On Wednesday 19 March 2008, David Nicol wrote:
On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 12:30 PM, Julie [email protected] wrote:
We all have a constitutional right to complain but no constitutional duty to vote.
As I understand it, there is a fine imposed on Australians who don't show up to participate in national elections.
I am in favor of instituting such a system in the u.s.
Why? The elections are just a scam anyway. There's one party posing as two and even if another party DID manage to get votes (which will never happen because nobody thinks it's possible), the main party can easily cover it up and make it look like they didn't.
US elections exist to give us a false sense of control over things.
On Wednesday 19 March 2008, James R. Sissel wrote:
Funny, I'm in favor of making them take a test on US History and the Constitution BEFORE they can vote.
Why would this country do that? The Civil War was fought by the federals to overturn the Constitution, and unfortunately they won. If we were to go by the Constitution, it would still be legal for any state to secede from the union.
Also, anyone taking money from the government (employee, welfare, social security) can't vote. It's a conflict of interest.
You'd need to be careful how you define "taking money". Probably the most reasonable way would be along the lines of "money from government to individual is greater than money from individual to government (taxes)". Of course, that definition has flaws too-- should someone who has got off welfare need to pay it all back before they can vote again?
If 'social security' was what it claimed to be (mandatory savings for retirement, more or less), it would certainly be unfair to punish someone for making withdrawls from that savings once they're allowed to.