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

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244 points rcarmo | 1 comments | 21 Oct 24 21:29 UTC | HN request time: 0.204s | source
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jiriknesl ◴[22 Oct 24 08:33 UTC] No.41912334[source]▶
I know, from a human rights point of view, this is very problematic. But imagine, if only people who can really understand written text, who can calculate, who understand how legal system works, who have basics of logic could vote.

Of course, those tests shouldn't be that ambiguous, but if they were phrased a bit more clear, these would be very simple. At the same time, English has changed in the last 50 years. That phrasing might have been common back then.

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Yeul ◴[22 Oct 24 10:29 UTC] No.41912929[source]▶
You misunderstand the primary purpose of a democracy: to prevent civil war by giving everyone a voice.

And in this it works remarkably well.

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1. oersted ◴[22 Oct 24 12:54 UTC] No.41913745[source]▶
Some say that the Roman Republic lasted for so long because it gave just enough voice to the people so they felt heard and the ones in power could not afford to fully ignore them, while not giving the people sufficient power to elect someone that could up-end the oligarchic status quo that was proving to be so competent. There were also lots of checks and balances within the oligarchy to prevent any given radical person or faction from taking over.

For example, Consuls (president-like) were voted-in indirectly through a popular assembly (kinda like the Electoral College). They elected two Consuls that had to rule jointly and keep each other in check. Their term was only 1 year and they could not run for election again for the next 10 years. Consuls rarely had the chance to do any significant damage to the system or build-up power.

The Senators served for life and acted as a counterbalance. They were also elected rather indirectly by other popular assemblies, but they came mostly from the aristocracy that maintained a consistent tradition of Roman culture and morals, for better or worse. The thing is that there were enough of them (300, later 600) that internal competition always kept them in check and prevented anyone from getting too much power.

An interesting system.

But please do not take this as me advocating for such a system. The Romans were terrible violent oppressors by modern standards. A system of government lasting for a long time is not necessarily a good feature, it just means that it's good at keeping its power, nothing else. A status quo that cannot be easily changed is great if you are lucky and the status quo turns out to be good, but it's horrible if the situation is bad and there is no easy way to fix it.

I just wanted to give a bit of context.