The Voting Rights Act is crap

[Morgan_Freeman]

The two main purposes of this law are to outlaw, nationwide, any kind of poll taxes or literacy tests for voting. Both of these seem like great policies to me.

In fact, we ought to have only one kind of tax -- a poll tax. You pay your money, and then you vote on how it's used. Makes perfect sense to me. Otherwise, you're just voting on how OTHER people's money will be spent.

Literacy tests may be a bit outdated in an era of ubiquitous radio and television, but some kind of competency test should still be in place. (Although the act of voting itself obviously requires the ability to read the ballot). We require that voters be 18 to vote -- isn't this to ensure their competency? Well instead of this arbitary cutoff line, why not just have a competency test instead?

I find it truly sad that just because this Act has been sold (dishonestly) as "allowing blacks to vote", every politician is too scared to oppose it, or even offer any kind of debate over it.

Whether or not you think that poll taxes and literacy tests are good ideas, what possible justification can you have for making them illegal nationwide?

[Morgan_Freeman]

PS

Hot damn, I just hit 2000!

[JohnMK]

This type of law is more difficult to justify at present than it was at its conception. In general I would agree that the two provisions raised by you above are possibly not best regulated at the Federal level. Of course I am not necessarily aware of all reasons both pro and con (things aren't always as obvious as they seem) so I will withhold from adopting a steadfast position at this juncture.

As an aside to your main question, I think a competency test, if done properly and with almost unanimous public support, would be a good idea. A poll tax, however . . . I do not support. In my discussion with you in the past you believe this should be the sole or primary means of revenue generation for governments. Any practical appraisal of the real world should show that on voting day, it would be a tough decision. Vote, or spend $5000 on bread and circuses. Tough, tough decision. Your ideal of a $100 poll tax does not fit with your demand that it be the sole or primary means of revenue generation for governments. In our lifetime, government will never suffice on such a measly sum.

[Morgan_Freeman]

So you think its a bad idea (at present, anyway). That's fine. There's a big difference between thinking a policy should not be enacted, and thinking it should be illegal. The Voting Rights Act is a sham.

[tivodan1116]

I think poll taxes and literacy/competancy tests should be illegal nationwide. They both disenfranchise millions of voters by making access to voting difficult.

On Poll taxes - So, for some reason you think the wealthy need MORE control over the political process?

And as far as a competancy test, the people deserve exactly the government they get. If people are ill-informed about politics, how about we treat the disease instead of the symptom and figure out why people are so ill-informed and generally put off by the political process, and fix that.

We should make it as easy and natural for everyone to become as involved as possible in the political process.

[RickSp]

Gee Morgan, poll taxes and literacy tests were used explictly to prevent blacks and other minorities from registering to vote. Why is making them illegal a bad thing?

You claim the Voting Rights Act is crap. Your argument is what sounds like crap.

[Morgan_Freeman]

Quote by: tivodan1116 I think poll taxes and literacy/competancy tests should be illegal nationwide. They both disenfranchise millions of voters by making access to voting difficult.

Exactly, voting should be difficult. It is a privilege, not a right. If it were a right, we would let illegal immigrants vote.

Quote by: tivodan1116 On Poll taxes - So, for some reason you think the wealthy need MORE control over the political process?

I think the more taxes you pay, the more control you should have over the the government, yes. That makes perfect sense to me.

If you think everyone should have equal political influence, then make taxes equal. That simple.

Quote by: tivodan1116 And as far as a competancy test, the people deserve exactly the government they get. If people are ill-informed about politics, how about we treat the disease instead of the symptom and figure out why people are so ill-informed and generally put off by the political process, and fix that.

That sounds very nice and high-minded. But politics is serious business. I don't want any old know-nothing jackass voting my liberties away. They have to meet some basic standards.

Fix the the disease, I agree. And in the meantime, ill-informed people should not be voting. How about the basic civics exam that foreigners have to take to become a citizen? Why don't native-born Americans have to take that?

Quote by: tivodan1116 We should make it as easy and natural for everyone to become as involved as possible in the political process.

