Should a college degree be required to vote?

[mencken]

I concur with the sentiment of restricting suffrage to those with a modicum of foresight. However, given how college education these days is subsidized to ensure against a shortage of underwater basket weavers, a degree may not be the best representation of being intelligent enough to vote.

A property requirement is both a more direct measure of one's long-term interest and one with greater historical precedent.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

I concur with the sentiment of restricting suffrage to those with a modicum of foresight. However, given how college education these days is subsidized to ensure against a shortage of underwater basket weavers, a degree may not be the best representation of being intelligent enough to vote.

A property requirement is both a more direct measure of one's long-term interest and one with greater historical precedent.

Agreed, I'll settle for Ph.D.'s only.

[Higgs]

No, not a fascist like smilo

[SATW]

Hell no. You are trying way too hard.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Obviously no.  Jesus Christ.  Why don't you just throw in a poll tax and a DNA test while you're at it?

Also:

I concur with the sentiment of restricting suffrage to those with a modicum of foresight. However, given how college education these days is subsidized to ensure against a shortage of underwater basket weavers, a degree may not be the best representation of being intelligent enough to vote.

A property requirement is both a more direct measure of one's long-term interest and one with greater historical precedent.

Well, clearly, living in and being a citizen of this country doesn't demonstrate 'long-term interest' in it; no, the people who've really 'made it' enough to be graciously allowed to participate in the democratic process are those who are of the right social class to own property and happen to live in a part of the country in which it's a viable investment. You'd think that, if your goal is to fulfill your namesake's dream of turning America into a country of a ruling elite of edgelord atheists imposing their will on the rest of us, you'd be sage enough to recognize the fact that the class status required to own real property goes down as you get further away from hip-'n'-trendy urban centers, so any property qualification for voting would end up including a lot of 'boobs' and excluding a lot of enlightened philosopher-kings. If you really want a class-restricted franchise, why not just create a hereditary aristocracy? If it's a 'merit'-restricted franchise that you want, well, tough sh**t, true merit is impossible to measure.

[Human]

lol no

[Virginiá]

You're so silly smilo

[mencken]

Obviously no.  Jesus Christ.  Why don't you just throw in a poll tax and a DNA test while you're at it?

Also:

I concur with the sentiment of restricting suffrage to those with a modicum of foresight. However, given how college education these days is subsidized to ensure against a shortage of underwater basket weavers, a degree may not be the best representation of being intelligent enough to vote.

A property requirement is both a more direct measure of one's long-term interest and one with greater historical precedent.

Well, clearly, living in and being a citizen of this country doesn't demonstrate 'long-term interest' in it; no, the people who've really 'made it' enough to be graciously allowed to participate in the democratic process are those who are of the right social class to own property and happen to live in a part of the country in which it's a viable investment. You'd think that, if your goal is to fulfill your namesake's dream of turning America into a country of a ruling elite of edgelord atheists imposing their will on the rest of us, you'd be sage enough to recognize the fact that the class status required to own real property goes down as you get further away from hip-'n'-trendy urban centers, so any property qualification for voting would end up including a lot of 'boobs' and excluding a lot of enlightened philosopher-kings. If you really want a class-restricted franchise, why not just create a hereditary aristocracy? If it's a 'merit'-restricted franchise that you want, well, tough sh**t, true merit is impossible to measure.

Democracy is inherently unworkable if you allow net tax recipients equal suffrage with net taxpayers, see Franklin's aphorism of the two wolves and a sheep voting on dinner. I have no desire to impose my will on anybody; to the contrary I prefer just to leave everyone to govern their own affairs. The poster states that since true merit is impossible to measure than may as well not even try; why not hold the same standard for true need?

[RaphaelDLG]

Obviously no.  Jesus Christ.  Why don't you just throw in a poll tax and a DNA test while you're at it?

Also:

I concur with the sentiment of restricting suffrage to those with a modicum of foresight. However, given how college education these days is subsidized to ensure against a shortage of underwater basket weavers, a degree may not be the best representation of being intelligent enough to vote.

A property requirement is both a more direct measure of one's long-term interest and one with greater historical precedent.

Well, clearly, living in and being a citizen of this country doesn't demonstrate 'long-term interest' in it; no, the people who've really 'made it' enough to be graciously allowed to participate in the democratic process are those who are of the right social class to own property and happen to live in a part of the country in which it's a viable investment. You'd think that, if your goal is to fulfill your namesake's dream of turning America into a country of a ruling elite of edgelord atheists imposing their will on the rest of us, you'd be sage enough to recognize the fact that the class status required to own real property goes down as you get further away from hip-'n'-trendy urban centers, so any property qualification for voting would end up including a lot of 'boobs' and excluding a lot of enlightened philosopher-kings. If you really want a class-restricted franchise, why not just create a hereditary aristocracy? If it's a 'merit'-restricted franchise that you want, well, tough sh**t, true merit is impossible to measure.

Democracy is inherently unworkable if you allow net tax recipients equal suffrage with net taxpayers, see Franklin's aphorism of the two wolves and a sheep voting on dinner. I have no desire to impose my will on anybody; to the contrary I prefer just to leave everyone to govern their own affairs. The poster states that since true merit is impossible to measure than may as well not even try; why not hold the same standard for true need?

