Blog for Democracy

Voting Like It’s 1799!

The President of Tea Party Nation thinks that we need to go back to the good old days and restrict voting to property owners.

The Founding Fathers originally said, they put certain restrictions on who gets the right to vote. It wasn’t you were just a citizen and you got to vote. Some of the restrictions, you know, you obviously would not think about today. But one of those was you had to be a property owner. And that makes a lot of sense, because if you’re a property owner you actually have a vested stake in the community. If you’re not a property owner, you know, I’m sorry but property owners have a little bit more of a vested interest in the community than non-property owners.

Seriously, wth is this?

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Jen B.

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19 responses to “Voting Like It’s 1799!”

  1. EGaluszka Avatar
    EGaluszka

    The restriction to hold land was more about encouraging an agricultural society than restricting franchise.

  2. Jules Avatar
    Jules

    meh, I know we’ve got lots of smart legal eagles here…but I say it again-we all get a vote, young, old, dumb, smart… and if the candidates don’t make the case to me that their qualifications are relevant and necessary to be a good judge-then screw it and don’t make snarky comments.

  3. Stefan Avatar
    Stefan

    yeah, but that one was more accurate.

  4. rubyduby Avatar
    rubyduby

    Yes, by all means, let’s go back to when women couldn’t own property and black people were property. Ah, 1852, here we come.

  5. Lothar Avatar
    Lothar

    Cool, without the vote, the poor can rely on their other traditional decision-making device: the guillotine! I like where this is heading, Neil.

  6. JMPrince Avatar
    JMPrince

    I’m always seeking more recruits for my dark minions of mirth too. JMP

  7. Jason Avatar
    Jason

    I think only people with a third nipple should be allowed to vote!

  8. BEZERKO Avatar
    BEZERKO

    Oh, k.

  9. Jen B. Avatar
    Jen B.

    Can we negotiate? I will forgo reproducing if I can still vote and talk on the phone while driving.

  10. JaneB Avatar
    JaneB

    I don’t think people who are stupid enough to talk or text while driving should be allowed to vote, or reproduce, for that matter.

  11. Delicate Flower Avatar
    Delicate Flower

    Can’t have more than one link at a time. Don’t become the next JMP. I actually like/read read your comments.

  12. BEZERKO Avatar
    BEZERKO

    my comment is awaiting moderation, really?

  13. BEZERKO Avatar
    BEZERKO

    Um, this notion that not everyone should be allowed to vote is nothing new, not even in recent history. First they want to get everyone to accept the notion that not everyone should be allowed to vote, then they want to pare that list down to only people who will vote for the people they want to elect. Fundamental American beliefs and values are in dispute and under assault, just like the New Deal, and most people don’t realize it. Glen W. Smith wrote a nice piece on it a few years ago to explain what was behind Diebold, voter id laws, poll challengers, the “integrity of elections” and so on http://www.dogcanyon.org/2010/01/31/the-promise-of-popular-democracy-origins/
    Smith wrote about what he called “Elite Democracy” and “Popular Democracy.” That’s what this is about. Some people, like Lester Maddox speechwriter Neil Boortz, believe that only certain people should be allowed to vote. From Boortz.com

    http://boortz.com/nuze/200802/02212008.html

    “…Well …. Look what these damned voters are doing to the greatest experiment in governance in the history of the world! Once we have accepted the truth – that they don’t have a constitution right to vote – then we can set about the task of getting some of these dumb masses out of our voting booths. Think about it … we offer parasites the opportunity to register to vote when they sign up for welfare! What the hell kind of sense does that make?

    The hell with the idea of pandering to the poor, poor pitiful poor. We didn’t put them there. They did it to themselves .. .and I damned sure don’t want them making decisions that can affect the way I live my life .. and how much of the money that I earn I can keep. If we must, we’ll take care of them and make sure they don’t starve, get basic medical care, and have a place to go when it rains or gets cold. Fine. That’s nothing we wouldn’t do for stray animals .. .but they sure don’t need to be voting.”

  14. Jen B. Avatar
    Jen B.

    Excellent point. Nearly my entire childhood was spent in base housing.

  15. JMPrince Avatar
    JMPrince

    Well then, let’s make this simpler. Like most regressive, retrograde reactionaries, Tea folk want to do away with whole sections of the Constitution, including Amendments 13-17 inclusive. Which BTW? Is nothing new and something that you might be able to read in any early National Review. And for the next, oh, 20 some odd years. Before they ‘brought it back’ for the Regan Revolution. So essentially, SSDD. And the reason why the vote was originally desired to be restricted to property owners is the same reason it’s favored by so called ‘conservatives’ today: it restricts the right to those much more Rich & White, & Older. Which of course is massively self serving to start with. But we all knew that. That’s why we’re forever bailing out the banksters & not the other way around!

    But still? Most of your voters today ARE those who ‘own’ property. The ‘property less’? Vote less. So the essential problem is that they want to encourage this kind of disenfranchisement, all the while posing as pure patriots when doing so. Which as they say is bloody F’king typical too. JMP

  16. Drew Avatar
    Drew

    Funny, because not two threads ago, I was told by an earstwhile progressive that those of us who weren’t lawyers had no right to decide who should be judges. Not all that different from the opinion expressed here.

  17. Gunner Avatar
    Gunner

    This guy wraps himself in the American flag and then forgets that most folks in the military don’t own property. I guess they shouldn’t get a vote. These people just piss me off.

  18. Lothar Avatar
    Lothar

    “If you’re a property owner, you actually don’t have a vested stake in the well-being of non-property owners.”

    I can play this game too.

  19. Delicate Flower Avatar
    Delicate Flower

    Does he also want to return to women having no rights? Him giving up the right to elect a senator etc…

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