US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2507

On July 19 2020 09:30 Wegandi wrote:


I actually don't think the voting process is all that broken outside of felons not being able to vote (and I personally think voting privileges should be much more restrictive (e.g. you should be a taxpayer to be able to vote)). As for your general assertion its very easy in America to register to vote and many places have same day registration you just have to show up to the polling location. I don't think automatic registration does anything significant when to me that just signifies how awful the democratic system itself is where you have to automatically register folks rather than them taking a little bit of effort (like super minimal) to register themselves, but then we give them the power of the vote which has very drastic consequences for not only their fellow citizens but people around the world. Does anyone never connect those two? Like we can't trust people to register themselves, but we can trust them enough to pick folks to wield the power of the USG? Come on.

I actually don't care about the appearance of the USG (in fact, I probably have a much worse view of it than everyone here), I just take issue with hypocrits and its especially strong from EU posters who will levy accusations on high from their pedestal when the EU in many cases is worse or has similar problems that they conveniently ignore. It's a bit of a glass house thing. Maybe its just an ingrained reflexive behavior from all your colonizing (and yes that is passive aggressive). As for dismissive about fixing? Lol. I'm a misanthropic anarchist so I find it funny that you'd levy that allegation. It's obvious you're not familiar with my views or posting history.

On July 19 2020 09:30 Wegandi wrote:


I actually don't think the voting process is all that broken outside of felons not being able to vote (and I personally think voting privileges should be much more restrictive (e.g. you should be a taxpayer to be able to vote)). As for your general assertion its very easy in America to register to vote and many places have same day registration you just have to show up to the polling location. I don't think automatic registration does anything significant when to me that just signifies how awful the democratic system itself is where you have to automatically register folks rather than them taking a little bit of effort (like super minimal) to register themselves, but then we give them the power of the vote which has very drastic consequences for not only their fellow citizens but people around the world. Does anyone never connect those two? Like we can't trust people to register themselves, but we can trust them enough to pick folks to wield the power of the USG? Come on.

On July 19 2020 03:46 Nouar wrote:

(Just to point out that we have only some form of automatic registration in certain cases, at 18yo for example. After moving we need to register to the town hall on the electoral list, then are sent a voter card -that you do not need to show to vote, only ID-. If you haven't done that, you can't just go to the polling place of your new place, it won't work.)

On July 19 2020 09:49 NewSunshine wrote:

More like someone's ability to have to register themselves and not be able to do so for whatever reasons houldn't get in the way of someone's ability to vote. Any time you add any barriers to doing anything, even if it seems like barely anything, it will keep people from doing something that would have otherwise done it when there were no barriers. As you say, registering to vote isn't some kind of achievement. There should be no value attached to it as an action. There should be no barriers to someone's ability to vote. That's a right in a democracy.

On July 19 2020 09:48 goiflin wrote:


Requiring people to pay taxes to be able to vote would be interesting in the context that many people who have a lot of money would no longer be able to vote, since tax evasion and all. I don't think it would change much in the current field of US politics, since it's mostly about money in politics in the first place, and those individual votes overall wouldn't change much, but it would certainly be interesting to see how much everyone would lose their minds if they had to actually pay their taxes to be able to vote.

Now forgive me, since I don't know quite that much about the American taxation system, but does this exempt people who are below a certain poverty line from being able to vote? Because that'd be a questionable act in the first place. I think you want to increase voter engagement, not decrease it, since that's one of the bigger steps towards resolving a lot of the problems that have settled into the system in the first place (not the only one, mind you, but still one of the important ones). I get that you're inherently distrusting of the average voter, but increasing voter engagement through making it easier, paired with a better education system to actually get people to understand what they're voting for, and what responsibilities that entails, would be a good way to actually get people to vote responsibly, no? Maybe people would realize that there's more choices than two and you'd get a lot more independent clout from various regions in the states that could actually push their people's views on the national level.

But maybe it's too far gone at this point.

On July 19 2020 09:52 Wegandi wrote:


Look if someone can't take the bare minimal effort to register I don't trust them with the power of the vote. It's that simple. The power of the vote is significant and has drastic consequences for the world and our liberties. If you're too fucking pathetic to get up and mail your voter registration card or show up to your polling location on the day of the vote (almost half the states in the US has this) I don't want you to vote. That's a good thing to me.

No, I actually want to decrease voter engagement.

On July 19 2020 09:53 NewSunshine wrote:
The only reason we even need mail-in voting is because restrictions, like how you're not allowed to take off work to vote without losing pay, and how Election Day isn't a holiday. People explained this to you, but you don't want to listen because they're nominally European.

