Quote:
Originally Posted by MTI
Your "argument" was already way past the point of "illogical extreme." The concept of creating two distinct classes of US citizenship, one that can vote and one that cannot, is quite extreme.
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Really? The conditions named - being a property owner and taxpayer - were a prerequisite for voting when this country was first founded, and for many years afterwards.
IMHO, it was along the same line of thinking as to why they created a representative republic instead of a pure democracy - if a person had enough intelligence and/or education to acquire property and wealth, it followed that they had enough of the same to make informed decisions about how the country should be run and it's future course - instead of succumbing to the emotions and wants of the moment, with no thought of future consequences, as was so often the case in a pure mob democracy. Also, if a person acquired property and wealth, and willingly paid taxes, it meant that person had decided to put down roots in this country and had a stake in it's future well-being - not an opportunist gaming the system for their own profit, moving on to the next country when there was nothing further to be gained.
There are still prerequisites to being allowed to vote even today.
A 17 year old cannot vote. They are old enough to have graduated from high school, old enough to serve in the military, but not old enough by law to vote. Do we consider said person a second class citizen? No - the accepted benchmark by society and law is that you must be 18 years old to be allowed to vote. And until 40 years ago the benchmark was 21 years old.
And until the "motor voter" registration laws of recent years, to be allowed to register to vote there were time requirements as to how long you had resided in a community (ie, showing intent to be a permanent resident), provide an address of a place of residence, and usually one other item that showed your intent to be a permanent resident -
paying state and local taxes.
For that matter, not paying federal taxes need only apply to voting for FEDERAL office, voting at the state and local level unaffected or to be decided by the individual states. In some states without a state income tax, only a statewide sales tax that everyone must pay regardless, the only fair option would be to allow all those residing in the state, allowing they were of legal age and met all other prerequisites, to vote in state and local elections.
On the other extreme, there are those that argue that illegals - non-citizens or citizens of another country - be allowed to vote in U.S. elections. For that matter, given the amount of voter registration fraud in this country by BOTH parties, I'm rather confident that a substantial number of illegals have already been voting in U.S. elections for at least the past few cycles. IOW, they are proposing that it no longer be a prerequisite to be a U.S. citizen to vote in this country's elections.
Simply put, there always has been and still are prerequisites that need to be met before someone is allowed to vote - just a matter of how many and to what degree we are willing to impose and live with.