Tea Party leader desirous of Property requirement for voting

[Ajidica]

Well, that may be true, but I meant 17 year olds in general.

What better way to engage them in the politcal process to beceom more aware!

Negative Income Tax is moronic.

Nice to know you hate a Libertarian defender of the free market who (on almost everything else) I consider a self-righteous apologist [word].

As for the Sales Tax, I would advocate making it 12% on everything but basic food items and non-tangible items

So no clothing? So poor people will be able to afford food, but will be wandering around naked?
Look at the Minnesota system. Essential food and cloths are not taxed. I feel it works well. (One small change I would make is setting a sales tax on expensive cloths).

I am 15 and I feel the same way.

I would support a negative income tax, but it takes away from the incentive to work.

I personaly am not a big fan of the NIT for that same reason, but it is a very nice 'Oh Dear, my slogan doesn't mean what I thought it did' moment to the Flat Taxers.

 

[Cutlass]

@Cutlass- It isn't the rich creating an unemployment rate, it is the market PERIOD. And I'd blame the government more than anyone.

The rich create the market.

 

[countrygrl]

The rich create the market.

Everyone creates the market.

 

[illram]

Is he actually advocating for this policy to be put in place? Is there more to the story? Or is this the most damning part?

I don't see him actually advocating that we move in this direction, but merely making a point.

Well it's a stupid point, then. What could there be "more" of to make this point OK?

 

[JollyRoger]

Everyone creates the market.

Even career dishwashers? I thought they lacked innovative inertia, so how could they create anything?

 

[Cutlass]

Everyone creates the market.

But the rich control it for their own purposes.

 

[countrygrl]

Well it's a stupid point, then. What could there be "more" of to make this point OK?

I see the comment as pretty benign. And I don't think it is a stupid point either. Here we have an entire thread discussing the merits of having "skin in the game" in order to earn a participating voice in a Democracy. That's what he's discussing and I don't see him openly advocating anything. It seems to me as though he's contrasting today's current situation where anybody can vote, with a time long gone where you had to have some skin in the game in order to promote a better Democracy. I've had the discussion brought up in a high school environment at a pretty in depth level, and I don't necessarily think it's stupid to not explore the ethos behind the original reason behind the need to own property in order to vote. While I'm utterly against anybody being disenfranchised from participating in the Democratic process, the original purpose behind the requirement to own property wasn't under the guise of nefarious reasons. It was seen as a mechanism to strengthen our nation and our Republic, not to undermine it. And the habitual disgust that's observed in this thread about the way things were is really telling.

 

[Camikaze]

2. Minimum age for voting set to 25.
Early voting rights were usually set at 25 years of age and above (in addition to things like property ownership, etc.). It was then lowered and is now set at 18 for most countries. I would contend that people grew up fast and were usually ready for the realities of life during the times the voting age was lowered, and that today people in general take too much time to grow up and still act like yesteryears teenagers far into their twenties. Thus, I suggest we raise the age of voting to make sure the people that vote have a better grasp of what life as a normal adult is like, instead of the life where they can mooch of their parents, be irresponsible and do a half-hearted attempt at studying or working. I don't suggest we use the age of 25 just because of tradition, but to me it seems like a good age where we can cut of enough people who are too immature to vote while not cutting of too many.

(Red bold mine.)

Is the government only meant to represent 'normal adults' (however you can define that)?

3. Require actual productive input to society, either through income tax, voluntary work or child rearing.
[...]Thirdly, one can raise children (either one's own or adopted, but as said children's parent or guardian) to be well-adjusted members of society (i.e.: the children have not committed felonies or otherwise severely broken any laws or customs). This of course means that if one's child does commit a felony, one would lose one's right to vote (even if one has other children who have not committed felonies) unless one can fall back on the first or second option.

Is making someone's voting rights dependent on their fertility and the actions of other individuals really a good way to go?

4. Loss of voting rights if one has not raised any child by the age of 60.
The next generation is necessary if society is going to continue to function. As such, there should be strong incentives - or perhaps even a duty - to raise well-adjusted children to replace oneself. After all, it doesn't matter if the pensioners are all rich and can pay their way through old age, if there are no people to work society will stop functioning. Furthermore, old people without children have much less vested in the future of the society; for them it might be okay if society collapses a few years after they are gone. The voting rights should be limited to the people who will continue to live in society in the future.

