting Valentinus
If you want to be this disingenuous let me go with.
I don't know but I believe the final solution exists somewhere.
I have no idea who would bring about the changes you ask for.
Oh ho ho ho ho. Is this what the OP is implying? If so I support it.
You have identified some valid problems with universal suffrage in a democracy, but that's easy. What alternative do you propose? Identify the "right" people? I don't see a perfect way to do this. In universal suffrage, there's a chance the idiocy on all sides cancel each other out.
Quoting Relativist
What is hard about the idea that an age cap on democracy arbitrarily draws a line in the sand whilst insisting on a sufficient criterion of intelligence, literacy, and numeracy would be a better standard of voting capacity.... That there are probably some 12-year-olds better informed than 40-year-olds and one is arbitrarily enfranchized over the other and my nominal and small prospective change would flip this...
Is it you cannot grasp the idea because you dislike it in your stomach? OR Is it a genuine comprehension problem? I am lost to a certain conclusion.... OR my specific claim of utopia... this isn't the end of history or the kingdom of heaven if you wanted a True World Theory you came to the wrong thread.
Quoting Valentinus
Quoting thedeadidea
The answer is WE would bring it about by changing the laws of the land, if people agreed to it. Before I get change I need hearts and minds... Start small by saying if you don't have a reading/math level of an 18 year old & a civics education test (the one immigrants take to get citizenship) you get excluded from voting.
There is already something very much like a Wizard of Oz version of democracy where behind the curtain there is something very different to what is presented on the surface. Modern Democracies have made it almost a habit of divesting as much power as possible to institutional bodies to act autonomously of the government as a defacto representative. This not only dilutes democracy but is the current disneyland version of democracies version of trying to have experts dictate policy.
Why? Because drama and conflict outsells intelligent discussion any day of the week. Polarity more readily stimulates a response from even the most intelligent and rational citizen, so they give air time to whingers and devil’s advocates, generating an assumption that what they’re saying has value other than simply stimulating response from others.
Rescinding the right to vote from the uninformed and ignorant will only generate a different form of class conflict. It’s not a solution, and to tout it as such only shows a lack of sympathy and an ignorance of what it’s like to be denied access to information, or to be raised ignorant.
That the age cap on democracy fails to ensure a standard of voting capacity is an indictment on our education and value systems. What happens historically when the ‘ruling elite’ dictate the criterion on which one can become enfranchised? Do you not see the problem with your supposed ‘utopia’?
& someone finally tries to run my ideas through a word that actually exists and finds out the tragic despot failure of the position. Alas I concede the flaw in my position as something applicable but I do stick to the principle. The fact immigrants need to get their 'citizenship license' and natives just get it for free is absurd. I don't think the test is the problem I think the problem is that it isn't a universal principle for voting rights.
So instead we will likely end up in a technocracy, for it is utterly more realistic. Alas I tried.
Everyone will get to rule eventually... I will make a drug induced VR euthanasia available so everyone can rule. Whilst us normies will get the benefit of you ceasing to be... It is win-win.
IMO the fact that most are not informed is not the biggest problem. The bigger problem is that people do not know how to think critically. Those who get "better informed" just fit the information into their existing ideological framework. We seek out news sources that fit our ideology, so even much of the new information has already be framed to fit our ideology.
What can we do? Education. Teach critical thinking skills. We can't teach everyone all the relevant information, but we can at least help them better evaluate what they DO hear.
An example was Jane Elliott's blue eye- green eye experiment designed to give kids a confrontational and solidarity based experience in discrimination. It was something viewed as heretical and would still be viewed traumatizing...
What to do?
There is too many Theory running wishy-washy Marxists running around the University I worked close too in England and are doing the same here.... It is amazing they think that it is going unnoticed the attempt to advocate a curriculum with Derrida and Deconstruction. Really this is an inroad to bring back the right-minded construction theory and lesson plans with no concern for classroom management or measured engagement... inevitably creating shit pedagogy. You should consider having a listen to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak talk at the University of London (on youtube) as she talks about the difficulty of contextualizing Derrida at a University level.
In spite of that difficulty it has a good chance becoming curriculum you want to know why? Even though it is a garbage idea there is a market for it... Hearts and Minds determines what becomes real or not... I won't win people to my side but the fact that I have said this time and time again....
Nobody has argued that stupid people contribute to a democracy outside of the principle...
If I argued and I think it is unfair that black people, women or some other group based on arbitrary demography should not get the vote. I would be condemned... For articulated and passionate calls for justice... Why? Because it is arbitrary, small minded prejudice... This is a good sign but more needs to be done.
But it is fine.... all something will happen this that and more
Eventually humanity will tire of its own bullshit and just let the computers be in charge... Seems more realistic than just stopping dumb fucks ruining democracy.... But then I always was a romantic.
Well I don't live in the States and I just left England.
So as much as possible it really isn't my problem.
You just keep doing American things.
4 more years of Trump cannot wait.
Sounds fantastic and wonderful.
We loved the wall in the brochure.
Democracy will prevail and the Will of the People
An idiot president for idiots democracy at work
Hoo Fuckin Rah God Bless America.
https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2018-10-12/2-of-3-americans-wouldnt-pass-us-citizenship-test
Read this... Have a look at a citizenship test and tell me your children would not be better educated by a squirrel... making their rights tied to their highschool diploma... You bet those fuckers will be doing all kinds of reading and writing.
