Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => Politics => Topic started by: vaskidmark on October 25, 2010, 07:17:48 AM
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http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/10/24/states-weigh-letting-noncitizens-vote/
PORTLAND, Maine -- Like his neighbors, Claude Rwaganje pays taxes on his income and taxes on his cars. His children have gone to Portland's public schools. He's interested in the workings of Maine's largest city, which he has called home for 13 years.
There's one vital difference, though: Rwaganje isn't a U.S. citizen and isn't allowed to vote on those taxes or on school issues. That may soon change.
Been in Portland for 13 years. Apparently on some sort of visa. And he's not bothered to apply for citizenship - egen after immigrating because of "political strife" in his native Congo.
Abdirizak Daud, 40, moved to Minneapolis 18 years ago before coming to Portland in 2006. He hasn't been able to find a job. Some of his nine children have attended Portland schools, and he'd like to have a say in who's looking over the school system and the city, he said.
But between his limited English and the financial demands, Daud hasn't been able to become a citizen.
"I like the Democrats. I want to vote for Democrats, but I don't have citizenship," he said.
Been in the country 18 years and still can't (won't?) speak English. Which may have had some impact on his inability to find a job and the "financial demands" he finds impeding his ability to become a citizen. But since coming here some of his nine children have attended public schools. Let's hope the others attended public school in Minneapolis as opposed to being female and thus not entitled to be educated.[OK, that was judgemental and supposes quite a bit. Maybe I should apologize.]
But he likes the Democrats and wants to vote for them. Gee, I wonder why? :facepalm:
The Latino guy who's the head cook at my favorite Chinese food place and who lives a few houses down from me came by the other day and told me he has just put in his paperwork to apply for citizenship. He has been here on a green card for about 7 years after being here illegally for the 5 preceeding years. I'm not going to go into why he should not have gotten a green card - I'm more focused on the fact that he took the chance and became legal. So for the last 5 years for sure (and he claims for the past 11) he's paid taxes and done all tye other stuff he's supposed to, but is still not allowed to vote. So why the change of heart and desire for citizenship? According to him, it's because he does not have a voice in how the place is run and he's not happy with how it's running.
So as best I can figure the Chinese folks who own the place where he works, who have been bringing relatives over for generations, have gotten to him and turned him into a rabid TEA Partier. Either that or his kid had a note sent home from school about her refusing to speak Spanish as her primary language.
Your thoughts on this trend to give the vote - in at least local elections - to non-citizens?
stay safe.
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Its simple for me....no citizenship equals NO vote!
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Its simple for me....no citizenship equals NO vote!
I generally feel the same way, but given the absolute mess our immigration system is, I'd soften it with just requiring significant travel on the path to citizenship and demonstration of the intent to continue along it. Actually, could that be a waiver system? It is just for local elections. It would just seem a shame to bar someone from the PTA due to nonsense from a federal bureaucrat. Meh, would be easier just to take the hard stance with the bright line, no citizenship, no vote. =D
Fun Q, what about felons? Especially given how with over-criminalization you can now become one by accident through no moral or personal failing.
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Try to apply voting rights to a non-member in any other entity--stock holders, the NRA, church boards--and see what happens.
This idea is so ludicrous that it could only have come from someone trying to boost the number of votes for candidates in his party. I wonder which party that might be?
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At the Federal level, no way. At the State level, probably not. At the local level, I don't have a huge problem with it. "Citizenship" at the local level is determined by something as strenuous as "living there" and everyone who "lives there" has the same issues and responsibilities regardless of national citizenship.
There are valid reasons for living in a country without earning citizenship (working for a multinational for example).
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It's not just about citizenship any more, it's about too many people not having a real stake in the nation except as takers. This is a problem that can't be resolved by more accommodation. At some point enough people will accept the hard reality of what that's going to really mean.
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What "financial demands" keep you from becoming a citizen?
Maybe it's different now, but when my parents became citizens (a process they began as soon as they were allowed to) they took some free night classes, then went to the test and ceremony.
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Not only should one have to be a citizen to vote, one should also have to be able to understand, read and speak english. I'm also of the opinion that one should have to own property in order to vote on certain local issues such as propositions that tax or assess property for the financing. In addition, one should also be able to vote in any and all communities that one owns propety in certain local elections that raise funds through property taxes or assessments.
Much of the serious debt problems we have in America today are aided and abetted by those who can vote, who stand to gain a handout and not have to pay into the system. Many politicians understand the corrupt electoral set up we have in that regard and that's why they continue to enslave the have nots by pandering to them by buying their votes for "benefits".
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No. Period. End of sentence.
YOU'RE WELCOME TO BECOME A CITIZEN ANY TIME YOU WANT TO. WE DON'T FORBID IT, LIKE MANY OTHER COUNTRIES.
Show me you understand the past of this country, and I'll be comfortable with you having a say in its future.
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NOT a citizen=NO VOTE
Citizen=Vote
Preferably;
Citizen + Property owner=vote
Citizen + NOT property owner=NO vote.
But I'm old fashioned that way............... [tinfoil] >:D
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If they don't like paying taxes here then they are welcome to move to some other country to pay taxes :mad:
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How do you split local voting versus national voting? It is normally done on the same ballot.
My problem is these people have probably already voted simply because we don't require any sort of ID to vote.
No Citizenship, no vote. We require that people have a stake in the country and show some responsibility toward wanting to be here and wanting this to be their home. Citizenship is a good place to draw the line.
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Agreed, citizenship should be the line.
