<The other circumstantial restrictions, like age or mental capacity, are generally intended to select for competency rather than "correct" politics.

that all I care about, competency. There are many ways to judge competency, owning land, being a certain age, military service, money, a written test.

none of them are perfect, indeed many are far from it, can't wait till we find a good standard.

Although, come to think of it, in the area of age the stereotypical course is liberal becoming more conservative with age (what happened to you, Justin?).

I turned stopped watching MTV at a young age. And I read a few good books: The Prince: Noccolo Machiavelli, Brave New world: Auldous Huxley; 1984; George Orwell. Wealth of nations was supposed to be one of them, but currently is proping up the other end of my desk (I built the desk with too much space between supports in one area. . . need to dig out the radial arm saw and get that fixed)

But you're right that an arbitrary threshold like 18 can be unfair, because people are different. Maybe the answer is for students to accumulate voting points as they take civics and history classes, based on the grade points. The scale could be weighted such that somebody who made average grades would be eligible to vote at 18. Higher grades accelerate the date you could start voting. Think anybody'd go for it?

Not me, when I think of the liberal arrogant pincos in english class who got good grades but couldn't critically think worth a crap, then think of the honors society, 25% or which regularly came bugging me to find out 'what the hell they were supposed to do" in Chemistry or Physics. . . (and yet I wasn't in the honors society. . .) well, you can guess what my opinion is about basing things on 'GPA'.

if you asked me what 'voting' should be based one, I would tell you, "critical thinking and comprehension skills, whith a good standing in history and precedence". Now how to find out who meets these qualifications is the kicker. I dunno.

The Achilles heel of any competency test is that whoever gets to set the criteria gets to influence or even control the political outcome, by preselecting people for the "correct" political leaning. Who would you trust to write the questions on a written test to qualify to vote?

Me. the only one I can trust. ;-)

Which, when you get down to it, is why anything less than universal sufferage, inside arbitrary basic boundaries like age, isn't truly democracy.

again, citizenry is an arbitrary boundary. I mean, why base it on citizenry if you don't base it on who pays the most bills or who owns the real estate of the government?

is universal sufferage good? no, to me, universal sufferage is not good. I personally think most people my age are completely incompetent, if you couldmove the age up the better. Go ahead. however I also know plenty adult who are incompetent.

And just like some people could say, if there were the landowner requisite "those who don't own land don't really have a stake in the country as much I.E. they would be voting leaders who don't serve the countries interests, and are voting the wrong way".

Depends on whether you define America as real estate, or as a nation of people. you can 'call it what you want, but that state of america would not exsist without money or land under its claim.

But seriously, since you acknowledge that America's actions affect the entire world, do you think it's improper for America to participate fully in international bodies like the UN? And be subject to international laws as tried in international courts?

on a personaly level I am quite the liberal, but on the national politics level I am quite the conservative, because I consider conservatism to be more 'realist' and liberalism to be more 'idealist'. I can afford to be idealist, but on the national level, where the stakes are high, and nice people are gauranteed to get screwed because of these high stakes, nothing but realism and machiavelian politics will work (In the interest of the country represented though). Subjecting the united states to an authority that is under the control of other political powers political whims is not in the interestin anyway to our 280 million. to hell with fareness; theres the well being of 280 million people at stake, and fareness will be taken advantage of.

Hmmm? If you really believe in democracy, why not extend its principles universally?

Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others. You don't want to unlese universal sufferage. I would even Encourrage voter turnout like most people do, the lower voter turnout the better because that means only the interested, the eople who honestly give a damn and might have looed into the issues, and most likely the more informed people, will be voting.

If I understand "regulate" to mean restrict, I would have to disagree, based on my reading of history, and in the case of lowering the age from 21 to 18, my experience of it. In 1972 liberals promoted it and conservatives resisted; same with getting rid of the poll taxes in the '50s and passing the Voting Rights Act in the '60s, and granting the franchise to women, finally, in 1912. Conservatives consistently resist expansion of the right to vote.

this only has to do with which way the demographic in question leans. You can bet anything if it were to extend the voting right of felon ex-military members, you will get republican support.

and you can bet that the liberals only supported these right to be passed because they would increas etheir voting block. Its not base don fareness, only gain.

It would be a cheap shot to ascribe conservative opposition to expanding the franchise to mere ageism, racism, or sexism. It has respectable roots in the original debate over whether we should be a republic or a democracy;

ok, we are a republic, and every other country that calls itself a democracy is really a republic. If you want a real democracy tyou need to look at ancient athens which experimented with this, and quickly overthrew it becaus eof how incompetent the masses were. Basically democracy is wher people draw lott to see who runs the government. . . that way you get abob the streat sweeper in charg eof teh city and things go all to hell. Call me apredudiced bastard, but thats what happened.

and Republicans are the descendents of those who took a very dim view of "mobocracy". You can hear the echoes in their modern-day rhetoric.


if I give credence to this statement will you give credence to this"Democrates are the descendents who think everyone who votes is a moron, love to manipulate it, and think they know what is better for you than you do.

hmm, you know what thes two parties are starting to sound an awful lot alike hu Robert?


Besides, consider the opposite that defines American conservativism: Communism, in never-implemented theory, was to have resulted in perfect and universal democracy, after the State had withered away. The People would rule themselves.



What do you get when you implement the economic theories of Adam Smith within a republican form of government?



you get this country the day George Washington became president. Minus the bad things like women not being able to vote and slaves etc. . .
not bad at all.

-Justin Kelly