A question if I may:
Are you suggesting that YOU get to decide who the "stuid and gullible" are?
If not...how will that be decided?
Having anticipated this I have already pointed to any number of standards we have allowed to be culturally imposed in multiple ways in life. To the point of also including a citizenship test for immigration. The current litmus test is merely age.... you just need to exist and be born within a certain range of latitude and longitude and hey presto you are an adult citizen and you get a vote.
My argument is more let's not make it arbitrary anymore and tie it to any number of standards already produced whilst also promoting education in civics and critical thinking/reflection things already taught and have been taught for decades.
Moreover I am not saying this test should be a one time deal that is you fail you fail forever, you can take it infinity times... But you have to pass it much like you have to pass a drivers test in order to drive...
Given that your question just has me repeating myself may I ask a question...
Do you read what others write..... or do you more read what you want to read?
Sure you can ask your question, but I see it as a rather strange question!
Like most (like everyone, I suppose), I read what I want to read.
You do also. Right?
Anyway, I agree it is arbitrary to base voting rights on age...but at least that has to do with something easily defined and authenticated. ("How long you been alive and can you prove it?")
"Are you 'smart' enough to vote"...is not so easily defined. And what you (or a majority) might consider a minimum of intelligence to vote...might exclude people better prepared to make a reasonable selection of whom they want to represent them than those you deem to be "intelligent enough."
In any case, "the current litmus test" is NOT merely age. The desire to vote is also a test. One must go through the process of registering...and completing a ballot.
That desire to vote...seems to me to go a long way toward meeting a standard of being intelligent enough to make a reasonable decision.
Said another way: I'd love to see more people qualify to vote as opposed to seeing fewer qualified due to the standards you advocate imposing.
If the entire notion of biased of reading is meaningfully codified to subjective experience as the meaningful standard.... sure I do...
Insofar as it is hard to define.... well Cambridge Analytica launched a targeted advertising campaign and identified their victims well... Although I wouldn't say it is as 2+2 =4 we are getting a lot better at it.Big Data will take care of that proofing but Big Data will take over everything including democracy more and more.
Al most EVERYONE reads what they want to. Nobody forces people to read things.
That is what you do...and it certainly is what I do.
Love It Love Democracy Do It...
We the collective will of dumb fucks
Shall have our dumb fuck elect
Awesome... good luck with it... Everytime you are haunted by it by the way is a moment in time I am right
The role of government tends to be delegation more so than direct leadership...
Government does not set a highschool syllabus implicitly, they set standards on what to and not to include in abstract, total hours and so on at best... the Department of Education in a nation sets curriculum....
Having a formal standardized standard of what is acceptable for voting, what needs to be included in the test, to the appropiate education level, designating school curriculum, adult education, funding for apps, things like that... THAT is a political policy
It would then be handed off too someone else to deal with and formalize...
So specifically how would you fix this problem... specifically a method... it doesnt need to be pitch perfect manual.... I am asking for an A B C D plan in general that could feasibly exist within the current culture...
Rather than appealing to say "education" as if by way of a magical pixie fart we suddenly bump the collective IQ of a nation up by 3 points and reading average up significantly....
I feel like if you look through my posts I started from an argument and addressed the criticisms of how as reasonably as should be expected in an internet forum.... I also pointed out a license as proof of competency for just about fucking everything and anything now.
But the one exclusion seems to be democracy.... It is fine for open heart surgery or something as simple as driving a car but one no matter how much of a dumb fuck they are should be given free voting based on meeting an arbitrary voting age and coming out of one particular vaginal canal within an acceptable degree of latitude and longitude... Well take a good fucking look at the aesthetic argument...
That shit right there is the real price of freedom.
As for critical thinking faculties being developed no... it isn't utopian It works in most of British education just not Welsh and rural education that got left behind that was brexit... The education outside certain areas and inside others is a tale of two education systems....
Nowhere is this more evident than the United States with the best Education at the top end of universities.... But woefully depressing educational averages in stark contrast.
We're not (at least in the U.S.) forcing people to vote. I wouldn't say it's a burden to folks if they're only doing it because they're choosing to do it.
Aside from that, I don't want to say that people are required to know something particular or to have particular beliefs, etc. to vote. (And I also don't want convicted felons to not be able to vote, by the way.) If we're worried about people not having enough info to vote intelligently, then how about we work to provide the info instead?
On whether or not they can spell the word "stupid".
Oh, fuck. And you gotta be the one to spot it.
I (everyone) should check each post before actually posting it.
My bad.
I suppose you're quite right when you point out the flaws of democracy, however, in theory, a dictatorship/aristocracy etc. (assuming a, by any measure, "perfectly suitable" person/group of persons in charge) works out just fine as well, whereas in practice its flaws begin to surface; the magnitude of which, especially considering (recent) history, surely exceeds the flaws of democracy you are lamenting.
I'm not saying don't criticise unless you can offer something better (though that's always desirable) but in this debate it is useful to question the alternative.
Furthermore, your argument (which (subliminally) isn't inherently undemocratic; I suppose you still believe in contest of ideas etc.) erodes the legitimacy of democracy which, for instance, would be legitimized by the social contract in which citizens confer power to a group of leaders that in return provides security and rule of law etc. (e.g. Hobbes or Locke) or the natural right to property etc. which legitimizes legislative power. So if you're unwilling to give citizens their say you are inevitably endorsing tyranny etc.