I could see property owner status required to vote on mil levies and other property based taxes, but not as a whole. How many folks on this board are renters either due to financial circumstances or just lack of desire to own a home? Should not owning a house prevent somebody from voting for president or all the other stuff that ends up on ballots? What about the 18 year old kid in the military, should they not be allowed to vote because they don't own land?
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It's not just about citizenship any more, it's about too many people not having a real stake in the nation except as takers
Well said. Also believe if you do not pay federal income taxes (you pay and get every dime back or you don't have to pay and get money back, child credit, earned income) you should not get to vote. Period. You have zero liability and you get to vote how other peoples tax money is spent, BS. If you don't own land or pay federal income taxes, no vote for you. And if you aren't a citizen, no vote for you. There is no reason why once you come here that the process of becoming a citizen cannot be started with in a year.
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What "financial demands" keep you from becoming a citizen?
Maybe it's different now, but when my parents became citizens (a process they began as soon as they were allowed to) they took some free night classes, then went to the test and ceremony.
It's actually fairly expensive. My wife is from Germany, so we've been going through it. Getting the green card cost us around $1,500, and I think we'll have to pay another $600 to get her citizenship. So it's do-able, but it's not cheap for someone who's probably making minimum wage or close to it.
Edit: I'm totally against letting non-citizens vote. If that happens, citizenship is meaningless.
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If you don't own land or pay federal income taxes
There's inconsistency there, though I understand the sentiment and agree with the philosophy behind it.
Land ownership has nothing to do with Federal taxes. It is taxed by the States (and smaller governments).
The demographic I worry the most about, when it comes to voting without paying taxes, are Social Security recipients. Does a person pay Income Tax on social security payments from Uncle Sugar? I'd see the AARP demographic trying to stop such a change if it were to gain any traction.
Of course, the AARP is just a puppet of the DNC anyways...
But, the 24th Amendment would prohibit any basis of taxation being a pre-requisite for the right to vote.
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Ultimately, voting is the franchise by which someone determines either how tax money is gathered and spent directly, or indirectly by determining who is placed in office to control how tax money is gathered and spent.
So it's all about money, at the end of the day.
Maybe instead of tying voting to citizenship, we should tie voting to taxes paid; not only in the granting of the franchise, but in magnitude of that franchise. If you paid $1000 in taxes and your neighbor paid $500, your vote would carry twice the weight his does. Taxes paid last year determines how much weight your vote carries this year.
That would put power where it belongs: In the hands of the people who are paying for the services that the government provides, rather than in the hands of the people who are getting those services for "free" just because they've managed to convert oxygen into carbon dioxide for yet another day.
Difficulty: Determining how much any given person actually paid in taxes total; how do you track anything other than income and property taxes without becoming (even more) invasive? Excise taxes like those on gas, and sales tax, would be very difficult to quantify.
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Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
A poll tax could be used as a means to restrict access to State and local elections, but the highlighted text above makes me think that there's absolutely no way to tie Federal voting to paid taxes.
However.... >:D
Perhaps "additional" votes could be tied to those who pay taxes. Each person is guaranteed a ballot worth 1 point, regardless of tax status. If you paid over "X" amount on your Federal Income Taxes last year then you get a ballot worth 2 points instead of 1 point. If you paid over "Y" amount on your taxes, then you get a ballot worth 3 points. And so on.
I dunno if it's worthwhile having a special ballot class for Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, or if people in that class would respect the change merely between 1 point "guaranteed" vote and 2 points "I pay for the system" votes. They might be happy with 2 points, or they might end up wanting ballots worth 7,325 votes. I think a convoluted measuring system would become more cumbersome than the current tax code.
...And I suspect somehow the inflation of importance of tax-payer votes over those of the non tax-payers, would be construed as "abridging" their right to vote, in a court challenge. You could argue you're merely augmenting the right to vote of taxpayers, but I think it would fall through even with the current SCOTUS.
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I think it would be a bad precedent to move away from "one man, one vote" no matter the reason.
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It already seems difficult for state and local election boards to administer elections properly, so I don't know how effectively they could administer varying amounts of votes based on taxes paid.
With almost 50% of the population paying no taxes (and the Democrats trying to get past the 50% threshold), I would love to see paying taxes be a requirement for voting. We're reaching the point where those who pay no taxes will be able to determine how much those of us who pay "contribute".
Does a person pay Income Tax on social security payments from Uncle Sugar? I'd see the AARP demographic trying to stop such a change if it were to gain any traction.
Yes, SS payments are taxable. That started under Clinton, IIRC, although I can't remember how they're calculated.
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Citizen + NOT property owner=NO vote.
But what about "renters" their not landowners; would they not get the right to vote?
Would they get a wavier on paying their taxes because I think we once had a pretty big beef about something along the lines of taxation without representation from a bunch of politicians we didn't elect.
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But what about "renters" their not landowners; would they not get the right to vote?
Would they get a wavier on paying their taxes because I think we once had a pretty big beef about something along the lines of taxation without representation from a bunch of politicians we didn't elect.
I think the "property owner" schtick is a big distraction. Back in the 1790's, our FedGov was not the taxing behemoth it is today. Taxes were paid to the State you lived in. The FedGov had no property taxes and no income taxes. I believe Federal revenue was generated by tariffs and such. Predecessors to our current excise taxes.
Elections also worked differently back then. Only land-owners could vote, but technically they voted for Electors for their State. Not for President/VP/etc. They voted for State Senators and Representatives. The State Legislature then voted for US Senators... not the people directly.
