-
[QUOTE=Zauriel;4802998]American voters are less informed and dumber in the 21st century than they were around 30 years ago. They have a responsibility to elect good leaders but unfortunately they aren't educated and informed enough to understand the issues (civil rights, abortion, climate change, global affairs, national security, etc) that affect their lives. They may have abused the privilege because they do not understand the political issues when they were electing their leaders.
Most of the states that elected Trump into office are sparsely populated, rural and agricultural states.
Maybe the states should re-introduce literacy tests to allow well-informed voters to only participate in the voting, so that the rednecks and trailer park people cannot vote in the elections anymore.
In the past the voters were required to pass literacy tests in order to register. But the restriction was intended to prevent the black voters from voting. The literacy tests rule also restricted the poor and illiterate whites, especially the illiterate rural rednecks who never enrolled in a university.
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_test[/url][/QUOTE]
You cant reintroduce something like literacy tests to prevent people from voting just because a person you dont like won the election. That kind of thing was done away with for a good reason. It smacks of oppression of the people. It was not okay to use such measures to keep blacks from voting and it is not okay to use those methods to keep poor whites from voting.
I suspect that had some suggested these kind of tests come back to keep a Democrat from winning a second term you would have went nuts. yet you suggest this to keep rural white people from voting. This is the most foolish thing I have heard on here.
I never enrolled in a university. Medical issues prevented this. And I live in a rural area. So what you are saying is that I have no right to vote. THis offends me a great deal.
-
People seriously considering things like literacy tests for voting need to be beaten over the head with a history book.
-
[QUOTE=tbaron;4803184]You cant reintroduce something like literacy tests to prevent people from voting just because a person you dont like won the election. That kind of thing was done away with for a good reason. It smacks of oppression of the people. It was not okay to use such measures to keep blacks from voting and it is not okay to use those methods to keep poor whites from voting.
I suspect that had some suggested these kind of tests come back to keep a Democrat from winning a second term you would have went nuts. yet you suggest this to keep rural white people from voting. This is the most foolish thing I have heard on here.
I never enrolled in a university. Medical issues prevented this. And I live in a rural area. So what you are saying is that I have no right to vote. THis offends me a great deal.[/QUOTE]
Agreed. What is needed, IMO, is not literacy or civics tests, but support for public education. I agree with a line from [I]The West Wing[/I] stating that (paraphrased) the US should regard education as it does defense, something that will be highly expensive but essential to the health of The Republic.
Moreover, you don't have to look solely to Rural America to find ignorance and bigotry. Such held sway in the Red States, but the Californias and New Yorks were not without their own. They just happened to be out numbered. Such sweeping generalizations only feeds the Balkanization Beast.
-
And its not just the Republicans that abuse the voting process. As I have said many times on here I have been to prison. When I was released I went to a half way house for 7 months. There was a caseworker there who was to help with our transition back into society. One of the things she went over were voter rights. But she would ask who you are going to vote for. If you are a republican or Democrat. Those like me who claimed to be a republican were told that as felons we had lost our voting rights. Those who were planing on voting for Clinton were told they could vote. This led to much confusion to the people of the half way house to the point that several missed the deadline to register because they were unsure if they should or were even allowed to. There was a complaint filed against her but her boss also a democrat did nothing. it wasnt until a lawsuit was threatened by the Aclu that action was taken. So both sides abuse the voting laws to make sure their candidate wins.
-
[QUOTE=tbaron;4803448]And its not just the Republicans that abuse the voting process. As I have said many times on here I have been to prison. When I was released I went to a half way house for 7 months. There was a caseworker there who was to help with our transition back into society. One of the things she went over were voter rights. But she would ask who you are going to vote for. If you are a republican or Democrat. Those like me who claimed to be a republican were told that as felons we had lost our voting rights. Those who were planing on voting for Clinton were told they could vote. This led to much confusion to the people of the half way house to the point that several missed the deadline to register because they were unsure if they should or were even allowed to. There was a complaint filed against her but her boss also a democrat did nothing. it wasnt until a lawsuit was threatened by the Aclu that action was taken. So both sides abuse the voting laws to make sure their candidate wins.[/QUOTE]
There's a big difference here: A halfway house worker isn't an elected official. It's still not right, but not 'both sides' worthy as the GoP are attacking the right to vote for millions from the top down.
-
[QUOTE=wjowski;4803348]People seriously considering things like literacy tests for voting need to be beaten over the head with a history book.[/QUOTE]
Yes. Taxation without representation is a bad thing for many reasons, as we should all know from studying the late 1700s.
