this is a suggestion John Stuart Mill made. Every citizen should be allowed to vote, but votes should be weighted in some way according to how much education the voter has. This could be done either through some kind of test (less likely--can you imagine the political battles over what gets included) or it can be based on the level of education you've completed.

Thoughts?

Before you answer, bear in mind that the more education you have, statistically the more likely you are to vote republican.

We had a tonight show jaywalk episode at work the other day. A college graduate was asked by a co-worker of mine if they knew who the vice president of the U.S. was. Her answer was John Kerry. WOW

I just did a search, and I can't believe it dates all the way back to RM1 where I outlined my (fantasy) plan for weighing one's vote based on IQ. 100 is the median IQ, and would entitle a voter to 1 vote. A person with an IQ of 80 would get .8 votes, one with an IQ of 140 would get 1.4 votes, etc...

Don't botehr me with the practicality of administering IQ tests or their accuracy, this is my fantasy world where my vote may be worth twice someone else's, OK?


That's not actually true.

Statistically, the people with the greatest education tend to vote left, those in the middle vote right, and those with the least vote left. Generally speaking of course.

I would agree with PD, but do either of you have facts to back this up?

Well, empirical evidence would suggest it is the case, but it also depends on the field of education as well. In liberal arts, probably a majority vote left. Business, a larger part vote right. Engineering tends to be more to the right as well from what I can tell.

No doubt.

On an almost meaningless scale (as stip really simplified the criteria) I know I have read, and I will try to find a cite, that those with masters degrees or higher tend to vote left, those with college degrees tend to vote right, those with high school degrees or less tend to vote left. The reasons behind this are open to debate, I'm sure we all have our theories.

Traditionally, of course, because left wing parties put more emphasis on social security, healthcare etc.

But don't you feel this has changed a lot over the last 10 years or so? I know a lot of laboring class buffoons who in years gone by would have been solid Democrat/Labour/Labor voters, and now vote Republican/Tory/Liberal.

As to the idea... I think this kind of idea would made democracy more palatable to intellectuals who see the pitfalls of pure populism, but I think it ultimately defeats the purpose of democracy.

We all need to live with the fact that any system of government will create oppression of some kind. History (and common sense) seems to suggest that democracy is the least oppressive form of government possible. But as soon as you remove the "one person = one vote" aspect of democracy, you are immediately adding an extra layer of avoidable oppression.

That said, it is not as if some elements of non-democratic values need not be introduced into the system. For instance, a Bill of Rights. What could be more undemocratic than a document which essentially removes political choice from the living? But it provides protection to minority rights and in conjunction with an independent judiciary, can serve to smooth the edges of raw majority rules.

If smart people were indeed so smart, they'd find a way to convince other, less smart people of their points of view without any kind of coercion. I'd like to think I can get someone else's assent to my arguments freely, without having to bludgeon them or hold them hostage in any way. If "one person = one vote" is leading to unsatisfactory government, we are to blame. I like the accountability aspect of democracy too. Governments should be accountable to us, and conversely, we should be accountable for the governments we get.

No, the world needs ditchdiggers too.

This is one area where I disagree completely with Mill, and that is not often the case. If we could live in the ideal world proposed by PD I'd be for it. Hell, I would be socialist.

E.R.T.W.

That exactly right. In the case of giving educated people more power, you're inevitably giving those who provide the education more power (it's not uncommon for a professor to spread his/her personal views onto the more moldable students). While those people may in fact be more intellectual, they--owing to the fact that they know how to use their facilities to maximize their personal gain--are likely even more biased than the uneducated. It's a double-edged sword.

David is correct--at least according to what I've read. Once you get into graduate education you are more likely to vote left--but the vast majority of educated people in this country are college educated, and they lean a bit right

Even the higher education statistic is tricky becuase MBA's count and you find a lot of republicans there.

Here is gallup poll data from 2004

People with a college education voted 58% bush 42% kerry
People with a high school educatin voted 46% bush 54% kerry

there was no distinction made between college and graduate education.

