Why do we allow stupid people to vote, why are stupid people allowed to run our countries? Is democracy not broken?
Would it not make more sense for all governmental positions to be decided based upon a persons qualifications/intelligence/achievements in their field rather than an arbitrary popularity contest where the majority of the voters can barely understand the most basic political issues?
Can we not at least restrict people's right to vote based on intelligence?
I don't want my country's leaders to be decided by the pond scum of society.
American? Yeah, I feel that way too. But think of it this way: when the economy collapses and the Middle East becomes another Vietnam, the idiots know who and what party is to blame.
Hmm yes, a literacy test would handle this well.
More like a government literacy test. Like, "Who was the 16th president?" or "What are the three branches of government?"
If you don't have a basic grasp of how our government works, you shouldn't be able to vote. Plain and simple.
>>4
"Who was the Xth president?" questions wouldn't be in the spirit of getting the idiots to not vote. Those sorts of questions are loaded with bias and are more like useless and biased trivia only a select few would know. You've still got idiots who know the presidents forward and back and the good voters who do too. This just means you're just cutting down the numbers of both good and bad voters. Informed voters are good. Sheeple are bad. So we need questions that would weed out the sheeple and illustrate knowlege of government workings.
"What are the branches of government?" is a good question, but too simple. I would have several questions relating to the offices of the government. "What does the executive office do?" or "How long can the president use troops to invade before needing approval from congress?" or "Can the _______ do _______?" are questions which do not have a bias towards any party.
>>4
You didn't catch the historical allusion of "literacy test." You have failed, and under your own system would likely not be granted suffrage. Please never think about politics again.
>>5, "3
I wholly agree, in fact I beleive it wouldn't be unfair to force everyone to apply for citizenship, as if naturalized. Use a random set of basic knowledge and ideological questions, and offer the test at(/as part of) age of majority. Mayhaps 15 years at minimum, 20's average?
>>2
Great idea. Let's wait it out and be killed whilst the world becomes a shithole.
Hmm. While I do agree that there should be some sort of restraint against idiotic voters (I'm living that as well in my country), I, for one, think that it would go against the concept of democracy.
If you think about it, in most countries the ignorants are a majority, and is up to us (the ones that think things before doing them) to suffer the consequences of a bad goverment because we are the ones able to see it.
However, creating a "literacy test", while a good idea, poses several serious questions, like who will be in charge to making the test? How can we be sure the test is balanced so that anybody with the knowledge we require can partake on it? What if the tests are manipulated in order to acquire more votes neverminding the answers? Because, while only a few (the ones that pass the test) could vote, in order to do so, EVERYBODY who wanted to vote, should take the test, and a corrupt politician would looove to alter the results in order to gain his state more votes.
Also, while the least of our worries, logistically and econoically, I don't think it would be too viable. Just setting up the vote urns is a hassle, picture making a test for each citizen registered to vote.
And there's always the risk of people feeling their rights are being violated, and that's a whole different story.
While a great idea, this is why I think it would be rather impractical.
I think a better question is, are you yourself informed and are you putting out effort to inform the uninformed?
Democracy is utterly pointless. The people will vote in their own interest instead of the greater good and based on things like the charisma or appearance of the candidate. It's like letting a child pick when he's going to bed.
Democracy is not pointless, nor broken, it's simply incorrect.
Democracy assumes that the most will know what's best for all, in order to work.
That, of course, is incorrect. Only a few - if they exist - knowledgeable people will be able to forsee what is best for all.
> Why do we allow stupid people to vote, why are stupid people allowed to run our countries? Is democracy not broken?
Stupid people are not born, they're created. If education is fixed, people will be more aware of what is going on. Education is not fixed for that exact reason. If you start educating everyone, governments will fall.
> Would it not make more sense for all governmental positions to be decided based upon a persons qualifications/intelligence/achievements in their field rather than an arbitrary popularity contest where the majority of the voters can barely understand the most basic political issues?
Typical pitfall. You suggest something, and it's a fine idea, but you don't take corruption into account. Who is going to be the judge of those who are going to apply for governmental positions? When you're talking about qualifications, you're also talking about a judge.
You're right at this, as it is, the system is simply insane and does not make sense. Democracy doesns't make sense. Nor does the law system.
> Can we not at least restrict people's right to vote based on intelligence?
