Friday, August 21, 2009
Disenfranchise the ignorant
A while back, I annoyed some people with my suggestion -- made seriously -- that only the smartest 75% of the electorate should be allowed to vote. I still believe that we can apply tests in such a way as to ameliorate any concerns over racial imbalance.
Bill Maher makes the case more eloquently than I did.
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11 comments:
I was one of the annoyed.
That you would now use an elitist, misogynist, loud-mouth asshat like Bill Maher to make your point is even more annoying.
In fact it's beyond annoying. It's now entered mind-boggling territory.
Most likely given the response you got the last time you wrote on this topic your intent was to annoy us further and get a rapid and rabid response.
My bad. I bit.
So, how come the smartest man in that studio supports Barack Obama?
Yeah, republicans are dumb but the O-bots are dumberer.
Maybe it's time to start pulling broadcast licenses from those radio and TV stations that betray the public trust by airing false accusations against one political party or the other.
I left Maher, like many others, in the dust during the primaries, so I presume his idea (no, didn't watch the video) supports the notion that the intelligent and educated will automatically support DemObamas? I beg to differ.
He failed to classify the % of American people who voted for Obama though. I guess they should be banned from voting forever.
Joe-
Gotta say, I normally agree with you and but this time, I have to back up everything KM says about using this arrogant A-hole who thinks that his misogynistic jokes about drink college chicks give his ideas or opinions weight, to make your point.
He is a self-imortant hater. He can keep his disdain and form his own flucking country.
emjaybee
Joe, this idea people should be banned from voting reminds me too much of the idea that certain people should be sterilized... even if I agreed, it's a very slippery slope.lol!
Or maybe you trying to get people to vote by saying they should be banned? That might get more people into the booth.
All I can say is the " best and the brightest " brought us Viet-Nam and "the adults are back in charge" brought us the Iraq war...
Ditto everything KM and EJB said. Maher is vile - nothing he has to say can make him less vile.
gormenghast
[Note: I couldn't see the link, but will respond to the proposal. - SAR]
There are a number of arguments against this, I'll note a few.
1) It's not possible in practice to create and administer such a test without bias.
If such a test did exist, no matter what its form, a test prep industry would arise, biasing the results toward those who could afford the best prep and consequently away from those who could not (which statistically would mean a disproportionate number of blacks and Hispanics). The wealth bias would also show further in the form of bribes to officials both to provide the answers before, and to falsify individual results after.
I needn't explain what kind of a society would result, or how in this case an inevitable consequence would be that things would get worse and worse for the excluded group as time went on.
2) Even if the problem in 1) could somehow be solved (i.e. no wealth-based bias), the use of intelligence as a metric is at best highly questionable.
"Smarter" doesn't necessarily mean "better at" and in fact, can mean "worse":
- Con men all say that the smarter a person is, the better a 'mark' he makes (as the smarter he is, the less he *thinks* he can be fooled). Not very desirable...in fact, this by itself is enough to blow the proposal right out of the water.
- Studies show that those of average intelligence actually do better at running a business than those of above-average intelligence. [Side note: going back to 1), this shows us why the wealthy would not allow the test process to be unbiased - SAR] Given that small businesses are the engines of job creation in our economy, biasing the franchise away from skill at business? Also not desirable.
- It's well known that the higher the intellgence, the less well-developed social skills tend to be. This set of skills contains (or at the very least seems to go along with) empathy and compassion, and biasing the power in a society away from these qualities is, again, not desirable.
Sergei Rostov
[Continued on next comment - SAR]
[Continued from previous comment. - SAR]
3)Even if we could somehow overcome 1) and 2), no matter what metric we used (even if it was "sense" or "wisdom" or what have you), if we implemented this proposal this nation would cease to be a "representative democracy". We would we throwing both the concept of equality under the law and the concept of equal rights in general out the window, and instead would become a nation in which one arbitrarily-selected group would rule over another (it is implied) "for its own good" because "we know what's best for you." In other words, it would become a form of dictatorship.