This seems to assume that population growth is the aim of every society. Population policies differ from country to country.

And what of the sterile? You can't make someone's voting rights dependent on adoption.

 

[JollyRoger]

the original purpose behind the requirement to own property wasn't under the guise of nefarious reasons.

Sure it was - it was to keep power within a select group.

 

[countrygrl]

Sure it was - it was to keep power within a select group.

No it wasn't. It was meant to promote people to own property and progress their lives. You need not look any farther than Jefferson to see how progressive your supposed "select group" was at looking at methods for providing people with education necessary to enter into the "property owning group."

 

[kosiosko 1]

would all the non contributing people who would not be allowed to vote,be exempt from all hidden sales taxes and tariffs... if not it takes us back 200 years to taxation without representation, not so different from rule by an elite ruling class, distanced from the day to day lives of so many of their subjects (citizen would no longer hold much meaning)

 

[Ajidica]

Why should that be re-introduced now? The requirement to own property to become rich became all but irrelavent with the industrial revolution.

 

[JollyRoger]

No it wasn't. It was meant to promote people to own property and progress their lives. You need not look any farther than Jefferson to see how progressive your supposed "select group" was at looking at methods for providing people with education necessary to enter into the "property owning group."

Jefferson was quite the property owner.

 

[Incodcito]

Looks like they want to build a time machine to 1790.



From Judson Phillips himself:



Here's a link to the TP audio blog, but I could not find a transcript there.

The source for the story and quote.



Note: If you can't discuss the merits of the quote and comment in general, please don't reply. If all you can muster is "OMG ITS FROM THINK PROGRESS", please just don't post.

The founding fathers also intended for woman to be disenfranchised along with black people, should we follow these also because some dead tin gods said so?

 

[countrygrl]

Jefferson was quite the property owner.

Yes he was, but he was a huge advocate of offering up pieces of property in Virginia for general sale and forwarding the growth of the common people. And he also wanted universal education systems put in place for the benefit of the state. He also wanted the best and brightest from the middle and lower classes to obtain higher education at the best universities on scholarship. There was no concerted effort on Jefferson's part to concentrate his power or obtain more land. It's purely imaginative. Like Cutlass' insistence that there's a covert conspiracy by the rich to keep people poor.

 

[Bill3000]

No it wasn't. It was meant to promote people to own property and progress their lives. You need not look any farther than Jefferson to see how progressive your supposed "select group" was at looking at methods for providing people with education necessary to enter into the "property owning group."

You can promote people to own property with means other than disenfranchising people, you know. (For example, the government promotes people to own property by insuring Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. ) The entire point of any voting restriction is to prevent people of a certain class (or people not part of a certain class) from voting and thus preventing them to have political influence.

You're right that Jefferson wanted to increase the franchise through education, but that isn't why property restrictions were in place in the first place. Such a restriction of anachronistic, anyway, I'd think - it would be akin to restricting the franchise to white-collar professionals today.

Also, there wasn't any such restriction placed by the founding fathers. Restrictions were state-dependent.

 

[countrygrl]

Property restrictions were instituted for a number of reasons. But the primary one was the preservation of property rights. It was widely viewed by many of the founding fathers that if there was universal suffrage that those who didn't own property would use their majority to status to expropriate the property of those who held property. This wasn't done out of a matter of personal preservation, but rather, a matter of national preservation.

Then you have theories of the time that stated women were not fit to vote because their lives were purely concentrated on domestic affairs. And the poor were too busy toiling in order to render responsible judgments on their own behalf. They were too busy working and spent no time thinking.

It was a matter of national integrity and many of these justifications are completely antiquated.

Here's an nice link about why the founding fathers instituted these policies. Many are their own private writings. It certainly wasn't because they wanted to consolidate power and wealth into their own hands.

http://www.vindicatingthefounders.com/library/index.asp?category=5

 

[JollyRoger]

Sure it was - it was to keep power within a select group.

But the primary one was the preservation of property rights.

I knew you would come around.

 

[countrygrl]

I knew you would come around.

The preservation of property rights is not the same as keeping power in a select group.

You'd have a point if the founders wrote into the constitution that the only people who could own property were those that owned it at the time of the signing of the constitution. But you don't have a point.

 

[JollyRoger]

The preservation of property rights is not the same as keeping power in a select group.

Sure it is. Once you are in a select group and you restrict votingto that select group, you give power to that select group to set barriers of entry to joining that select group.