As such, all voting was a local institution to the State. The State levied property taxes (it had no power to regulate interstate commerce or to tax based on tariffs (those are Powers reserved to the FedGov by the Constitution), and income tax hadn't been invented yet). And so the tie between landowners and voting rights was drawn.
Now that the Fed Gov directly attacks the incomes of everyone, it makes sense for all citizens to be able to vote, regardless of property ownership.
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It's not about getting away from "one man, one vote," it's about getting back to "one citizen, one vote" and defining what "citizen" means in terms of stake in the society. People who are on the dole--meaning "entitlements" they never paid in for--are quasi-citizens in terms of their financial accountability; it's clear--at least to me--they should not have the power to magnify their own benefits at the expense of tax-payers. "One man, one vote" is a good concept but it arose in a time when there was no vast and expanding welfare state.
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Oh.
Hell.
No.
For all the reasons mentioned above.
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NOT a citizen=NO VOTE
Citizen=Vote
Preferably;
Citizen + Property owner=vote
Citizen + NOT property owner=NO vote.
But I'm old fashioned that way............... [tinfoil] >:D
You're quite welcome to take my vote. I don't think you'd quite realize the unintended consequences. One of those is that if one is disenfranchised without a valid and direct action on the part of the now disenfranchised (such as committing a felony, renouncing one's citizenship, etc), how binding is that social contract?
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People on the dole are not necessarily people who have never paid taxes. I'm not referring to things like gasoline/tobacco/sales taxes, but federal/state/local income tax. First of all, in many localities, like, oh, MINE, if you have income, you pay city income tax. I haven't paid federal income tax since my first kid was born, but I've paid income taxes every year. And yeah, I'm on the dole.
More on property ownership:
By "property owner" do you mean free and clear? Damn, if you think we spend too much on social security now, just wait until only people who own land free and clear get to vote! By the way, a whole lot of older folks who own property free and clear are on the dole, not only social security, which I think most of us probably don't consider welfare/"on the dole" in quite the same sense as other entitlements, but also medicaid, food stamps, and other low-income programs.
Or do you mean any yahoo who managed to get a mortgage? This could have a salutary effect of increasing the voting power of "fly-over country" but would also further encourage irresponsible borrowing. If my vote depended on it, I would have gotten a mortgage back a few years ago. And you can bet I'd be in foreclosure now. Maybe I'm weird, but voting is that important to me that I would have borrowed--irresponsibly--in order to be able to do it. I suspect I'm not entirely alone in that.
And then there's the 800 pound gorilla. Maybe not so much here, but in any major national debate, race invariably comes up. Black people are on the whole poorer than white people. Poorer people should not own land in the same proportions as wealthier people (still presuming we're talking about mortgaged land here--for free-and-clear it's no longer "should" but "don't"); as much as I am not a fan of the "first black president" I'm not ok with taking away the vote from a larger proportion of black people. Like most of the black people I interact with regularly, I'm opposed to a lot of stuff in black culture, but lower levels of land ownership ain't on the list.
Nor should any of us, witnessing as we are, the collapse of an economy built on bad mortgages, be interested in not only perpetuating but in fact strengthening the government sanctioning of our cultural belief that owning real estate somehow makes one a better person. It doesn't. Perhaps staking a claim and building a homestead out of sod and sweat did, but getting an FHA mortgage with 3% down just doesn't. Heck, getting a traditional mortgage might mean one knows how to save, but not getting such a mortgage doesn't mean one doesn't know how to save: it may just mean that one is more interested in starting a business, going to school, starting a family, taking care of one's parents, getting medical treatment for a serious/chronic illness, or any number of other things.
Personally, after having lived in and maintained a house for the past several years, I'm hoping to rent for a good long while, possible permanently. Houses are a whole lot of work, and I've got enough work to do, thank-you-very-much.
Finally, to get all environmentalist, I'm not in favor of government regulation that encourages people to take up more space than they otherwise would. I've got nothing against suburban America, and think that we are handling each environmental impact issue of that mode of living as it arises to the best of our ability (e.g. sharpshooters in county parks reducing suburban deer herds to manageable levels; HOA's on waterfront property banning fertilizer use to preserve local water quality; similar local efforts). I do, however, have a big problem with taking people who would be perfectly content to live in a 1500 square foot apartment and using the right to vote a way of pressuring them to own a house and yard and subsequent rise in spending and consumption of all kinds of resources, natural and otherwise. Fine, we live in a consumer society. I prefer to classify myself in a less locust-like way, but hey, that's the model we are built on. And it's working so well..... :facepalm:
No, owning real property should not be a basis for voting rights. At all. [I also don't think it should be a basis for calculating school taxes; but then I think we should shift all the taxes currently used for public education to public health. Shift education to the private sector and health to the public sector. Seems a nifty way of handling the health care question with raising taxes to insane(r) levels and address the issue of excessive government interference in private life by giving people back their kids while shifting some control of health care away from corporate decision-makers to government decision-makers, but then I digress... =D ]
As for limited participation in local elections for non-citizens: yah sure, I think it would be ok to waive in some non-citizen immigrants. Logistically, it would simply involve an amended ballot; have one of the little old ladies who run the polling places black out the sections of the ballot that pertain to non-local issues. Waiving in should be on an individual basis, and the applicant should have to demonstrate some reason why he is not a citizen: financial hardship could be ok, as could other reasons like multinational employment, etc.
