Universal suffrage a good thing?

[BadBoyBenny]

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You actually want me to argue why poor and uneducated people are capable of determining their own interests?

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I thought that was the OP's point.

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If that is the case, no amount of arguing will do the trick.

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Ok

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Do you also believe that the life of a poor and uneducated person is worth less than the life of a rich, educated one?

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I think some lives add more value to the rest of humanity than others. In general those people tend to be more educated. But it is not necessarily true in all cases.

Flame away.

[BadBoyBenny]

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With or without the pejoratives, why would, in your model, "more educated individuals" make choices FOR these imbecilic peons?

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I don't have a model.


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And how would these dirty stinking masses improve their lot in life if their interests conflicted with the more educated individuals?

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Like I said, I don't have a model, but I think it is silly to make the effort to post at all if you are only going to rephrase the OP'statment using sarasm or pejoratives without attempting to aruge the point.

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And how does "education" equal intelligence?

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Who said it does? I'll go out on a limb here and say that while it may not equal intelligence, it is safe to presume that there is some correlation.

[sam h]

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Iraq should have a loyal standing army, but that is far from an arguement for state involvement in cultural, personal, and business affairs.

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Unless it has a state that can involve itself in personal and business affairs, like extracting taxes from the population and keeping people from killing each other, then I wouldn't put too much hope in its long term viability as a democratic regime.

[Exsubmariner]

This is a really good thread.

The only thing here that I might have to add is that this sort of system where certain demographic blocks of people would be silenced or spoken for would lead to something like the old Stalin era Soviet system. What you would end up with was a top heavy, mob impregnated graft ridden society. While cretain institutions in America are already like this, the New Orleans and LA Police Departments and Democratic Party, for example, the present way of doing things does provide a counter balance which keeps things from going totally down the toilet, no matter how hard some treasonous beuracratic corrupt scum try.

[chessforlife]

"Does everyone really deserve a voice? Or should we restrict it to those who bother to pay attention, learn about the issues, etc?"

unfortunately everyone does deserve a vote.

the big problem is that restricting voting in any way would shatter the foundation of freedom that america is defined by. fatal corruption would now be possible.

democracy is a difficult business indeed.

[hmkpoker]

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"Does everyone really deserve a voice? Or should we restrict it to those who bother to pay attention, learn about the issues, etc?"

unfortunately everyone does deserve a vote.

the big problem is that restricting voting in any way would shatter the foundation of freedom that america is defined by. fatal corruption would now be possible.

democracy is a difficult business indeed.

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I agree. My post, which suggested that more knowledgeable people should have more weight to their votes in major economic/political decisions than the average joe. Practically, there's more that could go wrong than could go right because it's so open to corruption.

[eviljeff]

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Voting gives people the illusion of democracy.

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much like alcohol gives the illusion of drunkenness.

[mrmazoo]

Really?

Take this example:

You work for a large corporation. Every four years you and your coworkers get to pick your own boss by a vote. The only thing is, there are only two candidates and the owner of the company gets to choose them.

Would you call this a democracy?

[tylerdurden]

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Would you call this a democracy?

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No. The owner of the business has every right to select individuals any way he wants.

[Gunny Highway]

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How would you determine who gets suffrage and who doesn't?

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Literacy tests would be a good place to start. If one cannot read, one cannot educate himself/herself. If one cannot make educated decisions, one should not have a voice in the decisions made for everyone else.