It might not be clear to you, but the problem is not peoples intelligence, but rather, voting and authority. Should we talk about an ideal world or a realistic situation?
I don't want my country's leaders to be decided by the pond scum of society.
> I don't want my country's leaders to be decided by the pond scum of society.
Don't call them pond scum -- it's not their fault. You should consider yourself lucky that you managed to escape your cell and see that things are bad. The stronger should help the weaker, that is the only possibly working system. As such, you should be helping people, instead of calling them pond scum.
(continuing)
(continued)
> More like a government literacy test. Like, "Who was the 16th president?" or "What are the three branches of government?"
You think that'd work? I can prove to you that it won't. In education, does a certificate prove anything? You really don't know how the person got the certificate, it could be by pure luck, it could be that he studied hard things that don't really matter to him, it could be that it was handed to him.
Who will maintain those tests? What you're asking for is a mess. I guess you want people to take the tests in every poll they want to vote? Or someone who has taken the test once can show his "certificate" and never take it again? If the former, you're going to prevent a lot of people that perhaps have an idea for the greater good to not vote, if they fail the test. Moreover, how are you going to stop people from telling others what the test questions were? If you're going to design questions for each individual that wants to vote, do you realize you'll quite soon run out of questions to ask? Not only that, but who will maintain those questions and who will be the judge for this? If the latter, how will you prevent people from cheating, by say, sharing certificates, or duplicating them, or copying them, et cetera et cetera, or bribing the guards/whoever is there to check the validity of the certificates?
> [...] I, for one, think that it would go against the concept of democracy.
Going against democracy is not necessarily a bad thing. Democracy is not the best thing humanity ever conceived. It's not that it's undesirable to go against democracy, it's that what >>1 suggested simply won't work any better than what we have now.
> If you think about it, in most countries the ignorants are a majority,
In fact I'd say that in all countries the ignoramus are a majority. If anyone must be blamed, it's the governments that don't fix education. Why should they, anyway? If education is fixed, it's possible that the people will try to overthrow the government and get ruled by some other nation -- possibly violently. Is that desirable in the political game? No. It's an almost pointless act. I'd rather have individuals realize that they must educate themselves in order to receive proper education, than have this.
> And there's always the risk of people feeling their rights are being violated, and that's a whole different story.
Our rights are being violated non-stop, period.
> While a great idea, this is why I think it would be rather impractical.
In fact, it is not a great idea. If something does not work, how is it a great idea?
>>11 has a better attitude. Stronger helping the weaker, et cetera.
tl;dr what >>1 suggests won't work.
The best way to keep stupid people from voting is in helping to educate those people you find under par and perhaps you will find some education in return.
All democracies are, in the end, suicide pacts. Limiting the franchise to a small segment of the population may delay the end, but it will still be there, albeit delayed.
Constitutional monarchy with some sort of meritocratic aristocracy and a limited franchise for general citizens is probably the most stable government going
First off, you have to educate people about participation in a democracy. Each and everyone of us has the right to get this kind of education - for free. If you don't do that, the number of "stupid" people will grow and they will sooner or later overthrow government, which results in a government made of complete idiots.
Isn't this why we have an electoral college?
This thread resembles http://4-ch.net/debate/kareha.pl/1241560941 in many ways.
OP, the governmental system you are proposing is called a meritocracy, literally that leaders and positions are filled based on the person's merits.
Singapore is a pseudo meritocracy, now you are capable of researching it and deciding if it still makes sense.
I do enjoy seeing a well presented argument without any raging or flaming, but have you considered that your premises may be flawed?
I personally disagree with much of what you have said simply due to a different outlook on life, and an ability to think outside the box.
Examples of counterarguments:
Children by nature often shun the education system, thus preventing themselves from becoming non ignorant. How can this be fixed? you would have to force them to learn, and although I do not sympathise with anyone in particular, I think it is quite clear that this would be extremely oppresive (and for me, that is bad).
I like and agree with your second point about corruption etc.
As a theoretical physicist, I can assure you that those points are the least of your worries (I am aware that my position does not grant me direct authority to make this statement, but it should at least show that I am not your average intellectual). It is impossible to measure intelligence with any degree of accuracy.
I disagree with your statement that the strong helping the weak is the only viable system. From a darwinist standpoint, removing the weak from the system is beneficial.