I disagree wholeheartedly. Democracy is, at the very very best, a necessary evil. People should only be voting if they know what the hell they are doing. Screw these platitudes like, "Get involved! Vote!"

No. Stay the hell away unless you know the issues like the back of your hand.

[Morgan_Freeman]

Quote by: RickSp Gee Morgan, poll taxes and literacy tests were used explictly to prevent blacks and other minorities from registering to vote. Why is making them illegal a bad thing?

Intentions are worthless in politics. Results are all that matters. You should be judging the policy on its own merits.

Quote by: RickSp You claim the Voting Rights Act is crap. Your argument is what sounds like crap.

Then you should have no problem actually responding to it.

[leftcider]

For federal-level elections, poll taxes would be unconsitutional even without the Voting Rights Act:

Quote by: 24th Amendment The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay poll tax or other tax.

If you want to restore a state's ability to institute poll taxes, there are much greater obstacles than the Voting Rights Act.

Regardless of legality, poll taxes are an infringement on a fundamental right. A poll tax would condition a person's ability to vote on their ability to pay. Voting has long been considered a fundamental right and is the most basic right of the democratic citizen. The Supreme Court has ruled that voting is a fundamental right, a "preservative of other basic civil and political rights" (Reynolds v. Simms). A fundamental right is conditional on nothing --- it is automatically possesed. A poll tax is no better than making you pay for your "right" to freedom of speech, or protection against torture, or any other basic right.

The federal government is charged with enforcing federal level rights, and enforces basic bill of rights protections for citizens in states. The Supreme Court against gerrymandering, for instance, to protect the right to vote.

I'm all for allowing more state autonomy, but the federal government as defined in the Constitution is charged with protecting basic Constitutional Rights, and the Voting Rights Act is an entirely appropriate example of this.

[RickSp]

Morgan, your argument is so weak and generally inarticulate that there is nothing to respond to. It is elitist nonsense that ignores history. The results of the poll tax and literacty tests was to prevent minorities from voting. They violated the letter and the intent of the Constitution. That may not matter to you.

If you oppose the Voting Rights Act, do you also oppose the 15th Amendment which prohibits denial of voting rights based on race and and 24th Amendment which prohibits poll taxes? All the Voting Rights Act does is to provide the legislation implementing these Amendments.

[Morgan_Freeman]

Quote by: leftcider For federal-level elections, poll taxes would be unconsitutional even without the Voting Rights Act:

Sure, but how about at the state or local level?

Quote by: leftcider Regardless of legality, poll taxes are an infringement on a fundamental right. A poll tax would condition a person's ability to vote on their ability to pay. Voting has long been considered a fundamental right and is the most basic right of the democratic citizen. The Supreme Court has ruled that voting is a fundamental right, a "preservative of other basic civil and political rights" (Reynolds v. Simms). A fundamental right is conditional on nothing --- it is automatically possesed. A poll tax is no better than making you pay for your "right" to freedom of speech, or protection against torture, or any other basic right.

A fundamental right just like health care? I'm sure you know what I think of such "rights".
Voting is not a right, especially since voting allows you to deny other people their rights.

Voting is merely a mechanism implemented in a particular yype of government. Are you going to tell me that democracy is a right? That I have a right to be ruled by a mob? That's the worst right I ever heard of.

This "right" to voting is NOT analagous to such rights as freedom of speech. My freedom to speak is merely dependent on other people not stopping me from speaking. Voting, however, is the means by which we exercise control over other people. Coercion is not a right.

Quote by: leftcider The federal government is charged with enforcing federal level rights, and enforces basic bill of rights protections for citizens in states.

Yes, as per the 14th Amendment, which I think should be repealed. It is completely contrary to the spirit of the original constitution.

[Morgan_Freeman]

Quote by: RickSp The results of the poll tax and literacty tests was to prevent minorities from voting.

Can you present any facts to support this claim?

Quote by: RickSp They violated the letter and the intent of the Constitution. That may not matter to you.

