You sure put a lot of racist words in that guy's mouth. Shame on him for saying stuff like that. Or something.

He isn't being racist or misogynist. He sounds frustrated at voter apathy. He seems weary of lemmings who automatically believe the "he's a Muslim" and "she's a Republican" bologna. I read it as someone who thinks voters should think before they push the button.

In light of the Rev. Wright controversy, perhaps Obama would be better off declaring himself of the Muslim faith.

Bada bing.

Anyway, I wasn't implying any racist connotations. Those are strictly conjured up in the mind of the reader, for good or ill. If you read the post referred to, this was the era that was being discussed as the good old days. These other things are simply examples of the policies folks thought were good ideas in the good old days.

The funniest aspect of this is that it isn't coming from a "liberal elite."

This is a lot like something Jonah Goldberg wrote some months ago. I can't remember where I read it but is has the same kind of sick sleazy feel his stuff has and the same slant.

Which category of voters are too dumb to vote?

But the restriction of civil liberties is a lot more dangerous to me than whatever might be wrought by an ill informed public. Besides, implementing a poll tax (even if constitutional - it ain't) only means you've got enough disposable income to pull the lever, not that you're in any way better informed. Whenever frustration with certain trends or perceived trends in the general populace tempts you to attempt to restrict civil liberties, odds are you're seriously over-emotional and under-rational about the matter.

Sort of like how a concern with child neglect/child abuse/child welfare led a group of otherwise rational people to suggest this kinder, gentler form of eugenics:

(link...)

and

(link...)

Leave it to Randy to read things that aren't there. Show me any word in my post that suggested restricting voting based on race.

Or sex.

Or age, for that matter.

Based on the exit polling data of the Democratic primaries, those criteria appear to be favored by the Democrat Party.

What I said was that in the days when we required qualifications for voting, we seem to have gotten better representatives. Today, when all it takes is a pulse, we get, well, just take a look around you. Federal, state, or local, how many politicians can we be really proud of?

Now, does anyone care to address that point, or do you want to just revel in a little manufactured racist hysteria?

Incidentally Randy, you completely misunderstood another key point of my post. I don't want people voting for their own self interests. That's where we are today, and why our elected representatives spend more time pandering to the voter than running the country. I want an informed electorate that can rise above their own self interest and vote in the best interests of the United States of America.

You know, the whole..."we pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor" thing.

Now, does anyone care to address that point, or do you want to just revel in a little manufactured racist hysteria?

Reading comprehension 101: read the post and the comments. At the same time we had all these requirments to vote, including poll taxes, women couldn't vote, black men couldn't vote, and in fact only counted as three-fifths of a person. And they thought those were good ideas, too.

Think about that for a minute. Can you think of any other area of endeavor where we allow the ignorant and apathetic equal say with the engaged and informed?

Blogging.

But the good news is that the Supremes upheld the voter ID requirements.

That takes care of many of those pesky seniors, and even some nuns.

Randy, I read your post, and all of the comments. Your post introduced racism and sexism into the discussion, and metulj quickly picked up on it. I left those issues out of the discussion because I believe they are irrelevant to determining fitness for voting.

In fact I didn't even propose a specific criteria for modern times. I reviewed one criteria, the poll tax, and discussed how it operated to improve the electorate, and then theorized that a restricted electorate was one of the reasons our elected officials then were of a higher caliber than those we get today.

Here's what amazes me. You (and by you, I mean anyone who read the post) could have questioned if our politicians today really are inferior to those of the past. You could have challenged the idea that our electorate today is less informed, aware, and engaged than the electorate 200 years ago. You could have questioned the idea that the two observations share a causal link. You could have discussed the advantages and disadvantages of various ways to improve the electorate. These are all topics worthy of discussion and examination.

Instead, on the premier progressive website in the state, the first reaction is to make it all about race.

That's too bad.

Justin, I'm not comparing the signers of the Declaration or the framers of the Constitution with modern day voters. I'm comparing the political leaders of then with the political leaders of today, and quite frankly, I think today is coming up short.