From a logical standpoint, if someone has nothing they can offer a society, then they are a drain on its resources which could potentially be used on someone who does have something to offer.
I laughed hard at the point to name the 16th president, I mean, how does knowing who exactly that was impact on your political decisions today? Not at all I am quite sure.
Agree strongly that going against the concept of the democracy is the only way forward, I hate how difficult it is to do though, since no matter how you try to change it someone will become disadvantaged and so the sheeple will resist the change.
Agree that most people are ignorant full stop.
>Our rights are being violated non-stop, period.
This point annoys me, your "rights" are defined by the time you live in, the government which serves you, and are created by politicians who are trying to buy your vote.
No human has a god given right to anything, everything must be earned.
Having said that however, If you can do something in a literal sense, you can earn the right to do it: eg, no one has a 'right' to have a gun, but no one has the right to take one away from you either, if you have a gun, then you have a gun, that is all there is to it.
At this point I will reveal that I am an Anarchist, in the purest sense of the word. You may have figured this out from the very last point I made, but chances are you will be shocked due to one of the below:
Anarchy is for kids trying to rebel to be cool.
Anarchy is stupid, it cannot work.
So hopefully you have realised that your ideals, premises, and values are not absolute. No two people will have exactly the same ones, and for you to force yours upon others as if they were the only acceptable ones is downright oppresive.
And hopefully you have gained a little more respect for anarchists, not necessarily because of their philosophy, but because I have just proved that we are not our stereotype.
You know, if you think that the main flaw of democracy are people then I have to tell you, that any other political and even economic system would be ideal if people would understand it and would follow it's ideas. Socialism? Heaven on earth. Despotism? With brilliant leader, as well heaven on earth. If people are flaws of every system, what will you do? Change them? By force? Or just try to show them that they're making mistakes and see how do they ignore you?
--
When come to think of it, when I would like to create society with strong technology, I'd go for a mix of corporation based one and anarchy. Corporations can create any law on their own territory. Probably wars between them (which would in most cases destroy both companies and leave field to other ones) or just trying to get more market would require skills and technology. Also introducing idea of War of Assasins (see Frank Herbert's "Dune") could be beneficial.
But if I'd like to have society with culture being developed, I'd choose totalitarian regime with great underworld and couple of enclaves hidden from the system.
Democracy is good for small group of people and only when it comes to make opinions, not decisions. It makes people lazy egoists. And democracy combined with socialism is even worse.
So what you are proposing basically is anarcho-capitalism. But you have to keep in mind that anarchist systems are extremely unstable and only work with a perfect balance of forces. You don't have that if one of those corporations wins the fight, expands all over the country and creates a totalitarian state. Also, don't expect the best ideas to survive. That's plain theory and propably won't work.
You're right and I don't except any state too be ultimate and more that than, I believe that it could be better to balance between states and just have a mixture of different states all the time. And as you said, any anarchist system will collapse because of the reasons, you gave. Monarchy and despotism will end because people will start to hate differences between classes. Totalitarian states will be destroyed by other totalitarian state or by people for similar reasons as monarchy and despotism (even when everyone should be equal, there will be goverment, police, etc. who will have more privilages) and also because they wnat to say, think, do, whatever they want. Republics will turn into democracy. And what about democracy? Did we see any democratic country to change democracy into something else? Of course I don't take into account changing it by force, as it may happen to any state. And I think, that it happened couple of times in Africa. Democracy will break into smaller states, foundalism and anarchy, expected by me, to be the most common ones.
Ideas won't survive the totalitarian state, you say? And how many ideas survive anyway? There is no "the best" system, but I'd like to hear more ideas, what could work, why and how.
As soon as we figure out a valid way of measuring intelligence, I'll seriously consider this question.
>>24
WAIS?
It doesn't measure things like creativity or social intelligence, but within the scope of reasoning, is there anything wrong with it?
> Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) is a general test of adult intelligence (i.e., an IQ test)
A foken IQ test? No.
>>23
There sure is no "the best" system as there always might be a better one. Democracy is just a word, there are many ways to run a democracy. In my humble opinion, expanding democracy to all aspects of a country will work best. Of course, that only works with reasonably educated people but that's not that hard to reach. Just make every kid go to school and make sure that the school system produces a maximum of fairly intelligent citizens. There is no need to keep 80% of the people dumb as we do today.