On July 19 2020 10:05 Wegandi wrote:


That's not true. Mail in voting is an addition to our voting system, same with early voting, absentee ballots, etc. Most polling locations are open where you can vote after work, before work, or you can ya know request off months in advance as voting is 1 day a year at best. There are a multitude ways of voting in this country. They "explained" it to me with poor assumptions that voting is this complicated mess here in the states that we have all these other avenues of voting because its such a mess, but that's simply not true.

Now, presumably, you're going to argue this effects the poor much more for the aforementioned reasons. Ok. So, it affects Republicans more than Democrats (look at voter demographics - Democrats tend to be wealthier, college educated, and urban; please fight me on this demographic fact). Like, it just doesn't line up unless the GOP are too stupid to realize how their demographic base has changed in the last 20 years (this is for sure a likely possibility mind you).

On July 19 2020 10:08 Neneu wrote:
Sorry, but as being mostly lurker who checks this thread every day, aren't you a Liberterian Wegandi? Why are you then proposing a system based on tax?

On July 19 2020 09:59 Wegandi wrote:


Everyone who works in the US gets taxed, those below the poverty line just get refunded their entire tax bill (so their net taxation rate IIRC <12,000$ is 0, in reality those under the poverty line have a negative tax rate as they qualify for all sorts of welfare like EBT, SCHIP, etc.) I would say that as long as you pay taxes you can vote (I'm not basing this on net taxation rates).

No, I actually want to decrease voter engagement. Boomers shouldn't be able to force working age people to pay for their existence. They shouldn't also be able to vote in doofuses who are militaristic douchebags who have high likelihood that will start wars they never have to engage with. Same with college folks who pay no taxes voting themselves taxpayer money for things like loan forgiveness, increased welfare and entitlements, etc. Fuck that baloney.

On July 19 2020 10:09 NewSunshine wrote:

I didn't say anything like that. But I do think disenfranchisement of the poor and middle class is a serious problem in this country. Would you agree or disagree?

On July 19 2020 10:04 StalkerTL wrote:
I took at look at France’s voter ID laws.

It’s pretty simple. You’re automatically registered to vote and the people responsible for elections send you a document come election time. You come with proof of address and some form of proof of nationality like a passport or a national ID card, which is free.

The key words being free National ID card and automatically registered to vote. The US voting problems stem from: insufficient places to vote, held on a really awful day for most people rather than a weekend or public holiday, most voter ID proposals requiring the citizen to pay for it as an individual, and some states making it more difficult than it should be to register to vote

Edit: How would you even reduce voter engagement so boomers don’t vote or vote is worth less? We’re going to restrict voting for people in the age bracket of 30-50 years old, employed with a $50,000 job as a minimum?

On July 19 2020 10:23 micronesia wrote:
Not allowing retirees to vote is a pretty extreme view. I think retirees should be allowed to vote to try to block candidates calling for the execution of all 50 years olds on their birthday to save resources. Similarly, if a law is passed disallowing women from working, and there is separately a rule preventing non-workers from voting, then women will not have the means to help elect someone who changes the rules so that they can work again.

Tocqueville tried to understand why the United States was so different from Europe in the last throes of aristocracy. In contrast to the aristocratic ethic, the United States was a society where hard work and money-making was the dominant ethic, where the common man enjoyed a level of dignity which was unprecedented, where commoners never deferred to elites and where what he described as crass individualism and market capitalism had taken root to an extraordinary degree.

On July 19 2020 10:14 Wegandi wrote:


Nuanced view - yes, in that poor and middle class tend to be the primary felon population and felons should absolutely have the privilege of voting, but no in your implication that its some nefarious partisan attempt to rig the election Stalin style.

On July 19 2020 10:12 goiflin wrote:


I get the idea. Thanks for clarifying. I definitely agree about voter responsibility being pretty bad at this point, however, I disagree with the idea of decreasing voter engagement because I while I agree those who are already out of their formative years are unlikely to change their voting habits (and thus, will tend towards voting selfishly to the detriment to others not only in their own nation but to others outside of theirs), I also think there's no reason to give up on the generations that follow, and that change can happen, however slowly it might proceed, for the betterment of society overall. That there's no point to just letting the next voter generation think that voting for their own self interest is the best way to vote, rather to consider the consequences of giving power to certain people, and to really analyze that choice before they make it instead of voting like it's a fashion statement or simple self concern. Resources are finite, it's important to know how to use them efficiently in a complex machine like modern governments, and voters are responsible for that as well as the people who are in charge of actually dealing with those systems.

However, I also recognize that I'm not a US citizen, and thus I understand that there's a lot of differences inherent to our nations that makes my point of view sort of ignorant when it comes to systems like that. So perhaps it's better to simply have less people become engaged so you can focus on making sure those who can are doing so responsibly.