One of the local rabbis in the Detroit Jewish community became a citizen something like forty years after immigrating to the US. No reason; it just wasn't a priority. They weren't well off, but they could have scraped the money together at some point in that forty years. I suspect that kind of thin may be more common in various kinds of fundamentalist communities, where, as in that community, members don't think of themselves as Americans. Heck, I was openly criticized in middle school for self-identifying as American, because "Jews in Germany thought they were Germans, until the Holocaust; we're just Jews, first and last." That may have been true of German Jews, but that attitude should be discouraged by American governmental units, even local ones. If someone considers himself so much a (fill-in-ethnicity-here) that he can't be bothered to become an American, then allowing him to vote is simply giving away the farm.
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You're quite welcome to take my vote.
...and on that note, I wonder how many other former military personnel on this board came late to the property-owning game or don't (yet) own property?
We've got at least one member on his way to a deployment. I doubt he owns real property. Speaking of unintended consequences, how do you feel about a military with a substantially lower rate of voting rights than the rest of the country and what the implementation of real property ownership as a prerequisite to voting would do to the quality of the US military?
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I rent. Because I do not want the hassles of ownership. And I pay the same real estate and school taxes as the rest of the mortgage-holders in the county/state pay - just not directly. You can bet the landlord is collecting enough to cover the taxes to be paid on the property I occupy - which happens to be valued by the county as about 7% more than a similar property less than 100 feet west of the lot my place occupies. (Went & looked it up, I did!)
I don't have a kid in the school system - have not had one in school since 1998. But I pay school taxes.
I don't pay state or federal income taxes - because technically I either get funds from tax-free investments (a benefit I get in exchange for investing in something risky like a municipal project) or am living off cash in my mattress, or the money I receive in exchange for my labor is too low to require a tax to be paid.
I'm a vet with a compensable wound.
I'm not a felon. Heck, I'm not even a misdemeanant.
And you yahoos are talking about me not "qualifying" to be able to cast a vote?
The only thing I did that did not require some effort or sweat/blood equity was to be born here or one natural and one naturalized citizen. On that score I figured they paid the equity on my behalf.
stay safe.
Oh! As for folks working for multi-nationals who are assigned to work somewhere besides their home country? No problem, as they are declared guests in this country and not trying to reap the benefits without paying. The complicated tax filing and paying requirements of both the USA and their native country see that their fair share is bled out of them - possibly twice.
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I think the "property owner" schtick is a big distraction. Back in the 1790's, our FedGov was not the taxing behemoth it is today. Taxes were paid to the State you lived in. The FedGov had no property taxes and no income taxes. I believe Federal revenue was generated by tariffs and such. Predecessors to our current excise taxes.
Elections also worked differently back then. Only land-owners could vote, but technically they voted for Electors for their State. Not for President/VP/etc. They voted for State Senators and Representatives. The State Legislature then voted for US Senators... not the people directly.
As such, all voting was a local institution to the State. The State levied property taxes (it had no power to regulate interstate commerce or to tax based on tariffs (those are Powers reserved to the FedGov by the Constitution), and income tax hadn't been invented yet). And so the tie between landowners and voting rights was drawn.
Now that the Fed Gov directly attacks the incomes of everyone, it makes sense for all citizens to be able to vote, regardless of property ownership.
By not allowing people who don't own property to vote, the idea was to diminish the number of people who would tend to vote away other peoples' monies through the government. If that had been maintained, we might have today a far smaller moocher class.
Atleast, that was the Founders' theory.
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Property doesn't mean "real property;" it means a financial stake in society, some level of ownership and participation. Citizenship isn't, at root, just about paying taxes, at least in my mind. It is about subscribing to and endorsing the basic legacy values of the nation.
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basic legacy values of the nation.
as defined by who?
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Hey, if the electorate won't stand for creating more citizens/voters through legalizing immigration, then skip the whole citizenship thing and get those extra votes you need without bothering about citizenship. Easy!
I support the ability of small localities to choose who votes in their elections. I would certainly hope they use their discretion to say HELL NO to non-citizens voting, but it really should be their choice.
At the state or national level? Not a chance. Too much opportunity for graft, corruption, and electioneering. If you're not a citizen of our country, you don't get to vote in our elections. Go vote in your own country's elections.
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By not allowing people who don't own property to vote, the idea was to diminish the number of people who would tend to vote away other peoples' monies through the government. If that had been maintained, we might have today a far smaller moocher class.
Atleast, that was the Founders' theory.
Which of the Founders? You realize that Jefferson was for expanding the franchise, right?
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Jeffersonian ideology was not the be-all and end-all of the Founders' thinking.
;)
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Jeffersonian ideology was not the be-all and end-all of the Founders' thinking.
;)
Sure, but neither was any kind of ideology. To portray one faction of the FF as if to say 'this is what the Founding Fathers thought' is a misrepresentation.
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Indeed. Yet Thommy Jeff seems to be the only one of the lot that gets regular mention and quotation in certain circles, and the only one who is referred to when looking to support or refute any particular idea. This is, I believe, a major mistake. He had some good ideas, but also some bad ones. And there was a while there, after his wife died, where his thinking was a little cracked. It takes some doing to be over-the-top radical and bloodthirsty among a band of revolutionaries, but Jefferson kinda pulled it off.
So, anyway, Jefferson was for expanding the franchise. So what? Does that make expanding the franchise a good idea? I would say not. Leastaways not based entirely on Jefferson's beliefs alone.
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He had some good ideas, but also some bad ones.
Not unlike any other Founding Father.
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Expanding the franchise until the franchise loses all meaning? I doubt that. Give the man some credit--even if he did spend too much time inhaling French ideas.
