AlbqOwl said:
I have thought about this for awhile and cannot accept the analogy that you present. If the party in power does not take care of business, they will be voted out and another party comes to power. That is how Republics work and are supposed to work when democratic principles are in place and enforced.
If the party in power is supported by all those citizens who have power themselves, the two groups between them will find a way to stonewall the "outs." It has always been so; laws or no laws, they have more at their disposal than simple votes and so also have a very good chance of staying in office (especially when whatever party opposes them has the support of only the bankrupt and dependent classes the other has created).
Supposed to work, yes; you're absolutely right. But things don't always work as they're supposed to, of course.
AlbqOwl said:
But if the have nots are allowed to confiscate at will the property of the haves, then before long the haves are also have nots and you have another third world government where most of the wealth is in the hands of despotic warlords who don't care about anybody else.
I think you have that backwards. At any time the haves can pull the plug on the have-nots; the whole purpose of letting them all vote is allowing them to balance one another out. Restricted voting will create a ruling class, no doubt about it, but it will be the class that starts out with more; the downs and the outs really have no chance to equal- much less surpass- them when they have their hands on the purse strings.
AlbqOwl said:
The way it should work is that government makes it as possible for the have nots to become haves too. The have nots will become haves by providing needed goods and services, increasing the GDP and individual wealth. Meanwhile, those who pay the taxes are usually the haves who hold the keys enabling others to become haves, and they should be the ones to vote on how much of it they wish to contribute to the common good.
Again, that is how it
should work. Obviously, government never really works as it should; hence, we have to accept the perceived imperfection of some sort of limited welfare and support system. The preservation of this requires the balancing rights of the have-not voting bloc.
AlbqOwl said:
Again, once people are able to vote themselves benefits at the expense of others, the general prosperity of the nation will suffer in varying degrees. In the long run, that will eventually hurt everybody.
On the contrary, I would argue that the prosperity of the have-nots is allowed to increase even while the haves retain the lion's share of what they start out with; balance in votes means greater balance in wealth and makes its concentration difficult. National prosperity is at its high when polarization and class differences are at their low; everyone is fueling the nation's progress, not just a few. If some hold back in spending, the economy is less likely to slow down because they no longer have a monopoly on purchasing power.
AlbqOwl said:
Our constitution prevents any vote that would prohibit have nots from becoming haves. And it once was interpreted to prevent confiscation of private property once it was legally acquired. I would very much like to see us get back to that principle and that would require taking another look at who should be allowed to vote.
There are four million lawyers in America today. With change. If enough of them were on one "side," I have no doubt that they would either find or create whatever loopholes would be needed; at any rate, what you describe sounds a rather vague protection. "We won't let the poor become poorer; moving on..."
People find ways around the Constitution, and the Constitution could not fully protect the rights of a minority denied their right to vote unless it restricted those of the still-able-to-vote. Better to let everyone have their say, deserved or not, than to trust government in an unnecessary moderation of an unnecessary argument, I would argue.