If I thought it were true, it would matter. However, it is most certainly false. The idea of the federal government mandating how local elections are run is most certainly against the spirit of the constitution.

Quote by: RickSp If you oppose the Voting Rights Act, do you also oppose the 15th Amendment which prohibits denial of voting rights based on race

No, I don't oppose it. I don't consider race a valid basis on which to deny someone political influence. Of course, since this is an issue of local vs. federal control, I would certainly be open to hearing arguments on the subject.

Quote by: RickSp and and 24th Amendment which prohibits poll taxes?

I think I've made that pretty clear.

Quote by: RickSp All the Voting Rights Act does is to provide the legislation implementing these Amendments.

Absurd. The Voting Rights Act has no relation to the 15th Amendment whatsoever. How could you possibly justify such a statement?

[Morgan_Freeman]

Quote by: RickSp It is elitist nonsense that ignores history.

It's not elitist. It would be elitist if I wasn't a libertarian, maybe. You know full well I distrust government in all its forms, including mob rule. Hence, this is not elitism. It is self-defense.

[grandpa]

Quote by: Morgan_Freeman It's not elitist. It would be elitist if I wasn't a libertarian, maybe.

Morgan, everything about you is elitist--with this being no exception.
And there is nothing Libertarian about advocating systematic privileges as you do.

Grandpa h.

[Morgan_Freeman]

Quote by: grandpa Morgan, everything about you is elitist--with this being no exception.

No need to back that statement up.

Quote by: grandpa And there is nothing Libertarian about advocating systematic privileges as you do.

There is nothing libertarian about voting in general. I am simply advocating the best solution to a bad situation.

[RickSp]

Morgan, why not do some reading before posting this nonsense? You demand evidence that the poll tax and literacy tests were used to disenfranchise minorities. Then you claim that the 15th Amendement has nothing to do with the Voting Rights Act.

Quote by: Morgan_Freeman The Voting Rights Act has no relation to the 15th Amendment whatsoever. How could you possibly justify such a statement?

Give me a break. This stuff is basic civics.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

AN ACT To enforce the Fifteenth Amendment to the of the United States, and for other purposes. This act was signed into law 95 years after the amendment was ratified. In those years, African Americans in the South faced tremendous obstacles to voting, including poll taxes, literacy tests, and other bureaucratic restrictions to deny them the right to vote. They also risked harassment, intimidation, economic reprisals, and physical violence when they tried to register or vote. As a result, very few African Americans were registered voters, and they had very little, if any, political power, either locally or nationally. In 1964, numerous demonstrations were held, and the considerable violence that erupted brought renewed attention to the issue of voting rights. The murder of voting-rights activists in Mississippi and the attack by state troopers on peaceful marchers in Selma, AL, gained national attention and persuaded President Johnson and Congress to initiate meaningful and effective national voting rights legislation. The combination of public revulsion to the violence and Johnson's political skills stimulated Congress to pass the voting rights bill on August 5, 1965. The legislation, which President Johnson signed into law the next day, outlawed literacy tests and provided for the appointment of Federal examiners (with the power to register qualified citizens to vote) in those jurisdictions that were "covered" according to a formula provided in the statute. In addition, Section 5 of the act required covered jurisdictions to obtain "preclearance" from either the District Court for the District of Columbia or the U.S. Attorney General for any new voting practices and procedures. Section 2, which closely followed the language of the 15th amendment, applied a nationwide prohibition of the denial or abridgment of the right to vote on account of race or color. The use of poll taxes in national elections had been abolished by the 24th amendment (1964) to the Constitution; the Voting Rights Act directed the Attorney General to challenge the use of poll taxes in state and local elections. Emphasis added for the woefully uniformed

[tivodan1116]

Quote by: Morgan_Freeman Exactly, voting should be difficult. It is a privilege, not a right. If it were a right, we would let illegal immigrants vote.

No. There are plenty of rights that citizens enjoy that illegal immigrants do not.

I think the more taxes you pay, the more control you should have over the the government, yes. That makes perfect sense to me.

