<That statement might make sense in science and engineering, but it makes no sense in politics, which is about irrational human emotion and needs and desires on the large scale. One size does not fit all; all American have the right to pursue life, liberty, happiness, and self-interest as they personally define them. The inability to recognize that fact of human life is the defining characteristic of conservatives.

read my post up top. . . my plan attacks this scheme.

Can you defend not extending sufferage to women?

certainly not today, women go tho the same school are not bound by societal roles etc. today.

in the 1800s? People didn't take the time to educate the women, it was not the norm for society to do that. women were not broadly educated. so if you extended the right ot vote to them, you would end up pickingup some intelligent voters, but the majority might not be informed. Was this a travesty?

Well lets look at it this way, the travesty was the fact that women were not being educated and were being treated different;y, and as a result of THAT travesty they were denied the right to vote at first. Once you fix that, then voting become the travesty to fix.

************Disclamer***************
hey you asked me to make a defending
argument fo tthe value, there you go,
does not mean I beleive or not.
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When the voting age was lowered to 18, those new voters gained a life and death say in how the government would spend their lives. Tom's plan to apportion political power according to taxes paid would have meant that that group, made up of college students or low-paid entry-level workers, would have had nearly zero say in how the government disposed of their lives.

hey, no model is perfect, but it does prevent the jerry springer crowd from voting.

Might there be some values more important than money? Values that should be reflected in political participation?

of course, thry reading my post up top(which you probably have if you are reading this one)

By what other mechanism than universal sufferage can you make sure that society includes those values?

my point is that universal suffrage would be overly inclusive (solved my the post up top I am referencng)

Did you catch the cause-and-effect embodied in the examples above? Every time somebody is allowed to participate more fully in our political system, they've ended up participating more fully in our economic system.

I think thats an invalid relation. . . The right to vote was a byproduct of the social movement as was their estabishment in the economy.

Even in the third example, you could argue that, as a result of their political participation, the boys who weren't killed went on to contribute to the economy; and to the extent that national capital was not squandered on the war, they preserved some of our wealth for private use.



So why even bother to rig the game to reward producers and punish consumers? Isn't it likely to backfire and prevent people from becoming producers?



I would think it woudl cause people to be more honest when it come sincome tax tiem >:-) people would strive to make more money and have a bigger say, rich would repor thtemselves as being richer to get more of a vote.

however I would make one modification to Toms scheme I would set the vote gradient exponentially. . . that way bill gates does nto get 50 million votes, more like a few thousand. I.e he would get one more vote than the guy with 25 billon to his name, who would get one more vote than the guy with 12.5 billion to his name etc. . .

That's kinda sad, Justin. Idealism isn't a fantasy, it's being able to conceive of higher standards, of a better world, and believing that it's worth pursuing those goals.

no, often these goals are unrelaistic. . .kinda like comunisn, they sound great, but when you implement them, human nature gets a hold of them and turn them to crap like everything else.

-Justin Kelly