RayCapp, we restrict the right to vote to those 18 and older. Is this a violation of civil liberties, or is it a recognition that voting is a right that must be exercised with great deliberation, and those who haven't reached a certain age are unlikely to be able to exercise that deliberation? All I am saying is that the age criteria alone isn't getting the job done.

Let me ask you a question. You're sick and you go the hospital. When you get there, you find out that they have a new process for determining treatment. Instead of listening to the doctor, they put your diagnosis up for a vote, and include not just the doctor, but the nurses, the orderlies, the janitors, some other patients, a homeless guy who was sleeping in the emergency room waiting area, and a guy who's seen every episode of ER 5 times.

How much faith are you going to have in that diagnosis?

Yet our political system operates in exactly this manner.

I think we can do better. I think we have to do better. The means are open for discussion. Maybe Randy is right and we should beef up Civics instruction in schools. But how would we measure that at the ballot box? Should prospective voters have to correctly answer basic civics questions before their vote is counted?

The reason forms the crux of my argument.

We restrict their civil rights, in this case voting rights, because we believe that they are not mature enough to exercise that right responsibly.

All I really said in my post is that we might want to try and find a more accurate indicator of responsibility and/or maturity than chronological age.

What you're suggesting is that people who are fully qualified to die fighting the conflicts our leaders get us involved in, shouldn't have the right to have a say in who those leaders are if they have insufficient jingle in their pockets. Assinine.

Once again, I never advocated a modern poll tax; that was an example from the past used to illustrate a mechanism by which the electorate might be improved through restriction. If the example bothers you so much, let's drop it and use Mr. Neal's suggestion of required education in civics. What if we required prospective voters to pass the citizenship exams given to naturalized citizens? Would you have a problem with that? Is it the idea of restricting the electorate that bothers you, or just the mechanism? Should resident aliens get to vote? They pay taxes and serve in our military. By your logic, they should have a say in our electoral process.

Speaking of asinine, we restrict the right of adult citizens to drink alcohol, the same adult citizens who can fight and die in a war. Does that make sense?

In what way does the possession of wealth and/or the willingness to spend it correlate to how well informed one might be?

First, if you have the income to pay the tax, that indicates that most likely, you are a productive member of society. Yes, there will be some who have money from inheritances, but tax figures show that they make up a small percentage of the top wage earners. Secondly, and more importantly, if you have to pay for something, you value it more than if it is just given to you. If it's going to cost you a day's wages to vote in an election, you're going to be more interested in making sure that you make an informed choice. Put in pop culture terms, if American Idol charged $10 a vote, Sanjaya wouldn't have lasted 10 minutes.

At the time the voting rules were forged, the idea that blacks should not be allowed to vote was due not to racism, but to the fact that, as slaves, they were largely uneducated and completely ignorant of how the government operates.

It is the "uneducated and ignorant" factor that prevented them from voting, not the color of their skin. The poll tax, literacy tests and character tests were also enacted to ensure that the voters had at least a little bit of a clue of what they were doing. Poor, uneducated white folk were also affected by these rules.

The whole point of the original post is that with voters as dumb as bricks, who are voting their own personal self-interests (rather than the good of the nation) we are getting such candidates as we have now, and have had for the last 20 years. It does not suggest that a return to the poll tax is a solution, it is only offered as an example of the intent of the founding fathers to ensure that voting was a thoughtful process, not a knee-jerk flip of the switch.

Far more reasonable and practical is the Danish solution:

We in Denmark cannot figure out why you are even bothering to hold an Election.

On one side, you have a Bitch who is a Lawyer, married to a Lawyer, and a Lawyer who is married to a Bitch who is a Lawyer.

On the other side, you have a true war hero, married to a beautiful Woman with a huge chest, who owns a Beer distributorship.

Is there a Contest here?

At the time the voting rules were forged, the idea that blacks should not be allowed to vote was due not to racism, but to the fact that, as slaves, they were largely uneducated and completely ignorant of how the government operates.

