Should Folks Who Can't Read ... Vote?

Steam Flyer

Steam Flyer

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Burning Man said:
Agreed. Hence why I suggested removing all party affiliations from the ballot so that the voter has to actually think who they are voting for.

I also agree w/ you about education in the US. This is truly probably our #1 issue/problem in the US and therefore should be priority #1. And that's not hyperbole. We used to be the global leader in so many areas because of our good, solid education system and we produced, on the whole, bright, educated, well informed young adults. Good on us for for doing "moonshots" for Cancer and other worthwhile endeavors. But honestly, education should take center stage for funding until this situation is rectified. And the bonus is that focusing on education would likely solve SOOOO many other social ills that plague us. So it's like a "magic bullet" in so many ways. I strongly believe that a good to great education system would really significantly reduce the drug addiction problem, the violence problem, the social despair problem, the school shooting and mass murder problem, the inner gang problem, and a host of other societal issues that we struggle with. A highly educated populace in many ways IS the universal solution to so many intractable problems we face.
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Maybe not a solution but certainly a way to reduce the impact.
First, one of the reasons why our politics are so screwed up is that we have decided that "freedom of speech" includes the freedom to knowingly lie to people for one's own profit and to deliberately harm them. This has been a big change of the past ~30 years.

BITD the worst offenders were cigarette ads on TV, which we banned. How the fuck is -that- not a violation of freedom of speech?? But we are undeniably better off for it.

2nd, education can help address this by making people less susceptible to lies. Now, we have a large percentage of people who want to argue that there even -IS- such a thing as fact, much less what any particular set of facts are.
 
SloopJonB

SloopJonB

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Steam Flyer said:
2nd, education can help address this by making people less susceptible to lies. Now, we have a large percentage of people who want to argue that there even -IS- such a thing as fact, much less what any particular set of facts are.
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An Englishman who's name I can't remember once said the principal benefit of a good education was to enable one to tell when the other fellow is talking rot.
 
bowman81

bowman81

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Blue Crab said:
Your inability to distinguish the first three from the rest is telling.

Please state why any group would want to consider the votes of folks who don't know the actual stakes or players.

Extra credit: please state why people routinely vote against their interests and how that plays out in their worlds.

Sunday Internet Special: The only equality of all 8B people happens immediately at birth. They need air. After that moment it's a crapshoot. The infamous "We hold these truths..." was simply aspirational grandiloquence as evidenced by the facts of the time.

For the third time in this thread, my test simply requires the ability to read and understand and fill out the registration docs by oneself. And you want the bar lower than that?
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Because the question always becomes who decides? You may think by removing THE RIGHT of a group of people to vote is best thing for a city, County, State , Country. The reality is it creates a society of people more interested in the greater good. Afraid those uneducated people will vote for 'the wrong' people? Then maybe invest in education to make sure they are able to read, so that they are engaged.

The lack of education, and some may say deliberate removal of access to education, is why these people vote against their own self interests. The history of literacy tests to vote historically has been nothing but a veil to disenfranchise other undesirable groups.

Hence the complexity and deliberate trick phrasing of questions in the pile questionnaires because it wasn't really about literacy.
 
Blue Crab

Blue Crab

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bowman81 said:
Hence the complexity and deliberate trick phrasing of questions in the pile questionnaires because it wasn't really about literacy.
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Evil history to be sure. I understand completely. I've followed this subject since 1942. My test was the ability to fill out forms by oneself. It's about literacy like I said at the start. The point wasn't about fascism or the nature of man, no trickery was implied ... the goal isn't to disenfranchise people smart enough to know what they're voting for or [groaning chuckle] blind people. That was my fave although there were several humorous literalists. That's what I get for being polite.
bowman81 said:
Afraid those uneducated people will vote for 'the wrong' people?
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How will they know who the right or wrong people are if they're too dim to fill out a form?
 
bowman81

bowman81

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Blue Crab said:
Evil history to be sure. I understand completely. I've followed this subject since 1942. My test was the ability to fill out forms by oneself. It's about literacy like I said at the start. The point wasn't about fascism or the nature of man, no trickery was implied ... the goal isn't to disenfranchise people smart enough to know what they're voting for or [groaning chuckle] blind people. That was my fave although there were several humorous literalists. That's what I get for being polite.

How will they know who the right or wrong people are if they're too dim to fill out a form?
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The only form they need to fill out correctly is the ballot paper. Beyond that, no restrictions should be imposed.

Even the introduction of the ballot paper has been historically tagged as a way of imposing a literacy test,but that's a different conversation.

People can still listen to the candidates via radio, television, in person. They can be informed by their peers, their families (although this does have its dangers).
 
ShortForBob

ShortForBob

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bowman81 said:
The only form they need to fill out correctly is the ballot paper. Beyond that, no restrictions should be imposed.

Even the introduction of the ballot paper has been historically tagged as a way of imposing a literacy test,but that's a different conversation.

People can still listen to the candidates via radio, television, in person. They can be informed by their peers, their families (although this does have its dangers).
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Maybe we should insist that all voters that are not white and male be accompanied into the booth by a "responsible adult" to help and "advise"













I don't really need to use the purple font do I?
 
phill_nz

phill_nz

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ShortForBob said:
Maybe we should insist that all voters that are not white and male be accompanied into the booth by a "responsible adult" to help and "advise"













I don't really need to use the purple font do I?
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hell no
thats a great idea
goes well with the other one where ... all females should be given a lobotomy at birth then farmed till they are 16 and of use for something
 
Ishmael

Ishmael

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phill_nz said:
yeh i know
you talk to most of them and it sure seems to be the way it is
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That applies to most of humanity, not just the female option. I probably know more brighter women than guys. Maybe because half the guys Darwined themselves because they were so stupid.
 
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