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> being able to vote only if you pay taxes You legitimately don't see any problem with this? There's a huge swath of people who are unemployed, disabled, or o

by mabbo 4y ago

> being able to vote only if you pay taxes You legitimately don't see any problem with this? There's a huge swath of people who are unemployed, disabled, or otherwise unable to work. There's people with criminal records who effectively are barred from most jobs. There's entire towns where the factory that employed most of the people went out of business and now everyone is unemployed, unless they move- which they can't because their homes are now worthless and they have mortgages. You're talking about taking away the voting rights of all of those people because they're too poor for you. Bad luck on their part, not being born to privilege. And of course you don't even see where this goes next. Once you start to take away the voting rights of such people, they have no ability to fight as you keep going, as you take more away from them. They have no votes, no voice, no ability to stop those with power. I cannot imagine a more sociopathic, heartless idea than the one you've just proposed.

AstralStorm 4y ago
Not to mention, specifically made illegal in multiple constitutions for more than the reasons stated above.
mhitza 4y ago
> I cannot imagine a more sociopathic, heartless idea than the one you've just proposed. I would refrain from calling someones idea sociopathic, when left unelaborated. I've theorized myself with the idea of having only people that pay taxes vote, or rather, having representational democracy an opt-in system via taxation. Currently there is no way to opt out of taxes, and the things you get in return are rather slim privileges and benefits. I only have a shallow understanding of the form of democracy that the US employs, but what impression I have of it, is that representational democracy is just a facade when big corporations have the budget to push their agendas via lobbying. When I think of people championing for the unprivileged, I can only think of the civil society (NGOs) as having a direct effect. If the world had in place something more akin to liquid democracy, I would have better trust in the system. Do you think that currently democracy is working, when we can pull up recent examples, like a few select people having the power to make abortion illegal?

by mabbo 4y ago

AstralStorm 4y ago

Not to mention, specifically made illegal in multiple constitutions for more than the reasons stated above.

mhitza 4y ago

> I cannot imagine a more sociopathic, heartless idea than the one you've just proposed. I would refrain from calling someones idea sociopathic, when left unelaborated. I've theorized myself with the idea of having only people that pay taxes vote, or rather, having representational democracy an opt-in system via taxation. Currently there is no way to opt out of taxes, and the things you get in return are rather slim privileges and benefits. I only have a shallow understanding of the form of democracy that the US employs, but what impression I have of it, is that representational democracy is just a facade when big corporations have the budget to push their agendas via lobbying. When I think of people championing for the unprivileged, I can only think of the civil society (NGOs) as having a direct effect. If the world had in place something more akin to liquid democracy, I would have better trust in the system. Do you think that currently democracy is working, when we can pull up recent examples, like a few select people having the power to make abortion illegal?