No one is saying that we shouldn't allow people with different views vote. You're straw manning.

Edited 1/24/2016 23:57:14

they shouldn't be allowed to vote imo. only people with a basic understanding of economics, who know a bit about the candidates for whom they're voting and are at least 21 should vote.

Your argument is invalid.

An argument can't be invalid it can only be poorly constructed. Pls read a book on basic logic.

My point still stands: You want to disenfranchise voters due to their views just because they don't fit your political views.
That ruins the republic. Putting a system in that disenfranchises voters just because some voters have wrong ideas is not what fair elections are about.

1) Historically did the US have franchise voting laws? - Yes you needed to be white, male, and own property.

2) Should we reinstate franchise voting laws - No

3) How uninformed are American voters - Grab your seat because this should be appalling.

First what is a low informed voter? Low information voters, also known as LIVs or misinformation voters, are people who may vote, but who are generally poorly informed about politics. In 2007, the Pew Research Center found that among the voting age public, 31% didn't know that Dick Cheney was Vice-President and 34% couldn't name the Governor of their own state (link 1). Roughly 4 in 5 couldn't name the Secretary of Defense, and more than half didn't know that Nancy Pelosi was the Speaker of the House, while only 15% knew who Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was (link 1)

In 2008, ISI (organization that tests civic literacy) tested 2,508 adults of all ages and educational backgrounds, and once again the results were discouraging. Seventy-one percent of Americans failed the exam, with high school graduates scoring 44% and college graduates also failing at 57% (link 2).

4) What would be the effect of promoting a pure democratic system without an electoral college, but just a simple popular vote. The voting power of low information voters would increase, leading to mob rule and a poor political class.

Links:

1) http://www.people-press.org/2007/04/15/public-knowledge-of-current-affairs-little-changed-by-news-and-information-revolutions/

2) http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/2011/summary_summary.html

The statement,

they shouldn't be allowed to vote imo. only people with a basic understanding of economics, who know a bit about the candidates for whom they're voting and are at least 21 should vote.

contradicts

No one is saying that we shouldn't allow people with different views vote. You're straw manning.

The reason it is contradictory is that your basis for "basic understanding of economics" was that they don't believe in zero-sum economics. If someone believes in zero-sum economics, they would be barred from voting based on your standards. You also said later that "No one is saying that we shouldn't allow other people with different views to vote."
Therefore, you said that certain people with different views would be barred from voting and that nobody would be barred from voting.
Only one statement can be true, as the other would be false.
If zero-sum believers cannot vote, the statement that "No one is saying we shouldn't allow other people with different views to vote" is false as by your previous standards, you are saying that the opposite is true.
If you are saying that "no one is saying we shouldn't allow other people with different views to vote" is true, the statement that "zero-sum believers cannot vote" must be false because if the zero-sum statement is true, an exception to your "no one is saying" statement would exist and would be false.
Therefore, only one argument can be true.
Which argument is true?

Falcon I think he wants to institute a civics test of sorts to filter through eligible voters. Some high schools already require seniors to pass a civics test in order to graduate. He may be alluding to something similar. Its not a contradiction. He's not saying we should ban libertarians or democrats from voting, but he wants the "voting eligibility standards" to be increased. They are two different points.

Point 2- Against franchise voter laws
Majority of other points- Support franchising certain voters.

Jai,
He is saying that we should ban certain people from voting (based on their beliefs of economics), which contradicts his statement that no one is saying that people should be barred from voting due to their views since he said that certain people shouldn't vote due to their views.
Civics test or not, they are contradictory.

No Jai is correct I am in favor of a civic test. Economics isn't a belief system. It is a science. If something cannot be proven it is a theory and has no place being tested on a large scale such as in the united states. Zero sum is a theory and has no place being tested in a large country with hundreds of millions of people. Try it out somewhere small and get back to us.

Edited 1/25/2016 00:50:16

^That clarifies what he was thinking. Although there are tons of "schools of economics". Although I agree economic theory is highly under taught in American schools, I doubt any organization could come up with 1 set of economic laws to test people on.

Edited 1/25/2016 00:54:43

I'll just sort of copy-paste my argument from like two days ago here:

The cited example of winning with only 22% of the vote is fine as The electoral college isn't meant to represent People. This was done on purpose by the founding fathers, who were really freaked out by the idea of a so-called tyranny of the majority that they rejected the idea that Presidents should be elected by popular vote altogether.

Now, it just so happens, that 95% of the time, the president has won the popular vote as well as the Electoral vote. However, this is really just a funny side-effect, since the electoral college was never meant to Elect presidents by popular vote. Instead, it has two purposes in my opinion:

1. To Encourage people to spread out, penalizing large groups of people with the same political alignment who cluster together. This relates to the mentioned vote distribution in the video. If a state has a huge Margin of people who vote exactly the same way, every vote above 50% of the vote is discarded.

2. To encourage Coalition Building. Here is a map of the States you would need to win with 22% of the Popular vote to be elected president:

http://map1.maploco.com/visited-states/ml/AK-AL-AR-AZ-CO-CT-DC-DE-HI-IA-ID-IN-KS-KY-LA-MA-MD-ME-MN-MO-MS-MT-ND-NE-NH-NJ-NM-NV-OK-OR-RI-SC-SD-TN-UT-VA-VT-WI-WV-WY.png

If there is someone who can effectively unite parts of every region of the country, and convince radically different groups of people to all vote for the same candidate, that person deserves to be elected.

Who would be filtered out?

Great post imperator

No Jai is correct I am in favor of a civic test. Economics isn't a belief system. It is a science. If something cannot be proven it is a theory and has no place being tested on a large scale such as in the united states. Zero sum is a theory and has no place being tested in a large country with hundreds of millions of people. Try it out somewhere small and get back to us.

Umm, First, there are way too many schools of economics. While zero-sum is not generally considered valid, it is still considered one of the school of economics. You would end up discriminating against some specific school, which is not justifiable, as quite literally Classics or Keynesians may get excluded, and instead limited to pure mainstream left, which is what most economists today are.

its not a school it is a theory. And yes I will discriminate against theories because america isn't the testing ground for economic theories.

Well, so you suggest we through all of them out then, and what exactly do we do as an economic policy?

throw what out?

All of the economic theories, as there is no established proper economics. Keynes and the classicals practically disagree on every f***ing thing.

There are economic systems that have a good track record. Therefore they're no longer theories and are proper forms of managing scarce resources.

Edited 1/25/2016 04:53:36

I've got a good system: Spend less than you earn.