First Death Panels and Now Death Votes

[bugscoe]

Liberal Genius Proposes Taking Away Senior Voting Rights
Posted by Jim Hoft on Wednesday, May 18, 2011, 11:40 AM

Because we all know the those hopey-changey youth voters are soooo well informed after their years of anti-American socialist propaganda.
Boy wonder Ezra Klein proposes taking away senior voting rights.
The Washington Post reported:

Here’s your out-of-the-box policy idea for the day:

• America should implement weighted voting to make voting more objective and fair, and give the young more power, because the consequences of political decisions will affect them the longest. Weighted voting would restore power to twenty and thirty year olds, where it resided before the advent of medical science. With the aid of computers, it would be easy to give everyone a Voting Score, just like we all have a credit score.

If your response to this is that it’s crazy and offensive, that all American adults are equal and so is their vote, you might want to familiarize yourself with the U.S. Senate, where a Wyoming resident’s vote is worth almost 70 times as much as a Californian’s, or the electoral college, where the presidency could be won by a candidate who loses the popular vote 4:1.

All of which is to say, we already reweight voting in this country. But we do it to give residents from small states more power. Does that really make more sense than reweighting by age, education, race, income or some other demographic characteristic?

And this comes from the supposed “smart” one of the bunch.

 

[Martinghoul]

An interesting idea, actually...

It's fairer in a way to give the younger generation's votes more weight, given that they will be the ones assuming the various future burdens (unfunded liabilities) and their taxes will be paying for it. On the other hand, you'd imagine older people should be able to make better decisions, given they have more experience. As to the young 'uns' liberal bias, there should be a way to control for that. Generally, looking at Japan, it's clear that an aging population can drive the country into the ground. So, as I said, an interesting idea, regardless of who proposes it...

 

[nutmeg]

Generally seniors vote down local school budgets (at least that's the word on the street), how's that working out for the young informed and in hock for the future generation. It doesn't. School budgets go up.

When was the last time our vote mattered in regard to a mandate? None that I recall. Has our vote made a difference in income guidelines for welfare or programs which affect spending?

Weighting votes, Imo, won't have any effect on what we spend.

 

[Martinghoul]

Well, how about an example? I think you could argue that the amount of US defense spending might be a function of the fact that the older voters a) overemphasize security because of their past experiences; b) don't particularly care about the costs, since they won't have to deal with the consequences of a persistent budget deficit.

 

[Ricter]

Quote from Martinghoul:

Well, how about an example? I think you could argue that the amount of US defense spending might be a function of the fact that the older voters a) overemphasize security because of their past experiences; b) don't particularly care about the costs, since they won't have to deal with the consequences of a persistent budget deficit.

I doubt voters have much if anything to do with the size of the military budget, since both parties presented for voting have the same foreign policy. No, I think the size of the military's budget is a result of American business interests, willingly (if sometimes begrudgingly) supported by our allies' business interests.

 

[Martinghoul]

Quote from Ricter:
I doubt voters have much if anything to do with the size of the military budget, since both parties presented for voting have the same foreign policy. No, I think the size of the military's budget is a result of American business interests, willingly (if sometimes begrudgingly) supported by our allies' business interests.

I don't care about the parties... I have never been able to tell the difference between 'em.

Maybe weighing the votes by age (exponentially ) would generally address the policies that are excessively pro "existing vested interests". Military spending is an example of this, potentially. I am not suggesting this is a solution, but I think it's an interesting idea.

 

[cstfx]

Quote from bugscoe:

Liberal Genius Proposes Taking Away Senior Voting Rights
Posted by Jim Hoft on Wednesday, May 18, 2011, 11:40 AM

Because we all know the those hopey-changey youth voters are soooo well informed after their years of anti-American socialist propaganda.
Boy wonder Ezra Klein proposes taking away senior voting rights.
The Washington Post reported:

And this comes from the supposed “smart” one of the bunch.

If you don't want old people voting, then you shouldn't have old people making laws either. Eliminate the over 70 crowd in Congress too. They shouldn't be able to make laws that they won't be around to see implimented (anyone else remember that image of Byrd being wheeled out onto the floor from his death bed just so he could cast that last health care vote?)

 

[Lucrum]

Quote from cstfx:

If you don't want old people voting, then you shouldn't have old people making laws either. Eliminate the over 70 crowd in Congress too. They shouldn't be able to make laws that they won't be around to see implimented (anyone else remember that image of Byrd being wheeled out onto the floor from his death bed just so he could cast that last health care vote?)

Maybe there should be a mandatory retirement age for congressmen like there is for airline pilots.

 

[Ricter]

Maybe there should be mandatory term limits for airline pilots. I mean, who cares if the most experience any working pilot has is 8 years?

; )

 

[Lucrum]

Quote from Ricter:

Maybe there should be mandatory term limits for airline pilots. I mean, who cares if the most experience any working pilot has is 8 years?

; )

It takes experience to fly safely, it does not take any experience to fuck up a country. Which is of course all congress ever does.