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"The right to vote"

Here's a question for you all. Should the right to vote be universal? Should we all be allowed to have our say on government simply because we are 18 years or older?

Opinions welcome.

If there was another World War, I'd sign up for it.

That'd be sooner than ya think ;|

*Pushes "WW3" button*

Pushing this further than McDonalds dropouts. What about people claiming benefits? What about housewives/househusbands? Does the age barrier automatically engender a sense of responsibilty of political awareness?

In short, should we not have to qualify for voting? To me it is an absurdity that people who leech from the government are then able to have a say in how government operates, despite never contributing to it.

Further, while it may be noble to consider that 'waster' dropouts flipping burgers are contributing and hence should be allowed a say, what guarantee is there that they use that right responsibly?

Maybe a simple political questionaire should determine the right to vote?

Everpain wrote:

> Further, while it may be noble to consider that 'waster'
> dropouts flipping burgers are contributing and hence should be
> allowed a say, what guarantee is there that they use that right
> responsibly?

And what guarantee is there that anyone with any job will vote 'responsibly'?

I realise that the people that work at MacDonalds aren't exactly high in the IQ stakes but they work, they contribute something and they may still have some sense of what they want and what each political party stands for. After all Labour's support is supposed to be 'working class' and that isn't necessarily the politically informed.

I agree that perhaps there should be some form of qualification for the vote, but then people with a decent IQ who never put much effort into tests or didn't try in school may be more than slightly alienated, and all the people that don't vote but reserve the right, or pish it away voting National Front, who now no longer qualify, would be up in arms - in this politically correct time imagine the uproar of 'the system's against me because I flunked school' or the like.

Everpain wrote:
> Pushing this further than McDonalds dropouts. What about people
> claiming benefits? What about housewives/househusbands? Does the
> age barrier automatically engender a sense of responsibilty of
> political awareness?
>
> In short, should we not have to qualify for voting?

Yes. Anyone who smokes shouldn't be allowed as they clearly don't know what's best for them. Anyone who gets drunk shouldn't be allowed to vote because they don't know what's good for other people and anyone who works at Channel 5, for obvious reasons.

It's not feasible to determine someone's 'votability' on the basis of their employment status.

It's like trying to say some sixteen year olds should be allowed to drink alcohol because they won't act like an idiot, but others aren't because they will act like an idiot. You'd have to look at each individual case, which would probably take until the end of time.

Age restriction is the only realistic way of doing it, and the line has to be drawn somewhere.

You can't use supposed intelligence quotients based on something as pathetically flimsy as employment (what of a uni student who works at McDonalds in their spare time?). Why?

Aside from there being better ways of doing it, what's to stop someone with a 'better' job deciding that you too shouldn't have the vote. For that fact, should only scientists and philosophers have the vote, because they're supposedly more intelligent? No. Why? People live in a state. They are governed by rules. In democracy, each has some say over it. Yes there are some inherent issues there, but to distinguish on something as flimsy as job or IQ or anything of the sort is not adequate.

Voter 'responsibility'? I think you'll find it's not only some McDonald's workers who are ignorant of politics. See above.

To be clear, I advocated neither quality of employment nor intelligence as methods of deciding whether or not someone votes. Clearly, neither a good job nor indeed any level of intelligence naturally bestow a political acumen worthy of automatically qualifying one to vote.

My point is simply this: Does universal suffrage benefit society in the intended manner? The answer clearly is no. The debate then, is what alternative system would work better? Qualified voting is an obvious choice, but how does one qualify? What are the exceptions, and how is it decided thus?

Is democracy even the most logical political system to begin with? Just because a majority want something, should it automatically follow that it is right to want it, and that it is in the best interests of that majority, or indeed the system as a whole?

Everpain wrote:

> Is democracy even the most logical political system to begin
> with? Just because a majority want something, should it
> automatically follow that it is right to want it, and that it is
> in the best interests of that majority, or indeed the system as a
> whole?

Now that is probably the most interesting question of those raised so far. I personally think that democracy would work if the government that was voted in actually used it all the way through their stay in power. I mean, what use is a vote if it's only once in so many years and even that just to vote in someone who you know means nothing by the promises they make? A true democratic government would need to rely on the people whenever an important decision came up,