I think the poor "wolves" are as capable of intuitively realizing that if they soak the rich and give them no incentive to work hard, the world becomes a sh**tty place devoid of iphones and swimming pools as the "sheep" are of realizing that they need a well-educated, healthy populace with an excellent infrastructure if they want to live in a dynamic economy.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The poster states that since true merit is impossible to measure than may as well not even try; why not hold the same standard for true need?

Well, because when one group of people are doing very well for themselves and successfully 'governing their own affairs' because they are allowed to participate in the political process, while another group of people are groaning under the oppression of the first group of people because they are not, then most outside observers would agree that the second group of people 'truly need' to have their condition ameliorated, possibly in a way that would allow them to participate in the political process.

Deciding that someone has more 'merit' (or more 'long-term interest') because they got a college degree, or because they've somehow or other managed to acquire real estate, or because they did well in a Stanford-Binet test, or whatever, is, however, inevitably subjective, especially but not only inasmuch as such a decision will, almost invariably, be made in a way that takes the salient characteristics of whatever group is already in power and declares that that constitutes 'merit' (or 'long-term interest').

[RFayette]

I see my trolling with a poll tax has been brought to another level.

Short answer:  no, universal suffrage is just fine. 

[RFayette]

I concur with the sentiment of restricting suffrage to those with a modicum of foresight. However, given how college education these days is subsidized to ensure against a shortage of underwater basket weavers, a degree may not be the best representation of being intelligent enough to vote.

A property requirement is both a more direct measure of one's long-term interest and one with greater historical precedent.

Agreed, I'll settle for Ph.D.'s only.

Tryin' too hard....

[Antonio the Sixth]

I concur with the sentiment of restricting suffrage to those with a modicum of foresight. However, given how college education these days is subsidized to ensure against a shortage of underwater basket weavers, a degree may not be the best representation of being intelligent enough to vote.

A property requirement is both a more direct measure of one's long-term interest and one with greater historical precedent.

It's really adorable, the way you think you're so insightful and original.

[ElectionsGuy]

So just move the voting age up to 22 or something while you're at it.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I concur with the sentiment of restricting suffrage to those with a modicum of foresight. However, given how college education these days is subsidized to ensure against a shortage of underwater basket weavers, a degree may not be the best representation of being intelligent enough to vote.

A property requirement is both a more direct measure of one's long-term interest and one with greater historical precedent.

 

Nothing so useful unfortunately.  Its subsidized to make sure we have an overabundance of aspiring academics in highly politicized and polemic fields, as well as a bunch of people who are told they understand how to run a business because they've learned a bunch of meaningless diagrams and buzzwords.

[RINO Tom]

I concur with the sentiment of restricting suffrage to those with a modicum of foresight. However, given how college education these days is subsidized to ensure against a shortage of underwater basket weavers, a degree may not be the best representation of being intelligent enough to vote.

A property requirement is both a more direct measure of one's long-term interest and one with greater historical precedent.

Yeah, I guess it's irrelevant that it is universally viewed now as a horribly classist and unenlightened practice, as long as it has precedent!

Why don't we just put all the people we don't want affecting our politics in camps, that has precedent, too!

[Goldwater]

Guys, guys, this doesn't have to an either/or decision. We can raise the voting age to 21, have poll taxes, and have both college degree and property owning requirements!

[Hatman 🍁]

No; but ideally, there would be more people with college degrees in the first place.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Guys, guys, this doesn't have to an either/or decision. We can raise the voting age to 21, have poll taxes, and have both college degree and property owning requirements!

Moderate compromise! I love people like you (almost as much as I love the poorly educated!)

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

Guys, guys, this doesn't have to an either/or decision. We can raise the voting age to 21, have poll taxes, and have both college degree and property owning requirements!

and having all your male ancestors being able to vote by 1824

[White Trash]

This sort of measure is inherently undemocratic. There is nothing that should stand in between an adult citizen and a ballot box.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I think only atlas users should be able to vote. How can we trust people the vote if they don't know by heart the counties where Mitt Romney had the best swing in female Swedish-American plumbers?

[All Along The Watchtower]

I think only atlas users should be able to vote. How can we trust people the vote if they don't know by heart the counties where Mitt Romney had the best swing in female Swedish-American plumbers?

Or the ability to make maps of said swing, for that matter.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Guys, guys, this doesn't have to an either/or decision. We can raise the voting age to 21, have poll taxes, and have both college degree and property owning requirements!

Moderate compromise! I love people like you (almost as much as I love the poorly educated!)

Yet you don't want them to have the vote. Sad!

[Vosem]

No, since the practical effect of that would be to skew the vote much younger and wealthier than it has any right to be. The idea that there should be some minimal, universally applied test to pass to vote (analogous to the US citizenship test) is maybe not the worst one, but I tend to think the imposition of such requirements is a slippery slope that could lead to a very dark place, and the vast majority of people that "shouldn't be voting" are weeded out by voting being not mandatory. So...no.