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What exactly does "expanding the franchise" mean? I have no problem with allowing legal immigrants to go through the motions to get citizenship. I really don't have any problem with illegals doing the same though there needs to be some way to verify their record was clean during that time and I think they should have to wait longer. Does that make me in favor of "expanding the franchise"? I certainly don't want to close the franchise or limit it to only kids of citizens. Do you mean someone who is in favor of full citizenship rights as soon as they step on US soil?
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What I means solely is that property tests for voting, especially land-owning tests, were not what all the Founders agreed on.
The topic of the thread? Letting non-citizens vote? I naturally cannot express an opinion on it.
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The wealthiest property owners have taken more taxpayer money per head than any other group in America.
Whoever got the idea that owning property means not voting to take other people's money is entirely off the mark - the historical track record so far has shown that greater ownership of property corresponds, over time, to greater wealth-grabbing from others.
Restricting the franchise along these lines is a good way to create a Latin American style oligarchy, which is basically a repeat of the feudal system.
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The wealthiest property owners have taken more taxpayer money per head than any other group in America.
Whoever got the idea that owning property means not voting to take other people's money is entirely off the mark - the historical track record so far has shown that greater ownership of property corresponds, over time, to greater wealth-grabbing from others.
Restricting the franchise along these lines is a good way to create a Latin American style oligarchy, which is basically a repeat of the feudal system.
Source?
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Source?
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.varley.net%2FPages%2Fimages%2FFavorite%2520Movies%2FLooney%2520Tunes%2C%25203.jpg&hash=3521eeb4e7af6cb91299fa44d1923a78230e14c7)
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Who do you think pockets the bailout money? And the pork? And the bridge-to-nowhere contracts?
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Who do you think pockets the bailout money? And the pork? And the bridge-to-nowhere contracts?
Some corporations do (and Democrats and unions). "Wealthiest property owners" is a broad and disingenuous brush.
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The wealthiest property owners have taken more taxpayer money per head than any other group in America.
Whoever got the idea that owning property means not voting to take other people's money is entirely off the mark - the historical track record so far has shown that greater ownership of property corresponds, over time, to greater wealth-grabbing from others.
Restricting the franchise along these lines is a good way to create a Latin American style oligarchy, which is basically a repeat of the feudal system.
[tinfoil]... Brought to you, without fanfare, or a grain of truth, straight from the twilight zone.
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Let's stipulate there are thieves at all points of the economic spectrum, can we? The extravagances and predations of the welfare state would not exist without a huge middle-class bureaucracy that benefits from it even more than the people it allegedly "serves." And who can rationally dispute that we have financial plutocrats "riding dirty"--to borrow JWright's phrase--on taxpayer-fueled bailouts? Someone's sitting on the $2 trillion the Fed can't account for. Underlying all of the economic corruption is a growing moral vacuum, and to ignore that is to believe that "jobs" alone will bring today's America back on track.
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The whole concept of "private property" is about one thing: not being the property of the State; not being owned and controlled by some autocrat; not being a subject. In the end free men are their own property, and it is that property on which voting rights are based.
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Never mind.
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Property doesn't mean "real property;" it means a financial stake in society, some level of ownership and participation. Citizenship isn't, at root, just about paying taxes, at least in my mind. It is about subscribing to and endorsing the basic legacy values of the nation.
Ok...
So, who gets to vote?
What does one have to do to prove sufficient ownership and participation, sufficient subscription to and endorsement of the "basic legacy values" of the nation?
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Ok...
So, who gets to vote?
What does one have to do to prove sufficient ownership and participation, sufficient subscription to and endorsement of the "basic legacy values" of the nation?
Well, it's not perfect, but there is this naturalization and citizenship process that you can go through ... ;)
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So, who gets to vote?
What does one have to do to prove sufficient ownership and participation, sufficient subscription to and endorsement of the "basic legacy values" of the nation?
I think that is exactly what this country is in the process of resolving, by all available means. Everything that is going on is part of our identity crisis.
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Ok...
So, who gets to vote?
What does one have to do to prove sufficient ownership and participation, sufficient subscription to and endorsement of the "basic legacy values" of the nation?
So far, it's folks who were born here and folks who were not born here but have gone through the citizenship process. Given that approximately 52% of them screwed up big time the last time they voted for a President I say we need to be administering some sort of test.
Problem is, I'm not sure what to test them on and what the passing grade ought to be. (And if there is any way I can assure myself that I will only take the test on "good days" as opposed to "bad days".)
Other than that, I'm just sure I'm not willing to let non-citizens vote on anything. If they want a say in how things are run they can either pick better geographically-situated parents or go take the test.
stay safe.
stay safe.
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Problem is, I'm not sure what to test them on and what the passing grade ought to be. (And if there is any way I can assure myself that I will only take the test on "good days" as opposed to "bad days".)
I'm mail-in voting when I get home tonight. It will take me at least 3 hours to do so because (as I always do) I will be looking up information on all the candidates and propositions from sources ranging from the far left to the far right. This does not include the time I've used while casually perusing news sources over the last couple of months.
Too many people simply take a "voting recommendations" flyer from some organization they associate with (whether it be the NRA, Republicans, Democrats, Unions, whatever) and do what it says. Or worse, vote according to televised campaign ads.
