generally do not have the “life experiences” to move them to conservatism. Statism/socialism/etc. also promises them things like free college education. It also has a utopian ideal that young folk have not learned is complete bunk yet. Of course, a lot of people haven’t figured out that those utopian ideals are bunk yet.

…gained traction, managing the economy equitably has become an uphill fight.

Of course tax cuts benefit the rich, you mo-ron, only the “rich” pay taxes in this country.

The argument only makes sense if you start out with the immoral presumption that it’s all the government’s money to begin with.

Someone in a position of leadership within the party needs to come up with an effective counter to this tactic.

As for the youth….

“Are they so ignorant of economics that they believe that printing money will solve the problem, or they have been so steeped in leftist political theory in college that they can think of nothing better than the Maxist paradise that was preached by their Birkenstock- and tye-dye-wearing profs?”

Yes, and yes. If I might add, the indoctrination starts long before they get to college.

I have long agreed that only taxpayers should be allowed to vote. I think we all know that such an amendment will never see the light of day.

of the underclass, those people who have been unemployed and uneducated for generations coupled with a pervasive illiteracy of economic reality caused by the universal failure of the educational system.

The National Education Association has been a bastion of Marxist thought at the primary and secondary level while at the university level liberal scum suck the teets of tenure.

Should vast numbers of people be dis-enfranchised? They already are. It’s the taxpayers. If the Repuiblicans want to regain power they should make the simple statement that if you are, have been or ever expect to be a taxpayer, you should vote for Republicans and only chronic tax consumers should vote for Democrats. This statement should become the core plank of the Republicans.

he had an Earth society that had evolved into only those who had done a stint of government service were allowed to vote. The choices were military or civilian, but regardless, if someone wanted to earn the franchise, they had the right to demand that the government find a position for them.

Interestingly enough, until your government service ended, you still did not enjoy the franchise — in other words, while you were eating at the government trough, you could not vote.

…not advocating…just an interesting aside.

Was a mistake. There is only one thing you cannot hide, move or disguise from the tax man–your land.

I’d be willing to expand the vote to those who own taxable property–it is taxable property that is owned by the production class.

Sometimes I think the even better solution is to restrict the vote to only those who have served in the armed forces. Those who have risked their lives for the sake of their country ought to have quite an interest in seeing it survive (then I see the kook kos, wtf?).

I wouldn’t blame the schooling for the youthful heads of mush–the parents have a large part of blame for this sorry state. They’ve had their children on welfare since an early age: Starting with an “allowance” money for menial task far out of proportion to the labor given; moving onto more allowance and a car as they aged instead of forcing them to get a summer job; then send them–all expenses paid–for another 4 years, where they live by themselves, set their own rules, all on someone else’s dime. No. By the time they get to college, they’ve had some 10 to 15 years of training on how to live off of someone else.

Any surprise that these dunderheads have no concept of what it takes to be a free man after all that training and reinforcement on the joys of economic slavery?

Our schooling today only teaches them how to more effectively take more money from those who have it. Years ago some young kids in our rather conservative community wanted to start a bicycle repair business. Their method of capitalization consisted of canvassing the local businesses seeking donations. Behavior learned from countless “fundraisers” inflicted upon the production class by the local schools.

“Are they so ignorant of economics that they believe that printing money will solve the problem, or they have been so steeped in leftist political theory in college that they can think of nothing better than the Maxist paradise that was preached by their Birkenstock- and tye-dye-wearing profs?”

Being a recent graduate (2006), I find it hilariously ironic that these same under-30 people that are so obsessed with the leftist ideals of socialism, are the same crowd that are so in love with their iphones, mac books, whole foods, etc., and they are completely ignorant to the fact that none of those things would exist without the inherent incentives of capitalism.

instead of restricting voting.
I don’t understand the reaction to Obama because for years we have had R and D support of things like the EITC and we also have the refundable additional child tax credits.
Your diary is very interesting to me because I never understood why AFDC /TANF is so heavily criticized by R and conservatives but not the earned income tax credit which gives many people far more without any qualifiers even except for income level and a capital gain limit in the previous year and is based on family size from 0 dependents to 1 dependents to 2. I’m not an accountant so I’m hesistant to post but, if someone earns around $9,000 and paid 0 federal taxes, if have 2 children they may recieve close to $5,000 in cash back. When you go higher earnings there is the child tax credit that covers some tax liability with the refundable additional child tax credit.

I don’t agree with this statement, espeically with “only” you are automatically saying the low income are not invested, that is not true. “So, it appears that the only citizens who are truly invested ..” It’s not right to make a judgement about people like that based on their income level.

to have a right to vote. People who do not will always vote their personal needs. A way to qualify may be the payment of income taxes. Some of the founders said that ownership of land was qualification. Others different things. We cannot have the homeless, the poor, the too young to be wise enough, and the totally uneducated vote and shape the good of the country. And I know that a lot of our military are the young, so there is another qualification, service to our country. Finally, someone is recognizing this problem.

Now all you have to do is be 18 and able to fog a mirror even in the Reddest of Red States. In the blue states, you don’t even have to exist. It would be worth a little extra bureaucracy in each state if you had to go down to the registrar’s office, sit for a while, and take the test we administer to those who want to become citizens. Just use the same test. If we want to be sure that immigrants have some understanding of our system, we should also be willing to test our own native born before we give them something so powerful as the franchise.

I’m reasonably certain that a political party could lawfully impose such a qualification on a person’s registerning as a member of that party. Wouldn’t restrict their right to vote, but it would restrict their right to vote in the party’s primary/caucus and participate in party affairs.

