A near impossible literacy test Louisiana used to suppress the black vote

I think the weight of your vote should come from the amount of taxes you pay, up to some cap. Can someone explain to me like I’m 12 why this is a bad idea?

Beyond anything else, intentionally designing a political system around disenfranchising a class of people seems like a bad idea from a human rights standpoint. You're creating a system in which the wealthier citizens can systematically take the rights away from the poor. I think you know how that can go wrong considering you're asking this question specifically on this post out of all posts.

1. The richest 1% vote whoever makes them even richer, at the expense of all the other 99% poorer than them. 2. The other 99% people no longer play the "democracy" game with the rich, form their own government without the "voting power corresponds to how much tax paid". 3. The rich people country loses its foundation, thus can no longer sustain. The rich join the poor people country.

Can you explain to me why votes should be weighted differently at all?

Disenfranchising all the retirees would certainly shake up politics.

All extant and historical systems explicitly disenfranchise some people, children, criminals, foreigners, etc.

There's points of principle and points of practicality. First - all men are created equal. Fundamentally, our political system should be designed around equality of all - otherwise why would the people who are less equal feel the need to support the system? If I only get 1/10th of the vote you get, why don't I take up arms and put my people in charge and count my vote 10x your vote?

In terms of practicality, your taxes this year? Your lifetime taxes? College students? No vote. What happens if I paid a million in taxes last year because I sold my company but nothing this year because I took a year out? Do state taxes count? What about state contracts, do we discount Elon Musks' vote because he receives so many state contracts for his companies like SpaceX? Or do we worry that Elon Musk gets tonnes of political power which he then uses to pressure the government into.. awarded him more SpaceX contracts? Those paying the most taxes are by definition those who have benefitted most from a well run country, surely they be penalized not given more power?

And we should work to remove such disenfranchisements from the system rather than simply accept them as a law of nature.

When you have a tough problem and need advice, do you turn to your unemployed uncle? The homeless guy on the street corner? Of course not. Not all opinions are of equal value. Pretending that they are of equal value is asinine.

I’m not sure “seeking the best advice on how to run a government” would even make the top-5 reasons to have a democracy, if you polled political scientists.

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This is frankly dangerous thinking. You're committing a cardinal sin, you're looking down on other people. An unemployed and homeless uncle might have more wisdom than a 30 year old with 4 degrees.

Obviously democratic voting should be as equal as possible. In fact, with today's technology we should be striving for "direct democracy" more than ever.

No no, I turn to the nepo baby of a nepo baby of a nepo baby of a nepo baby of a man who once had a plot of land that happened to sit on top of an oil field.

They know what’s going on, and you can tell by their credit score.

If you want a plutocracy then that's how you'd do it.

Spoiler: the weight your vote is already determined by your worth, billionaires can lobby governments, average people can't.

> Your feelings on the matter don't constitute an argument.

Nor do your feelings that poor people are de facto dumber than rich people.

You haven't provided an argument so there's nothing for me to disprove. You haven't specified in what ways preventing the poor to vote would help anything. You just said "well I wouldn't ask a poor person to help me buy something!"

They're citizens of our society and therefore any and all societal decisions will directly impact them. It is our right to have some amount of influence over decisions that directly impact us. You, yourself, understand that.

Why then should that concept not extend to the poor? This question is purely rhetorical - I know you don't have an answer, and probably the least embarrassing way forward would be to just say nothing. But, that's the perspective I'm addressing here and why I didn't bother to explain why the poor deserve those rights. I don't need to - I get those rights, and I like them, so that's the status-quo.

I guess it depends on the advice you're looking for but ...

* Unemployed uncle, I just got laid off from my FAANG company because the board needs to boost profits. Can you help me understand our welfare system so I can get on medicaid and unemployment?

* Homeless guy on the street, thanks for doing all that Occupy Wall Street stuff back in '11. What did you learn about organizing the fringes of society to try to change an unjust system? Any tricks I could apply to disenfranchised voters?

* Homeless guy on the street, I just found a giant sack of bagels in the dumpster. Are they good to eat or should I let them rot? By the way do you want some?

* January 17, 2038: Unemployed uncle, nobody can program anymore because we all just use AIs, however apparently talking into my tablet won't solve this Unix timestamp bullshit. What do you recommend?

Point is, sure, not all opinions of are equal value, but laying out judgements on others' opinions based on over-simplified mainstream prejudices narrows your ability to get good advice. That's partially what the article is about: blocking non-mainstream voters from making their voices heard.

I said no such thing.

Why? Most people find it beneficial to disenfranchise criminals, don't want murderers walking free and hurting you. Why should people support policies that hurt them?

>> Obviously democratic voting should be as equal as possible.

>Try making an argument in support of your point.

How about IT IS IN THE NAME

Demos: The people. Kratia: Rule.

Go ahead, start excluding people from "the people", see how far you get before someone with more influence or power decides you should be excluded.

Citizens convicted of crimes are citizens just like you (I assume) and I. I don't think most people find it beneficial to disenfranchise them.

One obvious use case for not disenfranchising citizens convicted of crimes, is a politician who criminalizes opposition, thus making it impossible to vote them out.

As for policies which hurt people: policies favoring old folks often hurt the majority of people, but there isn't a big push to disenfranchise old people.

> Your feelings on the matter don't constitute an argument.

Nor do your feelings that poor people have less informed, less useful, less credible, less valid, or less valuable opinions than rich people.

Better?

Unless you're arguing for the summary execution of all felons, we already allow murderers to walk free after serving their time. Hell, when those murderers are soldiers we give them medals and parades.

Sorry, technically those soldiers are killers and not murderers since when they take innocent lives it's endorsed by the state.

But if you think the presence of felons within society presents a social or public safety issue, consider that the real problem is that the justice system in the US is punitive and exploitative rather than rehabilitative, and what cultural and systemic issues might lead people to crime and violence in the first place, and to recidivism.

To your first point; is progressive taxation fair or equal? Aren’t the high income earners being treated unfairly without getting anything in return for it?

To your second point; lifetime seems fair to me. Should college kids’ votes count as much as someone’s with more life experience? It doesn’t seem intuitive to me.

I get the plain “all humans are created equal” argument from an ethical perspective, but I don’t think this goes quite that deep. I would see this more as a tuning parameter for the efficiency of this system in the same way that criminal sentencing or any concensus based model we have where certain people have more “say” in it.

In a Christian sense, which you might find jarring, I’d regard the “all humans are equal” part a rule made by God, and “some humans should be given more decision power” a rule made by us that in no way contradicts God’s ultimate will.

Are there enough of these people for it to matter? Let’s say instead of there being 5000 of these “nepo babies” (whose parents and environment of course never taught them anything so that they’re useless members of society in charge of massive fortunes because of chance alone because that just suits your world view best) there were now 50000. What policy changes might they now implement that would shake the foundations of our society?

Because it empowers those most favored by existing systemic biases extra power to protect those biases against progress toward equality.

To be clear, I said nothing even close to what's in your parens.

Off the top of my head: decades long precedence on regulatory agencies' authority, abortion rights, and Presidential immunity have all undergone dramatic reshaping in the last few years in large part driven by only one ultrawealthy person (Leonard Leo, born to wealth).

Your question is silly.

Progressive taxation dictates that more productive people take on more responsibility for running society than less productive people.