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Well, the 9CC just weighed in, with Sandra Day O'Connor somehow in the zombie chair on the panel... Citizenship--what a concept!
http://washingtonindependent.com/101721/court-rules-arizona-cant-demand-proof-of-citizenship-for-voter-registration
Court Rules Arizona Can’t Demand Proof of Citizenship for Voter Registration
By ELISE FOLEY 10/26/10 6:03 PM
The state of Arizona cannot require documents proving citizenship for new voter registration, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today. The court ruled that a 2004 law created by Proposition 200 that made voters show a birth certificate, driver’s license or passport before registering to vote violated federal law. The National Voter Registration Act allows voters to register without documentation, but designates lying about citizenship as perjury. Election experts say non-citizen voting is infrequent enough that it has no effect on election results.
Non-citizens who attempt to vote can — and often do — face deportation, which opponents of the Arizona law argued is enough to deter fraud. “The penalties against non-citizens registering to vote are very serious and have served Arizonans — and all Americans — well for decades,” Linda Brown of the Arizona Advocacy Network, a plaintiff in the case, said in a press release. The court seemed to take this view by ruling the federal law does not allow states to require would-be voters to prove citizenship. But in other states, politicians are still proposing legislation that would crack down on voting by non-citizens.
Kris Kobach, who is running for Kansas secretary of state and helped draft Arizona’s SB 1070 immigration law, has said he wants to require proof of citizenship at polling stations, claiming “the illegal registration of alien voters has become pervasive.” Kobach won support for this idea from likely governor Sam Brownback, who is currently serving as a Republican senator.
Colorado Republican state Rep. Ted Harvey told TWI he plans to introduce a bill requiring documentation for voter registration in the form of a birth certificate or passport.
In Arizona, challengers to the 2004 law said in a press release that the law had prevented citizens who did not have documentation of their citizenship from voting. “We are elated that the Ninth Circuit has properly applied federal election law and struck down the documentary proof of citizenship requirement,” said Jon Greenbaum of Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, who argued the case for appellants. “This will enable the many poor people in Arizona who lack driver’s licenses and birth certificates to register to vote.”
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Election experts say non-citizen voting is infrequent enough that it has no effect on election results.
And axe murders are infrequent enough to not have a big impact on society. So why criminalize axe murders?
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Well if the election experts say illegal voting doesn't affect results, then that settles it.
Also, the penalties deter the act? Sort of like we're crime free because no one ever robs, rapes, or murders anyone because of the penalities?
This is one of the more lame-brained rulings by the 9th. And that's saying something.
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What would be the distinction between green card holders and citizens if green card holders were allowed to vote?
If the problem is that it's too hard for green card holders to become citizens, then streamline that process.
If the problem is that these people are ideologically opposed to becoming citizens and that's why they've put it off, then they can shove it.
Paying taxes should not automatically enfranchise anyone if they're unqualified to become a citizen, or if they don't want to become a citizen.
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Gentlemen, I was referring to the proposal that real property ownership or some other demonstration of investment in the nation should be required, not the current standard dictated by the 14th amendment.
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Source?
Yeah, Micro started with the bailouts - if you look historically at the value of labor stolen through slavery (which was instituted by propertied classes), the adjusted dollar figures there are certain to trump food stamps and similar social welfare takings in the 20th century.
Of course that's an estimate which could be disputed - I doubt any reasonable person could come up with a basis for disputing that propertied and rich folk have received huge amounts of money from the Government (the bailout) and voted to deprive other people of their money (slavery, taxes to support bailouts) though.
I'm a little bit stunned that there's much dispute on this point at all. The idea that poor people will vote to take other people's money, but rich people won't, is quite ridiculous.
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Some corporations do (and Democrats and unions). "Wealthiest property owners" is a broad and disingenuous brush.
??? So who do you think benefitted from the bailouts if not primarily management and the larger stakeholders?
Are there no propertied-up union heads or Democrats?
No, I think "wealthiest property owners" in this context is entirely accurate.
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Yeah, Micro started with the bailouts - if you look historically at the value of labor stolen through slavery (which was instituted by propertied classes), the adjusted dollar figures there are certain to trump food stamps and similar social welfare takings in the 20th century.
Of course that's an estimate which could be disputed - I doubt any reasonable person could come up with a basis for disputing that propertied and rich folk have received huge amounts of money from the Government (the bailout) and voted to deprive other people of their money (slavery, taxes to support bailouts) though.
I'm a little bit stunned that there's much dispute on this point at all. The idea that poor people will vote to take other people's money, but rich people won't, is quite ridiculous.
http://archvillain.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/not-this-again.jpg
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Don't forget all the differing limitations of individual and economic liberty that wealthy people and corporations lobbied for.
Tariffs, subsidies (do you think it is the poor who get corn subsidies? Really?), gun control (several gun companies were known to be in favor of GCA-68 because it limited the imports of cheap military surplus rifles, and of course there was Ruger), the War on Drugs (William Randolph Hearst), private prison companies, the big media corporations, the entire Motion Picture Association of America... do you see where this is going?
There's abjectly no reason to believe that just because people have more money they'll love freedom more.
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Remember, the Orren Boyles, Ellsworth Tooheys, and Jim Taggarts of this world are out there.
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??? So who do you think benefitted from the bailouts if not primarily management and the larger stakeholders?
You have got to be kidding me.
Do you really not understand that the bailouts were primarily loans, not giveaways, and that in most cases those loans have already been paid back with interest?
Do you really not understand that the major stakeholders and senior management of the bailed out firms like AIG and Bear Sterns got completely wiped out in their respective companies' bailouts? The stakeholders of the stronger banks like Goldman and JP Morgan have basically no more or no less than they did before the bailouts, and the stakeholders of the weaker banks are substantially poorer today than they were before. These folks have lost more money than you can fathom, and yet you somehow believe the government has made them richer?