In his immortal The Second Treatise on Government, John Locke stated that he believed in universal suffrage for those who own property and those who pay taxes. He connected the notions of taxation and representation because they are necessarily linked in basic purpose; representation is the fairest form of governance because it can most readily reflect the wishes of those within the commonwealth who have a stake in government.Those who do not own land or who are not taxed necessarily have less stake in the survival of the state, and therefore shouldn’t be considered in the legislative process. Locke’s formulation was a radical defense of property rights that postulated that the sole reason for the existence of government was the protection of his holy trinity of rights: life, liberty, and estate. Everyone should pick up a copy of this work now and reread the crucial sections–the parts on suffrage, the ends of the state, the powers of the legislative (and the executive), and the dissolution of government–and ask yourself “what would Locke think about our society today?”

In fact, while your at it, reread Tocqueville as well, particularly his part on Administrative Despotism, and ask yourself how far we are from his “democratic tyranny.”

It’s pragmatic to discuss but will never be realized in the current iteration of America. Least of which is the disproportionate number of minorities that are property owners.

The only thing that could ever be made to pass under “equitable” terms is some form of flat/sales/VAT type tax where everyone pays equal and those that are below a set level receive their payments back as refunds.

I would like to think that when real Conservatives regain the legislature and WH, they have the the spine to make it happen.

This nation is on the precipice of evolving, and unfortunately, it is evolving away from the principals that has made us great so far.

The problem is not that just 53% of American adults prefer capitalism to socialism and over a third of American “young people” actually prefer socialism to capitalism. The problem, I fear, is that even among those who say they prefer capitalism to socialism, very few truly know what capitalism is an would prefer their capitalism restricted by government fiat when it touches their personal interests.

Remember the recent front page diary by one of the RedState Directors who wanted the Federal government to mandate the number of bags that an airline passenger could check for free?

Remember the Republican President who recently said, “When people hurt, the government must act”?

Such is the sentiment of socialism. When the market “fails” then the government must intervene but, truth be known, what is termed “market failure” is much more often than not simply the market not benefiting us like we want. And because of that, we think the government must now intervene so that we don’t get “hurt” at the expense of the “fat cats” or whomever.

While I shudder at the ignorance of those who cannot say, unabashedly, that capitalism is far superior than socialism, I also must be honest and say that to a small extent I cannot blame them. If supposedly consrvative Presidents and genuinely but severely mistaken conservative bloggers can mouth such sentiments and supports such actions as the above — which, though perhaps not extreme examples, do represent the underlying thinking and excuses behind of socialism — then why shouldn’t many people and especially the young not see anything especially wrong with socialism?

I read Starship Troopers years ago. If you have read any of Heinlein’s biographies, he was villified for this work. How dare he advocate for a militaristic society? Of course, the folks saying that missed the points that 1) most jobs were not in the military but government civlian jobs (okay Obama has that one going for him) and 2) you didn’t vote until your hitch was up — in other words a private citizen again.

Heinlein wrote in a lot of his non-fiction about the folly of extending the franchise to every adult warm body. I don’t have all the writings handy here, but they are collected in one of his short story collections. Where are the Heirs of Patrick Henry is one.

You have to have some stake in the system in order to vote intelligently. Just handing out welfare checks with nothing in return separates people from their government. As long as the checks keep coming, they don’t care what else happens. They even distrust the system. They sure don’t vote. Look how many first-time voters there were in this last election. They weren’t all college students either. I wrote an opinion piece on this very subject that I published online: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1362014/jury_duty_how_to_involve_the_uninvolved.html?cat=9

There shouldn’t be arbitrary restrctions on voting like race, gender or religion. But, at the same time a smart twelve year old should be able to vote over a stupid 50 year old (Heinlein paraphrase).

A campaign centered on pointing out how the opposition wants to take away voting rights. We’d be called every name in the Democrats’ book. Unlike voter ID, people would not see value in the proposal.

I would like to point out the liberalism of those under 30 is not caused by liberal college professors. College students are generally no more liberal than high school graduates of the same age. For most young people, ideology is influenced most by friends. Those on the left are more likely to try to influence their friends, and a cycle begins that is hard to break. Conservatives cannot make any headway on this because they naturally lack passion for conservative political philosophy. That natural instinct, if it continues, will put the GOP out of business.

I doubt lack of experience plays much of a role either. Working experience is not going to convert any significant percentage of people, and I think most young people work very hard and struggle to make ends meet. I think everyone knows we have to pay taxes. No mentally sane person wants to be on welfare or to earn too little to be required to pay taxes. Taxes are super high for what I would consider poverty level wages.

If we hope to grow our party, this diary starts with the wrong idea. We must instead change minds and perceptions. The biggest and hardest step for conservatives to take will be removing their natural attitude and lack of positive passion for politics and government. As much as it goes against our nature, we are going to have to show enthusiasm and passion for ideas that are not even in relation to, let alone centered upon, the excesses or insanities of the opposition. Otherwise, we only delay the left and end up with the proposals and tendencies that move the party to the left to maintain our distance from Democrats. We don’t want to “hold the line” in a constantly changing world but to find an appealing way to apply a common and enduring set of principles to the situations affecting the lives of our audience.

I may be new here but restricting the vote to those who are property owners or some other criteria is nonsense.
Citizens of this great country have the right to vote in elections regardless of if they own property or not and it needs to stay that way.

After the 2000 and 2004 elections the left wing nut jobs were asking the same question in a different manner, they wanted a litmus test for voting also.

We can not talk about the founding, honor and what makes this country great by thinking that restricting the voting process to property owners is the problem.

Don’t hate the game , just become better at it.

and vice versa

1. Puts a stop to this nonsense of allowing convicted felons to vote.

2. Allows law-abiding citizens to fully exercise their second amendment rights

3. Irresponsible voting has resulted in far more deaths than irresponsible use of firearms by private citizens.