Once this was done, you can establish a new system based on pure democracy. This means, running every aspect of a society democratically: economy, government, etc.
> There is no need to keep 80% of the people dumb as we do today.
You've no idea about economics. Economics keep a country alive; a country won't do something bad for iself. Giving everyone in a country decent education would be a disaster; In particular, that country would eventually be defeated by a country with more morons than itself.
>>1 If "stupid people" couldn't vote than no one would be able to vote. Everyone has blind spots, it's the collective voice of all the "stupid people" that makes a democracy work.
>>18 The electoral college is just another way of discounting our voice in the country. We think it's democratic, but it's bureacratic.
Stupidity is a democratic right? Why don't you undemocratic dogs move to Iran or North Korea if you hate democracy?
What ignorance.
Libertarians were also involved in a board that warned of the potential for disaster and proposed a privatized upgrade that would have prevented it.
Statists break your leg then charge you to fix it.
Yikes. Some of you [American] people don't seem to know your history. Literacy tests and poll taxes, among other things, have been used throughout US history specifically to keep free Black men and women, as well as other immigrants, and poor whites from voting. This abstract discussion about systems of government and whatnot is nice, sure. But it's not even necessary in the context of American politics (excuse me for being American-centric, here). We already know that "intelligence tests" could be very easily used in the same fashion-- that is, to serve a political purpose and to prevent certain groups of people from casting their votes.
With the unfortunate campaign finance system we already have in place, using "intelligence tests" to remove even more power from the individual is pretty frightening.
Restrictions on voting based on intelligence are problematical at best; however, prohibiting those who do not pay federal income taxes from voting (specifically in federal elections) makes perfect sense.
At present, almost half of Americans pay no federal income tax. What this means is that we are becoming a nation of freeloaders; a nation where, someday, the people paying the bills will have no say in how their money is spent.
All republicans are SOOOOO stupid, I think we should only allow libertarians and liberals to vote.
What about people who work 120 hours a week for minimum wage, but don't have high enough pay to bother taxing? Are you saying they are lazy freeloaders who don't deserve the right to vote?
Convert your conception, the Elites' plot goes well
because deceptive idiots such as you and I have votes.
Convert your conception, I think that the Elites' plot goes well because deceptive idiots such as you and I have votes.
>>13Don't call them pond scum -- it's not their fault. You should consider yourself lucky that you managed to escape your cell and see that things are bad. The stronger should help the weaker, that is the only possibly working system. As such, you should be helping people, instead of calling them pond scum.
I am all for helping people....ie private charity, etc. However, I am frustrated by the manner in which the heavy hand of the federal government determines what qualifies someone as being one of those "weaker" people who deserve help.
As a stupid person, I am grossly offended my this thread.
Alot of people don't even know why the hell they are voting for who they chose, and that pisses me off because what if they had voted for obama just to see a black man inoffice, only to find out in history class a week later that they agree entirely on mccains stand.
We tried this and it was called the Soviet Union.
The intellectual elite ran the country briefly. Then a brutal cabal exploited the new system to its fullest to achieve absolute power. Then their children, who never actually studied anything because of their teachers' fear of being imprisoned, took over. End result: a country ruled by brutal morons, economic collapse, etc.
It's kind of happening in the USA right now anyway. Not sure how to stop it. Hell, suggesting anything might be construed as un-American or a terrorist threat. That should tell you something right there!
tl,dr: if you make the election system exclusive, it will drive out the bad for awhile. Then it will drive out the good!
I'm pretty sure if Obama was white, he might not have won the election. I'm not trying to say that McCain would have won, just that the election would have been more close...? How close was it anyway? I didn't pay attention to the election since I couldn't vote at the time and didn't really care.
>>43
Well, yes. That's what I was saying. If you're in the ruling class in either communism or capitalism, life is good. Outside that class, life sucks. Yeah, it's subjective. We know.
As for the topic at-hand: what does any of this matter? The majority in this country don't vote anyway. I'd be a little worried if they did because if they haven't bothered this whole time, what exactly is wrong them? Why don't they vote? Are they fucking stupid? ... Probably.
It's easier to get intelligent posts from people who have to pay cash to leave a opinion. Which is where the "my two cents" meme comes from.