Why would you want to replicate the relationship between the government and the governed of feudal-age Europe? (Wherein the lords with most money could call on the king, and the serfs could not)

So aside from that asinine portion of your argument, how about the fact that there is more to good government than taking money in and sending money out? You seem to feel that people who do not pay taxes should not have a say in government. You throw around words like tyranny without realizing that you are advocating it yourself. What happens if the rich voters in your government decide to vote for only representatives who agree to make the following law: "Anyone who does not pay taxes should be summarily shot and their meager property divided among the rich." Since the people who aren't paying taxes can't vote, they have no way to stop such laws from being made.

Your mistake is in thinking that government is only a monetary relationship. As a libertarian, you should realize that there is more to it than that.

If you think everyone should have equal political influence, then make taxes equal. That simple.

Ok, so do that. What does that have to do with voting?

That sounds very nice and high-minded. But politics is serious business. I don't want any old know-nothing jackass voting my liberties away.

Ohh, I see. You want the rich to vote away your liberties instead. You want Bill Gates to take his 40 billion votes to your few thousand and say everyone has to buy Windows Vista within the first week it's out. Good luck there.

Fix the the disease, I agree. And in the meantime, ill-informed people should not be voting.

Guess what: Voter turnout is less than 50%. The ill-informed people aren't voting right now, they're staying home...
Because someone disagrees with you does not make them ill-informed (talk about elitist). Just because the politicians with your views don't carry the day doesn't mean it's all stupid people randomly whacking levers.
Believe me, as a rare libertarian in a very liberal yet very intelligent setting (a NY law school), I can understand that because someone disagrees with me it does not make them stupid.

How about the basic civics exam that foreigners have to take to become a citizen? Why don't native-born Americans have to take that?

For what? Again, if you don't think most people voting could pass such an exam, fix the problem, not the symptom.

I disagree wholeheartedly. Democracy is, at the very very best, a necessary evil.

It's not necessary. You could take your militia and overthrow the government and install a dictatorship, like Khadafi, or Pol Pot, or any other one-person rule. Yeah that democracy... THAT's the evil government.

People should only be voting if they know what the hell they are doing. Screw these platitudes like, "Get involved! Vote!"

This implies that you think there are uninformed people voting.

Intentions are worthless in politics. Results are all that matters. You should be judging the policy on its own merits.

The Supreme Court has disagreed with you many times and quite frequently looks at the intentions of a law - when applying strict scrutiny for example. But I guess you think they're ill-informed, right?

Yes, as per the 14th Amendment, which I think should be repealed. It is completely contrary to the spirit of the original constitution.

Ensuring basic rights to all citizens is against the spirit of the Constitution? That's rich. I don't suppose you have anything to back that up? Like maybe a Ben Franklin quote where he says that states should be allowed to deny someone the right to a jury trial? Sure.

This "right" to voting is NOT analagous to such rights as freedom of speech. My freedom to speak is merely dependent on other people not stopping me from speaking. Voting, however, is the means by which we exercise control over other people. Coercion is not a right.

How do you preserve the things that you consider rights, like freedom of speech, without the right to vote? Example - your group of college-educated rich people passes an Amendment that overturns the 1st Amendment, and they write a new one which only gives college-educated homeowners the right to free speech. Do the poor and uneducated not have a right to free speech? And if they do, how do they preserve it?
Your argument is so short-sighted it doesn't even pass the laugh test.

The idea of the federal government mandating how local elections are run is most certainly against the spirit of the constitution.

LOL... just keep throwing these things out with no proof or support, maybe someone who doesn't deserve to vote will believe you.

Quote by: RickSp The results of the poll tax and literacty tests was to prevent minorities from voting. Can you present any facts to support this claim?

Encyclopedia Brittanica: Poll Tax
Yeah that Encyclopedia Britannica, what do they know?

It would be elitist if I wasn't a libertarian, maybe. You know full well I distrust government in all its forms, including mob rule.

Denying certain groups the right to vote is mob rule - the mob is the people who can vote. Giving everyone exactly one vote is the antithesis of mob rule, because everyone has equal say.

