In our fondest dreams ...

I'd certainly go along with making exceptions for "no fault of your own" cases, perhaps assessing whether an individual is a net taxpayer or a net leech on the basis of a five-year moving average. But I don't think that anyone who is able to work, but simply refuses to, has any claim on either society's resources or its decision-making processes.

No argument there at all. I'm in favor of all of that.

The first needs to be in place before instituting the second. We have enough of a problem now with uninformed, ignorant voters without *requiring* them to vote. Thank goodness that a large number of the uninformed and ignorant are apathetic as well -- I prefer that those people not vote.

Since you insist on harping on slavery, let me acquaint you with some realities of slavery you're conveniently ignoring:

- Slavery in some form has existed in all of recorded human history.

- The slavery that brought Africans to the US was instituted BY Africans AGAINST Africans long before the Europeans ever showed up.

- African Muslim pirates (the Barbary Corsairs) attacked and enslaved white Europeans well before the Europeans ever engaged in slavery themselves. These pirates operated from the 11th century through the 19th by some accounts.

- Of all major cultures ONLY the Judeo-Christian influenced Westerners *gave up slavery voluntarily*, whether by internal civil war or legislative decree.

- One of the two places in the world you can still buy slaves in large numbers is ... wait for it ... AFRICA. (Somalia and Mauretania to be exact. The other is the white slavery going on in the Eastern Bloc and Islamic worlds.)

So, before you get too haughty about the eeeeeeeeeevil Founding Fathers, you might want to ponder their context and realize that in less than 100 years after the US was formed as a nation (1776-1865) slavery was abolished. We got rid of something in a hundred years that had been going on for 10 *thousand* before. It was EXACTLY because of the ideals of these people and their fundamental principles of government that slavery could not and did not survive. Dismissing them as mere slavers with a corrupt morality utterly misses the point.

So, just why do you and your fellow politically correct travelers leap at the opportunity to criticize the founders of the US - founders that led us on a path of freedom for more people, more rapidly than at any point in history - BUT you're entirely silent about the millennia of slavery and human rights abuses in Africa and the rest of the world? world?

Which country are you living in??? I have seen nothing but crooks and morons for the last 40 years.

Eloquent, but ... sadly ... in the end ... pointless.

They also owned slaves. You may say that was "right for their times" or ... something equivalent, but ... many "knew better," and the practice was relatively speedily abolished.

The notion that others did it before them, or that it still goes on elsewhere, likewise, does nothing to the argument.

It's a fools effort to declare that things that were right in 1776 are therefore automatically right, now.

Like we have not been stuck with people we don't want already.. Because some one is not immediately elected does not mean that the person in office gets to stay there until he is replaced. He leaves office and the government maintains until some one is elected.

The people or the government, seems to work well or what you have read?

Actually all you have to do is not vote at all.

Shortly behind that would be those people that make sure you vote they way they want you to.

I'd make a few more exceptions:

- the severely disabled: as a society, I believe we have a moral obligation to provide for those who through no fault of their own are unable -- as distinguished from unwilling -- to provide for themselves, yet that inability should not disqualify them from voting

- the short-term unemployed: being laid off after years of working shouldn't cost a person the right to vote

- those who volunteer to serve society in other ways besides the military, e.g. in hospitals, soup kitchens, shelters for battered women or the homeless, and so on

- the retired: while those collecting social security may be a net drain

It always elevates the rhetoric to begin casting aspersions like that.

I didn't mean that the Right had a monopoly on it, but ... what do you recall about Database Technologies vis-a-vis the Bush/Gore election. There clearly WERE some paid-by-the-piece ACORN folk who ripped off the company, and -- in so doing -- harmed the process.

But I've seen no evidence it was condoned, sanctioned, sponsored, or directed by the organization. If you recall the Database Technologies story, then you'll know the same can't be said of that whole situation.

That doesn't address the issue of how.

I'd be interested in a citation for that. That doesn't comport with the info that I've seen.

Well, thank the Good Lord for what I clearly feel is the imminent opportunity for YOU to set me straight!!!

Meh. Easily countered bumper-sticker arguments. I'll pass on the bait, though.

As for the rest of your post ... it's tantamount to a "Bush-Cheney" or "McCain-Palin" sticker on a Suburban or Yukon: redundant and superfluous :-)

Scrap all of that.

How about a minimum IQ standard???

No, people don't vote because they're too lazy, as is their right in any free state. Often they're too uninformed to have an educated opinion, so *SHOULDN'T* vote.

So you believe that the choices we get every election are the best possible candidates? ;~) Smirk.

No, voting for the "lesser of evils" certainly doesn't defeat any purpose. You're never going to be 100% happy with another controlling your life. Less is better than more.

Personally I will not vot for either evil... I'll not follow that flock of sheep.

You don't have to be 100% happy but you should be at least 20% happy with your pick.

What a presumptuous fool you are! I said nothing about what people should believe or how they should vote, or even whether they should be allowed to vote. I do believe that perhaps they shouldn't vote if they haven't made some effort in understanding the issues. Most don't, so we end up with a mess like we have currently.

With that comment, would you please not vote any more?

And where might you propose they GET this education?

Anything short of source documents is pure partisan spin and commercial crap.

What do you suggest people do -- what most Americans do -- read NOTHING BUT things that support their partisan pre-conceived ideas of the world (aka "Confirmation Bias")?

What good does that do?

And to restate what I stated previously, why participate in such an atrocity.

I think you would make a good citizen in Iran

So you'll just kibbitz from the sidelines: "Everyone else is wrong, but me.".

If you can't find someone to vote for that you're 20% happy with, perhaps you'd better start looking in a mirror.

Trying to keep up with that... ;~) I think if you simply did not vote unless you wanted a candidate to win... If during that election if neither A or B won, Candidates C and D would be up and so on untill one got 5 or votes. Not a fool proof method with out problems but far better than what we settle for now, IMHO. Remember the candidate had to get more than 50% of the votes from registered voters. If 49% of registered voters vote neither candidate wins. I think that if we had candidates that we actually wanted rather than what we are present with by each party we may be more inclined to actually go and vote.

There, you have my idea. I would go for that too.

'seems fair enough.

The Democrats would be through it you did that :P

"I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion." ...Thomas Jefferson

Sorry, Swing, but I'm with Jefferson on this one - I'm more inclined to believe that the best thing we can do is to take all steps necessary to ensure a well-educated and well-informed electorate.