Citzenry Test

I responded to a post on Philip Greenspun’s blog about whether we, as a country, could complain about our economic condition, when it was us who voted for the people who put us into such dire straights. It brought something to my mind that had been festering for a long time, and tied together something Neal Boortz says all the time.

The problem here is that we’re letting people vote who have no business doing so.

I know it’s not a politically-correct thing to say today, but I think there was a good reason to limit voting rights to property holders, back in the old days. They had skin in the game. In my opinion, people who live purely on government assistance shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Such assistance should be limited, so this creates an immediate and obvious conflict of interest. Of course a person is going to vote to increase and extend any help they are getting! That’s a bought-and-paid for vote. We all know it, but it won’t change, and it’s a formula that creates a bedrock guarantee that we will see an ever-increasing welfare state.

At the very least, there ought to be some sort of license to vote. We have to have a license for everything else. Why not voting? You have to prove minimal competence to drive a car on public roads; you should have to prove minimal competence about our political structure and process before being allowed to steer the country.

I think the ultimate problem is two-fold. On the one hand, we have poor education in our public school systems, which put their emphasis on the wrong things. Yes, everyone winds up taking some classes in “government” or “civics,” but the school system is more about extra-curricular activities than reading, writing, and arithmetic than ever before. If the salient issues are taught, they’re lost in the indoctrination of political correctness issues, like recycling, global warming, “sex education,” and drug awareness programs (none of which seem to be making a difference, thanks very much). It may be dry, but I don’t think there’s much else that ought to be front-and-center in a public education than how government works, and one’s role in a free society.

On the other hand, our society is just too focused on titillating things that have no consequence. We all can criticize the young kids about knowing nothing except the daily lives of the current crop of pop icons, but that’s where it starts. From there, it just grows up into caring only about who wore what on the red carpet of whatever awards show was on last night, or watching the lives of such horrible people on TV that the only thing they can do in society is to serve as the butt of its jokes. This isn’t news. I dare say it shouldn’t even be interesting, even though, at times, it’s fun. The breakdown occurs when all you know about current events is whatever the entertainment TV shows are covering.

Before people focus on my previous example of “property holders,” no, I’m not saying that renters like full-time students and urban dwellers shouldn’t be allowed to vote. I’m just saying that there needs to be some cutoff, somewhere, and people who live entirely on government assistance was my example.

Apparently — and as was pointed out to me in the original — there used to be a concept of “literacy tests,” which were instituted to deny voting rights to blacks after the Civil War. (Was this even brought up in my public-schooling of this time in history? I honestly don’t know.) Of course this was unfair at the time. But now that everyone has (supposed) access to a (publicly-funded) education held to (federalized) standards, everyone should be on equal ground, now, right? A “citizenry test” is exactly what I’m talking about, and it would, of course, imply the ability to read. I don’t care a whit what color someone is. The president and the voters could be purple with pink polka dots for all I care!

The bottom line is that it’s a shame the best-educated people in our society about how government works are legal immigrants, rather than native-born citizens who ought to get this pumped into them from their youth by all of the people around them. Rather, most people in this country don’t even know who their elected representatives are, let alone what their positions might be. And these people vote!

(It might also help if our representatives weren’t weasels, and would _give_ a position when asked. Neither of my senators would let their staffs tell their position on the illegal immigration bill when I called.)

I would just appreciate it if people — both the underprivileged who get the handouts, and the political elite who buy their votes with them — would understand that printing money is not a fix to all of our woes. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness should be preserved as options, not shoved down your throat by your government.

Yes, college students should be allowed to vote, but I want to know that they understand that the massive increase in Pell Grants they’re voting for today are going to cost them and the rest of us for the rest of our lives. Is it worth the additional burden they impose on our country to fund more college degrees that are currently collecting dust in this economy? That’s clearly not going to help us as a society at this point, yet this is a pitch-perfect example of political pandering for votes that needs to be addressed. Somehow.