-
[QUOTE=Dalak;4803615]There's a big difference here: A halfway house worker isn't an elected official. It's still not right, but not 'both sides' worthy as the GoP are attacking the right to vote for millions from the top down.[/QUOTE]
I will admit that the Republicans are pretty guilty of that. It is for this reason and a few other things the party has done in the last several years that I have become an independent.
-
[QUOTE=tbaron;4798979]We claim to hate the two party system but then third party candidates draw less then 5 percent.[/QUOTE]
No contradiction there. When you have a two party system, then any vote that isn't for one of the top two candidates is almost certainly wasted. That's the problem with two party systems.
-
[QUOTE=dancj;4804609]No contradiction there. When you have a two party system, then any vote that isn't for one of the top two candidates is almost certainly wasted. That's the problem with two party systems.[/QUOTE]
Regardless of the electoral system, the parties tend to align themselves into government and opposition blocs, and elections tend to be referenda on whether you support the current policy direction of the administration or not. Multiple parties acting independently tends to devolve into chaos rather quickly, because with no single party able to command a stable majority, the others can always join forces to block their initiatives out of spite, which no politician is above no matter what they might claim. And having a bunch of little single issue parties is problematic, because there isn't any broader organization that is working on how to combine these goals into a workable platform. What happens is that either these parties paint themselves into a corner of electoral irrelevance, or they just so happen to luck into the position of being a swing bloc in an evenly divided legislature in which case they can leverage this to get everything they want, neither of these two outcomes is particularly desirable.
-
[QUOTE=dancj;4804609]No contradiction there. When you have a two party system, then any vote that isn't for one of the top two candidates is almost certainly wasted. That's the problem with two party systems.[/QUOTE]
A 3rd party vote is not wasted because its a vote for the future. I voted for Gary Johnson in the last two elections. I knew there was no chance of him winning even one state let alone the election but the goal was to help him get to 5% of the vote as that would open up funding and visibility options for the next candidate in the next election. I also last election despised both Trump and Clinton so much that I would have stayed home before voting for either of them. It didn't work out. What it did do was have a lot of people scream "you helping Trump win" or "your helping Hilary win" when they found out I wasn't voting for either of them. There is a very good chance I'll be voting 3rd party this coming election as well. There is also this, I don't live in a swing state so my vote is utterly irrelevant unless I vote 3rd party in hopes of getting that candidate to 5%.
-
[QUOTE=TriggerWarning;4804808]A 3rd party vote is not wasted because its a vote for the future. I voted for Gary Johnson in the last two elections. I knew there was no chance of him winning even one state let alone the election but the goal was to help him get to 5% of the vote as that would open up funding and visibility options for the next candidate in the next election. [/quote]
That is a wasted vote. Focus on building your party up to a national scale first, going up 5% remains a waste when a Democrat or Republican will win anyway.
[quote] I also last election despised both Trump and Clinton so much that I would have stayed home before voting for either of them. It didn't work out. What it did do was have a lot of people scream "you helping Trump win" or "your helping Hilary win" when they found out I wasn't voting for either of them. There is a very good chance I'll be voting 3rd party this coming election as well. [/quote]
Why would it work out for you? What does that look like? Gary Johnson was never going to be president. Either Trump or Clinton were going to be president, would you have been this disappointed had she won instead? Which are correct assumptions to make with your voting third party. How do you expect the results of your next vote to change from '16 when you're doing the same thing?
[quote] There is also this, I don't live in a swing state so my vote is utterly irrelevant unless I vote 3rd party in hopes of getting that candidate to 5%.[/QUOTE]
How are you judging "relevance"? Swing states are crucial for candidates to win national elections.
-
The reality is that third party runs are a breeding ground of nut jobs and idiots. T There are very few that can be taken seriously. I mean there was a woman running in 2016, I am stuck on the name so if someone knows it that would be great. But she did an interview on pbs and admitted she had no idea what the function of the department of education was. How can we take someone like that seriously?
-
Americans are truly weird people. I realized this when watching the Super Bowl halftime show. Here's some wonderful Latina women putting on a great show for hundreds of millions of American viewers and yet a good percentage of those viewers are comfortable with putting Latino children in cages, they have no problem treating Puerto Rico like it's a third world country even though it's part of the USA, they support a president and a government that discriminate against women and people of colour and acts like football players have no right to free speech. And these American viewers can retain these disparate world-views--entertainment from people of colour on the one hand and discrimination against them on the other--as though it's all perfectly sane. How much energy must it take to sustain that compartmentalized thinking.
