Was universal suffrage a mistake?

[knobslobbin]

Haven't we just had 4 years proving the opposite in the US? Look at how many Republicans personally and politically despised Trump, but fell in line with him anyway because those pesky voters loved him.

Yes friend, most secure elections ever, just look at the Republicans!

/all my oy vey

 

[Yinci]

I don't believe it is a mistake. Actually come to think of it there is a co-relation with how many people get to vote and how free the society actually is. Always need more voting rights. Unless you want me as your monarch. The United States takes away voting rights a punishment at the current moment and the Society of The United States is falling into authoritarianism and is trying to drag the rest of the west with it.

 

[scathefire]

What you're describing is called a "Geniocracy". The flaw there is equivocating intelligence with knowledge of political matters and sense of politics. There's tons of smart people who know nothing about current events, running the government or who's the best choice.
If say only people with an IQ above 110 voted, there would be heavy biases and it would lean more liberal. This wouldn't really fix any of the problems of democracy and in fact it makes it worse as the lower classes would have literally no say or representative.
Do people who have to work to get by have the time to turn on the news? Of course not, but this doesn't make the problems they're facing any less valid even if they can't always quantify it the same way.

You misunderstand what I meant, I wasn't saying that only the smartest people are the most qualified to vote, I mean to say that people who are sufficiently informed should be the ones to vote. Though like I said, I think that could be very easy for governments to abuse in the sense of "oh, you don't agree with the government? You must not be sufficiently informed."

 

[Varg Did Nothing Wrong]

Suffrage?

Democracy was the mistake.

 

[Kosher Dill]

Though like I said, I think that could be very easy for governments to abuse in the sense of "oh, you don't agree with the government? You must not be sufficiently informed."

Or just look at the history of literacy tests for voting, which were indeed abused in every conceivable way.

 

[Flavius Claudius Julianus]

You ought to be a net tax contributor. Circa 1824 in Bongland, you needed to be a man of property, of 'sound repute' and of good employment. Roughly analogous to a lower/middle-middle class contributing member of society.

Those criteria alone, we'd automatically get rid of the parasites.

 

[Cabelaz]

Nobody except Mark Wahlberg can vote. There. I saved democracy!

 

[TFT-A9]

You misunderstand what I meant, I wasn't saying that only the smartest people are the most qualified to vote, I mean to say that people who are sufficiently informed should be the ones to vote. Though like I said, I think that could be very easy for governments to abuse in the sense of "oh, you don't agree with the government? You must not be sufficiently informed."

There would be distinct irony in the government being allowed to tell ANYBODY what the qualifications are to be able to tell THEM how to spend money they extract from you via taxation, non-negotiably and you refuse at the peril of having your asshole widened by both the IRS and your fellow inmates.

When dealing with government entities you need very, very clear cut and unambiguous rules about what they are allowed to do. If there is a loophole or oversight, they WILL find it. This is why the erosion of numerous parts of the Bill of Rights over the decades bothers me really, really deeply. 2A is SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED. PERIOD. NO FUCKING QUIBBLING OVER WHETHER SOMEONE REALLY NEEDS A MANPADS OR MORTAR, FUCK YOU. 1A, 4A, 5A, every last one of them needs to be upheld in a very absolute sense because those things are what keeps the government from turning you into a glorified serf, backed by the implied threat of "If you so much as look at that BoR cross-eyed, Uncle Sam, I'll fucking murder you and anyone who gets in my way". The fact that they've been basically turned into polite suggestions at best, over and over, and somehow the ENTIRE COUNTRY hasn't banded together and painted Washington DC red with the blood and viscera of politicians and such ties into why universal suffrage is not really a good idea at this point.

Rights are only as good as your ability and willingness to assert them, whether via speech or outright ultra-violence if need be. The government is not your friend, it is not your ally, it is not on your side and it has repeatedly demonstrated that it has a vested interest in harming you for its own benefit. The government is not by the people and for the people anymore. The government is not your servant, it is your RULER now and may whatever god you believe in have mercy on you if you fuck with your rulers because they sure as fuck won't.

The people fell asleep at the wheel, got lazy and complacent, and the only consolation I take away from this is that at least a lot of people are likely going to get exactly what they deserve as the years drag on.

 

[Kornula]

Since we know that women only react emotionally rather than logically, yes, it was a huge mistake to let them vote.. let alone leave the kitchen. ... Not kidding.

 

[TFT-A9]

Since we know that women only react emotionally rather than logically, yes, it was a huge mistake to let them vote.. let alone leave the kitchen. ... Not kidding.

They're capable of apprehending logic like anyone else. The issue facing them is more or less the same issue facing most people - almost nobody FORCES them to apprehend it, appreciate it and use it (perhaps more so in women's case than men's, but this is still something most anybody is prone to).

 

[Fougaro]

You ought to be a net tax contributor. Circa 1824 in Bongland, you needed to be a man of property, of 'sound repute' and of good employment. Roughly analogous to a lower/middle-middle class contributing member of society.

Those criteria alone, we'd automatically get rid of the parasites.

I would go a step further by splitting the vote where net taxpayers vote for the legislative while the executive is voted by servicemen and veterans. If you don't participate in the system, you don't have a say in it. End of story!

The civilised world completely shit the bed by not tying rights to responsibilities, and pretty much signed its own death warrant by giving every envious and resentful downie dipshit (read: normies) the right to vote themselves everyone else's money.

