Last week, right-wing pundit Matthew Vadum created a stir when he argued that -- as his piece at American Thinker is titled -- "Registering the Poor to Vote is Un-American." Here's how the piece starts:
Why are left-wing activist groups so keen on registering the poor to vote?Equating "the poor" with criminals? Suggesting the wealthy aren't "open to bribery" and won't "vote themselves more benefits" (hello, tax loopholes)? 45 years after the Supreme Court ruled in the poll tax case Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections that voter qualifications can't be based on wealth, implying that maybe they should?
Because they know the poor can be counted on to vote themselves more benefits by electing redistributionist politicians. Welfare recipients are particularly open to demagoguery and bribery.
Registering them to vote is like handing out burglary tools to criminals. It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country -- which is precisely why Barack Obama zealously supports registering welfare recipients to vote.
"If people can't even feed and clothe themselves should they be allowed to vote? Should they be voting?"
I don't want everybody to vote. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.
The most common source of contractions of the franchise [in U.S. history has been] class apprehension--particularly when coupled with racial or ethnic divisions. The most well-known instance, of course, was the disfranchisement of African Americans in the South at the end of the nineteenth century; this was prompted not only by racism but by the desire of many white Southerners to maintain a disciplined and powerless agricultural labor force. Similar impulses figured in the passage of literacy tests aimed at Irish immigrants in Massachusetts in the 1850s, or Italians and Jews in New York in the early 1920s.
Our democracy is supposed to be a government by, of and for the people. It doesn't matter how much money you have, what race you are or where you live in the country - we all get to have the same amount of power by going into the voting booth on Election Day. But those who passed these laws believe that only some people should participate. The restrictions undermine democracy by cutting off the voices of the people."
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Paul Stoller: Tea Party America
What twisted logic with no basis in reality.
No, Emmalib, you are not smart enough to follow the conversation.
The Tea-baggers keep saying they support the constitution, but WHO's constitution? Certainly not OUR constitution!
Since many rich people also don't pay taxes, they would be excluded too.
When you get a job you can vote too, just bring your last 1040 to the polling place.
The article questions should the poor be allowed to vote?
According to today's news one person in six is living in poverty. So is it your opinion that the poor as well as the unemployed should not be allowed to vote?
Conservatives are not empathetic, and by the word they define themselves by are the antithesis to progress, empathy, complex problem solving and ultimately the future.
And then conservatives wonder why we liberals say the Tea Party has a collective IQ of about 70. It's really scary when you see such ignorant people trying to influence policy. There's nothing scarier than ignorance with momentum. These conservatives are evidence of that.
We used to be one nation but those days are long gone. When people cheer the idea of sick uninsured people just dying, this is a country I no longer know.
#1, set up a poll tax. 60% of your net worth. You want to play, you gotta pay.
#2, the real issue is that you have a large group who pay no taxes whatsoever, so they don't feel ownership. Put in a tax floor. $50 per adult citizen. Everyone has to contribute to the common good.
Let's take access to the courts away from poor people.
That way, when a thief takes everything you have, you won't be able to sue him in court.
I mean, this has been working very well to protect the banks from their victims.
Also, taking the vote away from the poor will really help us clean up our politics. If only the rich can vote, and only their candidates get elected, then we remove the temptation for the rich to bribe politicians after those politicians are elected, as they do now. The rich will no longer have to bribe politicians, as they will already own them de facto pre-election.
Hence, clean government!