Which is why I would never suggest that education level be the measure. I mean we all know that rich people can buy an education that even the brightest poor people cannot obtain.

It'll be great! We'll combine LittleWingLand, where nobody ever says a rude word to another person because of their religion or ethnicity, with PunkDavidLand where the best and the brightest govern over the deltas and epsilons.

when I was applying to grad school I looked at harvards ap. it was about 14 pages or so and 7 pages of that were a list of legacies and you were supposed to check off which you were related to.

I didn't apply. I wanted no part of that.

One of my favorite political writers, Frederic Bastiat said this:

"The Reason Why Voting Is Restricted: A closer examination of the subject shows us the motive which causes the right of suffrage to be based upon the supposition of incapacity. The motive is that the elector or voter does not exercise this right for himself alone, but for everybody. The most extended elective system and the most restricted elective system are alike in this respect. They differ only in respect to what constitutes incapacity. It is not a difference of principle, but merely a difference of degree. If, as the republicans of our present-day Greek and Roman schools of thought pretend, the right of suffrage arrives with one's birth, it would be an injustice for adults to prevent women and children from voting. Why are they prevented? Because they are presumed to be incapable. And why is incapacity a motive for exclusion? Because it is not the voter alone who suffers the consequences of his vote; because each vote touches and affects everyone in the entire community; because the people in the community have a right to demand some safeguards concerning the acts upon which their welfare and existence depend."


It's interesting that this topic would come up. Remember the Constitution originally only let white-male-land owners vote. These were the educated people at the time, the people who had something to lose by allowing bad laws to come into effect. Are you all suggesting a return this idea?


As for the divisions of repub/dem among the educated, I think I read that people who have PhD's tend to be dems, while people with technical/business degrees tend to be republican. It would guess that is because most PhDs are somehow more dependant on government services (more likely to teach and not "do") or rely on government funded social research or arts programs. Business people and engineers tend to have to fend for themselves and become less interested in the idea of the "public good". Thus they would be more conservative. I don't know if this still holds true because if you look at spending over the last 20 years year can see that both parties f**king suck.

Wouldn't it be easier to just end woman's suffrage?

I have heard many modern political commentators say that only people who pay taxes should get to vote. The bottom 27% of wage-earners & all welfare recepients would not vote then. Because they are leeches.


And we don't need ditch diggers if we have robots. I am all about the robots.

Or we could go the Starship Troopers route and only let those who have completed military service vote. LittleWing might be in favor of his.

When I was in law school, a good friend of mine (he had been my roommate in college for three years) said to me quite seriously that he believed that only landowners should have the right to vote because they had the real "stake" in society.

Of course, I was appalled at this notion. However, the older I get, and the more I appreciate the responsibilities that come with "ownership", the less appalled I become at the general notion. I still think that this is not truly fair or good, and especially not workable in our country today, but I look back at the first 50 years of this country, at the founding fathers, and undoubtedly this was the best group of people governing the country that there ever was, perhaps that there ever was in the history of the world. They held slaves, which was wrong, and women were denied the right to own property and thus to vote, and that too was wrong, but you really did end up with the best that the young nation had to offer when it came to its public servants.

Anyway, let's say that such a system were implemented today in America. What would be the dangers? The main danger as I see it would be the danger of hoarding real estate. Being in the real estate development business, the incentive with real estate is to buy a big chunk of it, subdivide it and build on it, and sell off the smaller parcels to many buyers in order to make a profit. Under a system where land ownership brought civil entitlements, I believe that there would be an incentive to buy up land that has already been subdivided, hold it, and rent it to tenants, tenants who would have no voting rights. The danger is that of land consolidation until only a tiny percentage of people actually owned any land and were entitled to the right to vote.

More fantastic musings...

If only people with gigantic cocks were allowed to hold public office or vote, my family would be the new Kennedys!