This year, social security will pay out some $700 billion in tax dollars. Pay out. Give away. Forever. That's as much as the one time TARP bailout was, and the SS money will never be paid back. Ever. The final tab on the financial sector bailouts will likely wind up being on the order of $100b, which is far less than we spend on this one specific branch of welfare every single year, year in and year out.
If you think that FedGov spends more money on rich people than on poor people, I strongly urge you to go look at the federal budget and find out just where our tax money is really going. You need to get a clue. Start here (http://www.federalbudget.com/).
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Do you really not understand that the bailouts were primarily loans, not giveaways, and that in most cases those loans have already been paid back with interest?
That makes it better.
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That makes it better.
It makes it not a giveaway, which rather refutes the notion that it was a giveaway.
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That makes it better.
I will assume you are serious. It's obviously better. Not perfect, but better.
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The question is not how much money wealthy people get from it - although I suspect it's a giant lot of money. The question is whether wealthy people are somehow inherently a constituency for liberty. They're not, not anymore than anybody else is.
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The question is not how much money wealthy people get from it - although I suspect it's a giant lot of money. The question is whether wealthy people are somehow inherently a constituency for liberty. They're not, not anymore than anybody else is.
That is precisely the question. Shootin Student made the assertion that wealthy people are given hordes of money by the FedGov (rather, he said they take lots of money from FedGov, more than the poor, but taking and giving are the same either way, just a matter of perspective). The answer is clearly NO. The bailouts did not give them large amounts of money, and I don't see any other substantive sources of money being taken by the rich through other means, certainly nothing on the scale of what the poor are taking.
The expenditures of the federal government are a matter of public record, and it's easy to see where the money goes. There's no reason for you to suspect things about it - go look and see what it really is. And there's no call for Shootin Student to misrepresent what it is when we can all check the facts for ourselves and see that he's lying.
I'll link to it again, just to make sure you know where to go. Go HERE (http://www.federalbudget.com/)for data on how American tax money is spent. It shows it all in nice, colorful charts.
The question of whether property holders are a constituent for liberty is a different question entirely. If you'd like to discuss that instead then let's go for it.
I rather suspect that property owners are a constituent for liberty. Property rights are one of the more important aspects of liberty, no? Seems to me that property owners stand to lose the most when property rights are lost, and would therefore be somewhat more eager than non-property owners to want property rights respected.
You might make a case that someone with a little property would like to see property disrespected such that he can take for himself the property of someone more wealthy than he. But as Ayn Rand pointed out in Atlas Shrugged, for each of the wealthier folks above you from which you would seek to steal, there are ten poorer people below you looking to steal from you. The strategy is ultimately futile and ineffective, and the best long term way to ensure wealth for yourself is to protect property rights for all.
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Property rights have little to do with being wealthy.
"The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail, its roof may shake, the wind may blow through it, the storm may enter, the rain may enter - but the King of England cannot enter; all his force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement."
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Property rights have little to do with being wealthy.
Say what?!
:facepalm:
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Say what?!
:facepalm:
How is that difficult to comprehend?
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Do you truly not understand that wealth and property rights are inextricably linked?
The wealth of that poor cottage owner, small though it may be, result entirely from his property rights. Without his property rights, he would have nothing.
Without property rights, wealth does not exist. One could have power, perhaps, but not wealth.
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That is true, of course.
But it's not true that a person with a large amount of property is necessarily going to have a vested interest in freedom.
A large company, or interest group linked to said company will be tempted - reasonably - to lobby or agree to a regulation, if that regulation protects it from small competitors by the virtue of raising barriers to entry. As long as the regulation is not too onerous, and the company's assets aren't being seized, why not?
In a moral and philosophical sense, even the poorest man has a vested interest in private property as a moral concept. Even the man who lives out of his car has the sacred, individual, inviolable right not to have it ripped from him, and to be secure in its confines.
There are reasons why any given class of people can be persuaded to turn from these principles - the middle class, the wealthy, the poor, intellectuals, engineers, young, old. But there's no class that's inherently anti-freedom or pro-freedom.
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Wait a second here, what's the dollar value of a 700 billion dollar loan? You have got to be kidding me - being able to get a loan of that size represents an outrageous figure. And they got it on terms that no private entity would have given. The value of that service is the amount of the gift from Government to large corporations.
The issue here is that rich people can, and do, vote to take other people's money. This is a demonstrable fact throughout history. The idea that somehow a massive corporation or a multi-millionaire has no interest in increasing its fortunes because it already has money is simply preposterous. Rich people have just the same financial incentive (if not more, given the track record) to rip off the public as welfare queens.
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De Selby, if you don't like that, why don't you whine about it to the politicians who propose the loans, who sign off on them??
Given the regulatory nature of our government it would be a cinch for them to regulate that sort of cr@p into extinction -- right next to the dinosaurs -- if they wanted to.
But no .... GM, et al, they're "too big to fail." [barf]
"Rich people" voting to "take other people's money" includes most thugs in kongress. There's a lot of 'em who seem to make out like bandits themselves, even after voting to steal from Peter to pay Paul.
And there's a lot of "Pauls" out there who gleefully support these greedy kakistocrats. :-* :-*
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In a moral and philosophical sense, even the poorest man has a vested interest in private property as a moral concept. Even the man who lives out of his car has the sacred, individual, inviolable right not to have it ripped from him, and to be secure in its confines.
