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Originally Posted by crucifissio
that is actually a great suggestion....if you do not pay for it you get no say in it...maybe an IQ test or a general political test that would weed out the knee jerk voters and idiots...the politicians would be forced to appeal to a more intelligent audience...
also drug testing for those who apply...nothing against druggies legal or not...but if you are on pills/blunts/lines/pipes then you should stick to that and not bother with politics...
the other great flaw is the media...
media grading according to bias would be a good course of action...also grading of individual reporters and their bias...just like movies are rated PG or whatever...this TV channel for example has low scores based on bias towards political party x and this reporter is a well known bullshiter....mandatory grading and ranking like for food with the score in the bottom left part of the screen like "reputation" quantified in to a 1-5 rank ect...
grading of political parties as well...lets grade the democrats and the republicans and the whoever like IMDB movies...based on last elections promises vs. actual accomplishments...would make them more responsible in the pre-election period and more diligent in the post election...accounting for politicians 
banning religious propaganda from politics would be huge...until you can prove your imaginary friend in the sky, or find some reason why thor and spiderman are a less credible story, lets leave politics to people who have a firm grasp of reality and do not need their safety blanket to manage life's troubles...you are free to practice your paper cup worship at home, but a fair suggestion would be to ban politicians from mentioning religion during their campaigns...
the above would fix democracy a lot...the current model is too stick and carrot and there are many jack asses with voting "rights"...voting is not a right, like a driving license is not a right...both are equally complex and are a privilege...if you really want in, nothing is standing in your way, pay taxes , learn the fuck about politics and take the test and viola!... |
While I agree with you about grading political parties and holding them accountable for their actions, I think you have some problems with your other ideas.
First, no pay no vote. What about a person who worked for many years and is now retired? If you are just on social security (and there may be other situations that count as well) you don't have to file a tax return. So they don't get to vote now?
You want an IQ test as well as a general political test to eliminate knee jerk voters and you want all religious stuff removed from campaigns. So why not just disallow any religious people from voting or running for office? Clearly if you believe in a god you have to be a dumb ass correct? We can't have people who believe in that kind of stuff making the decisions.
What do you consider knee jerk? Who gets to decide what makes up an idiot and how they are defined? If a person scores low on an IQ test that means they should have no say in how they are going to be treated and what kind of country they are living in?
Personally, I think a better way to do it is not to try to control who gets to vote or how the vote is handled, but instead how the candidates are presented. I would suggest we do away with political parties all together. If you want to run for a public office you are given a flat amount of money to spend on your campaign. Everyone gets the same amount. If you spend more wisely than your opponents you will get more out of it. This will help reduce how much our leaders are beholden to special interests and it can help eliminate people just buying campaigns. With no parties those voters who would otherwise vote based just party affiliation will now be forced to choose who they want to vote on based on what they believe. Make lobbyist illegal. If a company or a group wants to influence a representative they can do it just like everyone else and write them a letter, send them an email or call them.
We could also make candidates come up with a simple, general list of stances on different issues. No bullshit. No beating around the bush. If you want to be on the ballot you have to submit your list. This way a voter can quickly and easily see where you stand on the major issues of the day and for those who care to look, if you are running for re-election using the grading system a voter can easily see how well you did previously.
When you try to restrict the vote you ultimately create a class of people who feel disenfranchised by the system and eventually those people turn to radicalism and bad things can happen.