Except for the facts that (1) it was illegal to educate black people prior to 1865, (2) "separate but equal" schools were set up in order to specifically prevent blacks from getting a quality education up until Brown v. Topeka in 1953, and (3) that there were statutory loopholes like the one in Oklahoma where "anyone qualified to vote prior to 1866 is exempt from the literacy requirement."

So, you know. This is an utter falsehood that you're engaging in here, "Anonymous."

You also show your glaring lack of knowledge of the history of this nation. Or maybe you do know, you just wish to bend it to fit your twisted agenda.

Which is only true when you believe that the history of America as told by John Birch is accurate.

____________________________

"It's gettin' so a businessman can't expect no return from a fixed fight. Now, if you can't trust a fix, what can you trust?"

We can devise all kinds of multipliers based on income, size of your home, size of the state you live in, the party in power, DNA traceable back to the Mayflower, etc. etc.

Speaking of DNA, doesn't anyone remember where the phrase "grandfather clause" came from? It was the loophole that stated "if your grandfather was qualified to vote, you don't have to pay the poll tax / take the quiz" before you get enfranchised. ("Anonymous" can look it up. It's part of the history of white America that she says that we're unaware of.)

RIch: Age is used because it's a neutral qualifier. It's verifiable, it's quantifiable, and there's really no debate over what makes you qualified (you've passed your 18th birthday before the last eligible date to register).

You could argue the same thing about wealth, I suppose, but then you get into the question of determining how much money makes you how smart - and if you happen to be thrown out of work or in the throes of a dread disease (which can impact the amount of disposable income that you have), should that impact your voting status? Hell. Maybe your vote should count twice, because policy might have an impact on whether you get a job or can afford health care.

Means testing or IQ tests or whatever all have the drawback of "who writes the tests" or "who determines the criteria." Or "who determines who determines the criteria." I'd put in this question: "True/False: Cutting taxes increases revenue." Anyone who answers "true" would not only be disqualified, but would be subject to a smack in the head. (Point being: I'm sure you wouldn't want me writing the test, just as I'm damned sure I wouldn't want you or Ron Paul writing it.)

Only about 40% of those eligible reliably bother to get into the process anyway - so what you're really worried about is some portion of that 40% that puts people that you disagree with over the 50%+1 threshold for holding office. That's one of those operational things about "how our government works" that they don't teach in civics class. Things like "lobbying" and "pork barrels" and "gerrymandering" and "presidential signing statements" and "political party" and "PACs" and "527s" are also not things that appear in the Constitution, but have a significant impact on how our system actually works.

____________________________

"It's gettin' so a businessman can't expect no return from a fixed fight. Now, if you can't trust a fix, what can you trust?"

There's also the longstanding legal principle of "age of majority" which determines when someone becomes an "adult" for the purposes of taking responsibility for themselves and severing parental responsibility (which works both ways), entering into contracts, getting married without permission, etc. That doesn't seem quite as arbitrary as the poll tax supporters would make it out to be.

There are far better ideas about how to get a better caliber of elected official than invented discriminations based on income or a civics test, but in keeping with the theme of arbitrariness, how about this:

To be eligible to vote for a federal office, you must have voted in a state election within four years.

To be eligible to vote for a state office, you must have voted in a city or county election within four years.

So what you are saying is that those that pay a poll tax NOW have a vested interest in the policies of their choice. I could not agree more.

When I go out to buy a new TV - I research the HECK out of it to make sure I can live with the features of the device for the next (hmmm) 4+ years.

When something costs nothing - not a big deal - no need to do the research - just pull the lever.

And the worst part of NO POLL TAX is that there are folks that can choose a policy of making other groups pay for their societal benefits. How is this different from me living in Pennsylvania to say that Californians should pay a larger share (proportionately) of Federal Income Taxes.

And serve up something besides Fox News to inform the electorate.

Why do I get the impression that all liberals have one TV channel (Fox News) and one radio station (WNOX)? If you don't like the programming, don't watch or listen to the program. What am I missing here?