4)Something that should give one pause is that right-wingers agree with this in principle, if not in specifics; as 3)implies, the metric doesn't really matter(although sf author and conservative nutball Robert A. Heinlein (in his book Expanded Universe) did in fact openly advocate restricting the franchise based on intelligence).
5)Analysis of wingnut writings has shown that they use the "slippery slope" objection so much because they want to put people on such slopes of their own crafting...so that they agree in principle is a strong indication that there is actually a slippery slope threatening here: once people got used to excluding, to disenfranchising 25% on principle, why wouldn't they make it 30, 40, 50, 75, 90% or more?
(One might be asking, "why would they?" This leads to...
6)In the scope of my previous experience, every time a proposal of this type comes up, further questioning indicates that the proposing party and those who agree with same all assume they will be part of the "passing" group.
[Joe, I'm not saying you are making this assumption, I am speaking from my experience; I should also note that before you did, I have never heard anyone make this proposal who was not a wingnut or prog.]
This makes them much more likely to support the proposal and also much more likely to hop on that slippery slope and keep increasing the percentage of those excluded than they would if they thought they were to be among those excluded.
Sergei Rostov
Well, obviously if people are too stupid to vote we have to question their ability to manage their own affairs in the complex, information-driven society in which we live. After all, people who thought ARMs and interest-only mortgages were a good deal have caused enormous economic damage to our whole society.
Both they and we require protection from their incompetence - not only in political but also in economic matters.
The solution for this is obvious: such people should permanently be entrusted to the care of those better suited than they. It's the obviously humane thing to do. Of course, those accepting the burden of responsibility for the welfare of their less-developed brethren deserve some sort of compensation for this care. It's only just. Since those being cared for are obviously incapable of managing their financial affairs, but are nevertheless able-bodied (at least when young), the only just alternative is for them to compensate their benefactors with their labor. Since the burden of care is perpetual, the labor obligation should be as well. Since, as we all know, intelligence is at least partially hereditary, we can expect that the children of these individuals will require similar care. For this reason, it's just common sense that the children of these "dependent individuals" (DIs) should inherit their parents' status, along with its benefits and obligations.
Of course, there are other details to be sorted out: for example, what should happen if, through either the vicissitudes of fate or some other cause, a Benefactor is no longer willing or able to care for his DIs. Obviously, the prospect of a DI facing the complexity of modern life without a Benefactor to guide him or her is cruel, uncivilized, and possibly dangerous. Since by definition a DI is incapable of making a rational choice about his future Benefactor, this decision should clearly be left up to the wisdom of his current Benefactor. I envision a market-driven solution whereby Benefactors and potential Benefactors can freely determine both the costs and benefits of a particular DI exchange. To facilitate transparency and market efficiency, such exchanges should be open to the public - perhaps they should be conducted in some sort of open, public space, or perhaps via an internet site such as eBay.
There are considerable savings to be realized for society at large in such an arrangement. Since DIs will not be expected to manager their own affairs, the amount of public funds currently spent in a futile attempt to "educate" them may be sharply reduced. Law enforcement and correctional expenses may be further reduced by deputizing Benefactors to have full jurisdiction (including prosecutorial, judicial, and correctional) over their DIs. A variety of other public programs, which in all likelihood chiefly benefit DIs, such as Medicaid, AFDC, food stamps, etc. could be reduced by similar arrangements. This would result in enormous cost savings to the productive taxpaying Benefactors of society. This, in turn, would return funds to the private sector where it could be used to restore American productivity and standing in the world.
Sounds like a veritable Paradise, doesn't it Joe?
Sextus, did you write "Principles for allocation of scarce medical interventions" in the Jan '09 Lancet?
You did, didn't you?
Who would ever have dreamed that a chief Presidential advisor would be posting here on Joseph Cannon's blog?
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