 

[TFT-A9]

I would go a step further by splitting the vote where net taxpayers vote for the legislative while the executive is voted by servicemen and veterans. If you don't participate in the system, you don't have a say in it. End of story!

The civilised world completely shit the bed by not tying rights to responsibilities, and pretty much signed its own death warrant by giving every envious and resentful downie dipshit (read: normies) the right to vote themselves everyone else's money.

We'd need to rein the powers of the executive back in, but we've needed to do that for a while.

 

[Muh Vagina]

Since we know that women only react emotionally rather than logically, yes, it was a huge mistake to let them vote.. let alone leave the kitchen. ... Not kidding.

I can smell the tendies from here.

 

[Lemmingwise]

Since we know that women only react emotionally rather than logically, yes, it was a huge mistake to let them vote.. let alone leave the kitchen. ... Not kidding.

The level at which women are informed about politics is always so abysmal. The degree to which they're willing to accept and acknowledge facts that go against their emotions are terrible if not mostly non-existant. And the multigenerational vote for security over liberty is completely destructive to everyone, including women.

But what would the reverse have been? A group wanting to vote and being denied? The subversive results of that are no less worrying, to be honest. I run the same thought experiment on other groups. If you look at it from a distance, who really should be allowed to vote? And even if your answer would be "men" how is that a safeguard against corruption (e.g. male > female legislation).

I can smell the tendies from here.

Maybe you should learn to cook a proper meal.

 

[mr.moon1488]

Suffrage in general was a mistake. Cromwell and Robespierre were nothing but violent criminals who murdered their way into power, and the JewSA only lasted as long as it did because it was originally a White Christian ethnostate. You can easily observe that any time throughout history when the general population has realized that a Republic was a mistake, and tried to oust the filth from their lands through the "representative" system, it has quickly shown its true colors.

Trial of Charles I: Parlament literally ordered the military to shoot peasantry who were against the trial and threatened any parliament members who refused to convict King Charles
Jacobins: Led insane witch hunts for anyone who might have even the slightest objection towards the "Republic"
WW2: Every "Republic" in the world declared war on Germany because the German people elected Hitler in order to escape Republican rule
JewSA: Brings glorious freedom and Democracy to the whole world by bombing any population who resists it into submission

JewSA vassal Republics
Germany: White and say something wrong = go to jail.
Japan: Half the population is genuinely horrified of their "benevolent" overlords
Korea: Culture is almost entirely dictated by the US, which means so is their politics

This isn't even going into the myriad of countries that have their government's essentially bribed into adopting whatever is the social zeitgeist of global "Republics."

 

[FlamingPie]

Germany: White and say something wrong = go to jail.

So, basically the 1930s - early 1940s incarnation, only with less Nazis.

 

[The High Prophet of Truth]

Japan: Half the population is genuinely horrified of their "benevolent" overlords

Can you go into more detail on this?

 

[biozeminadae1]

Only people who've created their own families should be allowed to vote. Maybe add land as a requirement as well. And military service. Only heterosexuals.

 

[Hellbound Hellhound]

It's trivial to point out the weaknesses of democracy; they've been known about and discussed for literally thousands of years. The challenge is coming up with a better system, and so far no one seems to have managed that.

Limiting the franchise in any serious capacity simply sets the stage for oligarchy and paternalism (of one form or another), and if the system you propose resigns itself to the premise that there are people who "cannot be trusted" to decide who governs them, then it provides little if any incentive for society to attempt to rectify that. To put it another way: it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A society which does not believe in the ability of it's citizens to decide it's destiny is a society where the poor remain impoverished, where the ignorant remain uneducated, and where anyone who might have had great potential in a more enterprising society remain destined to toil in obscurity for a class of people who are resigned to a vain illusion of their own superiority.

We can see what societies without universal suffrage look like, and they aren't better for it.

 

[TFT-A9]

It's trivial to point out the weaknesses of democracy; they've been known about and discussed for literally thousands of years. The challenge is coming up with a better system, and so far no one seems to have managed that.

Trivial or not, it's worth doing. As for why nobody's managed to come up with a better system than our current one, I'd argue it's more due to the current system available being INCREDIBLY convenient for the people at the top rather than any lack of will or desire to explore alternative approaches among populations, or any expected deficiencies of any alternative approaches.

Limiting the franchise in any serious capacity simply sets the stage for oligarchy and paternalism (of one form or another), and if the system you propose resigns itself to the premise that there are people who "cannot be trusted" to decide who governs them, then it provides little if any incentive for society to attempt to rectify that. To put it another way: it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Oligarchy and paternalism is what we have right now with suffrage only withheld from felons and children. Just because almost nobody calls this what it is doesn't mean that isn't what it is.

The methods we have to fix what we have right now (single transferrable vote, abolishment of FPTP, educating voter-bases better and eliminating media involvement in the process, making constituencies far more aggressive about keeping elected officials on the straight and narrow, abolishment or severe limiting of the powers of the federal before the powers of local governments, etc.) are all pie-in-the-sky. They'll never be implemented, because they're not what the people at the top want. Again, the average American fell asleep at the wheel and now we're all going to suffer for it. People with little to no concern for anything but the transfer of other people's money to their bank accounts and the silencing of viewpoints they personally don't like have more "power" than anyone else in the voter base, and even that isn't much compared to the power social elites and extremely wealthy people and organizations have. Media exercises so much soft power right now it beggars belief.