Neil Brooks wrote:
On Dec 30, 8:20 pm, "J. Clarke" wrote:
Neil Brooks wrote:
On Dec 30, 1:15 pm, (Doug Miller) wrote:
In article , Tim Daneliuk
wrote:
Miller's right: If you don't pay taxes you should have no right to
vote and influence how that money gets spent. The only exception
I'd make is for people who've volunteered to serve the nation in
the military.

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 *now*, most of them are certainly a net positive when
considered over the
entire span of their working lives

Scrap all of that.

How about a minimum IQ standard???

Looks good on paper but has a _bad_ history in the US, where a black
Caltech PhD couldn't pass the government's IQ test but an inbred
white hick could in some states.

They do usually point to Stanford-Binet as being *terrifyingly*
culturally biased, so ... yeah ... I agree.

That aside, it didn't matter what answers you gave on the test.

By the way ... that latter chap lives about three doors down from
me ;-)