I'm not sure why you think this is less true for the rich than for the poor.
Everyone likes property rights but only the rich would be motivated to live in a world where stealing property is possible? That just doesn't compute.
Wait a second here, what's the dollar value of a 700 billion dollar loan?
Value to who? To the recipients of the loan? To the government who issued the loan? To the overall economy?
The financial bailouts were not done for the sake of the banks. They were done for the sake of the entire economy, you, me, bankers, everyone.
And the value of a loan can, in fact, be quantified. The value of the TARP loan was probably a few tens of billions (I don't have the exact numbers in front of me), hardly a sum that approaches the amount of money dolled out every year to the poor.
Unprecedented and massive as they were, the TARP loans still do not come anywhere close to justifying your belief that the rich take more from the government/taxpayer than the poor. You're still off by a few orders of magnitude.
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I guess all of those corporations who didn't want the federal money and the attached strings, and who wanted to give the money back, were greedy wealthy people stealing our money.
And the GM and Chrysler bond holders who got screwed in the bailouts, and had their money given to the UAW, were likewise stealing our money.
The unfunded mandates for Medicare and Social Security are now over $110 trillion. That money isn't going to the wealthy.
You've got some primo weed, De Selby.
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Yeah, I'm sure all those corporations were just running as fast as they could from that bailout money - the Government basically had to force them to stay solvent by taking it! Or not.
The UAW members aren't living nearly as well as the GM and Chrysler management staff who benefitted enormously from Government backing.
Take a look at all the financial scamming that happened over the past ten years, all the Government payouts that were demanded to fix it, and all of the exec payment packages that went out, and it's really an impossible stretch to conclude "rich people will vote for freedom!"
Do you honestly believe the people who wrecked the financial system and then depended on Government to fix it are folks that would vote for principled free markets, and not for their own pocketbooks? If you can't answer that question with a yes, I'm not sure how you can logically get to "wealthy people don't vote to take other people's money."
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Unprecedented and massive as they were, the TARP loans still do not come anywhere close to justifying your belief that the rich take more from the government/taxpayer than the poor. You're still off by a few orders of magnitude.
You need to look at my first post, which was "more taxpayer money per head"...social welfare programs generally result in a few hundred dollars assistance going out to tens of millions of people. The bailouts resulted in multi-billion dollar payment packages that primarily benefitted a few thousand people.
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That is true, of course.
But it's not true that a person with a large amount of property is necessarily going to have a vested interest in freedom.
A large company, or interest group linked to said company will be tempted - reasonably - to lobby or agree to a regulation, if that regulation protects it from small competitors by the virtue of raising barriers to entry. As long as the regulation is not too onerous, and the company's assets aren't being seized, why not?
In a moral and philosophical sense, even the poorest man has a vested interest in private property as a moral concept. Even the man who lives out of his car has the sacred, individual, inviolable right not to have it ripped from him, and to be secure in its confines.
There are reasons why any given class of people can be persuaded to turn from these principles - the middle class, the wealthy, the poor, intellectuals, engineers, young, old. But there's no class that's inherently anti-freedom or pro-freedom.
Prisoner's Dilemma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma)
That's why we need hard rules that all citizens will follow. (you know, like a constitution that keeps the government from deciding willy-nilly who they are going to benefit though regulation, tax rules, etc..., like we used to have before our government started ignoring it using the commerce clause to say they can do anything they want)
Once the government starts picking and choosing winners and losers, it is foolish for a citizen or company to try to play the "cooperate" game. It is now in their best interest to get as much as they can out of government, otherwise someone else is just going to screw them over.
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You need to look at my first post, which was "more taxpayer money per head"...social welfare programs generally result in a few hundred dollars assistance going out to tens of millions of people. The bailouts resulted in multi-billion dollar payment packages that primarily benefitted a few thousand people.
And a "few hundred dollars assistance going out to tens of millions of people" over six or seven decades adds up to a hell of a lot more than what was "given" out in bailout money -- especially if you adjust for inflation.
Yeah, I'm sure all those corporations were just running as fast as they could from that bailout money - the Government basically had to force them to stay solvent by taking it!
Ford ran away ... and they're actually doing pretty well in comparison to some others.
Do you honestly believe the people who wrecked the financial system and then depended on Government to fix it are folks that would vote for principled free markets, and not for their own pocketbooks?
Hardly relevant. There are criminals in every element of society and proportionatly more so so in government, it would seem. You will never be able to regulate away the vices of humanity. All the government seems to do is to engage in class warfare in order to win votes from the "have nots" by redistributing from the "haves."
IMHO we haven't really had a "free market" in decades. What we have is an over regulated over taxed over burdened economy in which many of the more successful are moving to China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other places with less onerous taxes and less burdensome regulations.
Some of the most powerful elements behind that "wrecked" the financial system are in Washington D.C. -- and are about to be re-elected by their clueless constituents.
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Yeah, I'm sure all those corporations were just running as fast as they could from that bailout money - the Government basically had to force them to stay solvent by taking it! Or not.
There were many corporations that received TARP money and tried to give it back, but the administration refused. Go read some *expletive deleted*ing newspapers instead of Pravda, for crying out loud.
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Yeah, I'm sure all those corporations were just running as fast as they could from that bailout money - the Government basically had to force them to stay solvent by taking it!
As I recall, There were actually some banks/financial houses that upon reading the terms of the TARP loans refused the money, and were then threatened by the fed untill they took the loans. So yeah, the government did have to force them to take it.