[tivodan1116]

Quote by: RickSp Morgan, why not do some reading before posting this nonsense? You demand evidence that the poll tax and literacy tests were used to disenfranchise minorities. Then you claim that the 15th Amendement has nothing to do with the Voting Rights Act. Give me a break. This stuff is basic civics.

LOL... He better hope he has enough money votes to keep that question off of the competancy test he wants to make everybody pass before they can vote...

[Fonceai]

In addition to what others have said, there is another consequence to enacting Poll Taxes and Literacy requirements.

How many people would that be alienating?

Literacy in 1979 was estimated at 97%. 20 years later, it was down to 74%. The truth about those numbers is that they don't specify English literacy. A perfectly literate and articulate Spanish speaking immigrant (legal or otherwise) who is not a citizen might fail an English literacy test.

So approximately 25% of America wouldn't be able to vote based on literacy.

As of 2005, approximately 5% of America is unemployed.

As of 2003, approximately 12.5% of America was at poverty level or lower.

Take a good look at those numbers and consider again the people you'd be alienating with literacy and financial requirements.

What would happen when real, honest, hard-working Americans, just struggling to make ends meet, now lose their ability to vote because they have more important things to pay for than their poll tax.

Before, they could vote and, theoretically, have an equal voice in policies that affected their lives. Now you'd be telling them that because they can't read, or can't afford to vote, other people would be making those decisions.

It's one thing to vote and lose. That's just how the cookie crumbles.

But it's another to not even have a chance to cast that vote.

Someone on another forum suggested a Democracy where only those with a certain level of education could vote. My answer to that is the same as my answer to this.

You would be fueling the fires of revolution of those who suddenly have lost a right guaranteed to them by the Constitution. They are now stuck in a country that doesn't want their voice heard.

Think about what those people do for a living, the services they accomplish, and what would happen to America if they all decided to stop working.

[zynner]

I enjoy thinking that is outside the mainstream. A couple of points:

(1) I can see the value of a literacy test. It might seem ironic to some that a literacy test would be an improvement in government voting when the government controls education in the first place. I don't find it ironic, though; I find it expected. Just talking about the issue should make it obvious to anyone what a failure the govenrment has been in upholding its self-proclaimed duty to educate the masses.

(2) Voting, per se, is not a fundamental right (I disagree with the Supreme Court's judgement and I'm not arguing what they have stated but what makes sense). Fundamental rights are those that existed before any government came along and would exist regardless of what form of government existed or if a government existed. Such rights include the right to life, liberty and property. They are the basis for forming a just government in the first place, since only a just government will defend fundamental rights (see: Declaration of Independence). Voting, however, only comes into play once a government comes into existence, and then only certain types of governments. I do not have a fundamental right to vote in Mexican elections, even though I do have a fundamental right to life while there. The Mexican government might or might not respect that right, but that doesn't change the nature of the difference between a fundamental right and a contractual (or constitutional) one. It only demonstrates whether or not the government is itself a moral one. It also is a benchmark for seeing the US government (or any government) transform from a moral government to an immoral one.

(3) Morgan's point is that the US has devolved into a defacto democracy and that too many people today are voting when they are not making an equal contribution (taxes). Should someone who pays no taxes have a contractual (constitutional) right to vote to take wealth from someone else and distribute it to others? I say they do not have a fundamental right to do so and should not have a contractual or constitutional right to do so. A poll tax would likely be such a small amount of money that it would not really solve this philosophical issue, however. I think a flat, per capita tax would be better. With that, we would just divide the total cost of government by all the citizens in the territory and each person pays an equal amount, which would currently be about $8,000 per man, woman and child each year just for the federal government. Obviously, that would have to be reduced to an amount that everybody could afford, which is what makes it fair in the first place. A fed budget of just $100 billion (a libertarian proposal) would only cost $300 per man, woman, and child per year and would put almost $2.5 trillion back into the hands of the private sector where it would be efficiently used. More importantly, it's the moral thing to do, which is Morgan's point.

And morality is important in government. With it, liberty flourishes. Without it, police states do.

~ zynner