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But we're supposed to be a democratic country where everyone's vote is "equal". The money is speech thing completely bypasses and greatly skews that rule. It's
by mtgx 9y ago
But we're supposed to be a democratic country where everyone's vote is "equal". The money is speech thing completely bypasses and greatly skews that rule. It's like a parallel voting system where a wealthy person's "vote" is quantified in the amount of dollars he or she spends to buy politicians.
Also, wealthy people will almost always prefer pro-small taxes politicians, on either party. So they will fund either Republicans or Democrats that think that way (especially with Democrats that have a "public position and a private one").
Allowing money to decide rank in society is what we normally call corruption, because it also bypasses laws, like when rich people get away with crimes, because they have money and influence. That's not how it should work, right? Similarly, I very much doubt that having mostly rich people buying politicians is how a democracy should work, too.
- JumpCrisscross 9y agoIn America, “one person, one vote” only arose in the 1960s. The Constitution was framed with suffrage for only land-owning white men. > That's not how it should work, right? That’s a big question. I don’t think it’s safe to presume it’s answer.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago...what? You think a society where some votes count more than others is better? That seems to only be possible if you presume that you/people-who-think-like-you-do would be the ones with more votes.
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago>...what? You think a society where some votes count more than others is better? That seems to only be possible if you presume that you/people-who-think-like-you-do would be the ones with more votes. I'm sure if we gave felons a vote that counted as 1/2 a non-felon plenty of them would vote. I think a system where your vote starts at 3/4 value in state elections and increases to 1 after you've been a resident for 10yr. Weighting the opinion of a newcomer less is pretty standard in pretty much every group decision other than voting.
- sampo 9y ago> You think a society where some votes count more than others is better? 2.5% of voting age Americans cannot vote, because of felony sentences. In some states (Florida) it can be as high as 10% of the population. Is some states (e.g. Florida, Alabama, Virginia, Mississippi) over 25% of voting age black male population cannot vote. In most European countries, also felons and prisoners are allowed to vote.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y agoI don't understand the relevance. That's also bad.
- dredmorbius 9y agoManifestly false. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=one+person+one+vote%2C+one+man+one+vote&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cone%20person%20one%20vote%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cone%20man%20one%20vote%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=one+person+one...