Charles Moffat and Suzanne MacNevin asked: http://no-maam.blogspot.com/2008/02/charles-moffat-canadian-artist-critical.html
[Do you believe women have the right] to vote?
Answer:
I’m not sure that a person who believes Somalia is in the Balkans should have a say in who represents us in foreign affairs. http://funnyhatemail.blogspot.com/2008/02/only-reason-you-hate-bush.html
I’m serious.
Furthermore, I don’t believe that 51% of the people should have the ability to vote to take away the rights of the other 49%, but that is exactly the situation we find ourselves with in a system of Universal Democracy.
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." – Benjamin Franklin
I think that questions like “should X have the right to vote?” could be compared to a typical family:
Imagine four children and two parents.
Should everyone have an equal vote in this six person family?
Why or why not?
Aren’t they all equal human beings?
Why or why not?
I think most rational people would say the four children should not be allowed to “outvote” the two parents; yet, they still have the right to live in the family’s house and to sit at the family’s dinner table.
Don’t you agree?
Is there a situation where this should change? What if, say, the oldest two children go out and get jobs and start paying room and board?
Should that increase the “power” of their wishes?
Many people would say that it should, and I don’t disagree. But what if the two oldest children decide to “vote” to knock out all the walls in the basement so they have greater space to play floor hockey?
Should they have the “right” to do such a thing just because they have a vote?
I think most people would agree that just because the two older children now have a greater say, this in no way gives them the authority to break certain general rules.
And what if the two children who now pay room and board decide to “vote” that Mom and Dad should pool their monthly incomes with them and thus greatly increase the resources available to them? Should that be allowed? Why or why not?
Perhaps, the two children paying room and board might “vote” that Mom and Dad should purchase a second car for the kids to drive, or for an expensive swimming pool in the backyard. Should that be allowed? Why or why not?
I think most people would agree that low income people having the “right” to vote to take away the resources of high income people, and use those resources to benefit themselves (the low income people), is nothing more than legalized theft. Why should a low income person be entitled to steal the resources of the higher income person?
In the story of the Good Samaritan, he stopped along the way and gave of his own resources to help someone in need.
Would he would have been a “Good” Samaritan if he had stopped you by gunpoint, stole your resources, and gave them to the needy?
I think he would have been a Crap Ass Samaritan. Don’t you?
And what if this Crap Ass Samaritan ended up stealing so much of your resources that you no longer had enough left over to actually give anything of your own accord? I don’t think that is a good situation at all. Do you?
To answer the original question, "[Do you believe women have the right] to vote?", I don’t think that anyone should have the “right” to vote unless they can demonstrate they possess enough understanding of our country’s constitution and history, plus illustrate they have an adequate understanding of political science in addition to a basic general knowledge of both domestic and foreign affairs.
We make people take a test to ensure they are knowledgeable and responsible enough to drive a car. Don’t you think it would be equally wise to make people take a test before granting them the power to drive the country?
I do.
I also think we should be living in a country that adheres to the principles of a Constitutional Republic, which means that the people are equally responsible to a system of “impartial rule of law” and where no man or woman is above the law. And I think that the leaders of this Constitutional Republic should be decided by a Limited Democracy.
A Universal Democracy, however, is a really, really bad idea and never leads to a good end.
"It had been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience had proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity." – Alexander Hamilton, June 21, 1788
What most of the political correctoids fail to comprehend when they screech about “democracy” and women’s “right” to vote, is that our countries were not intended to have universal democracy – not for men or women. There are far too many people who believe Somalia is in the Balkans for that to have been a wise idea.
Even men did not have the vote for much longer than women. Oh sure, some men had the vote and held positions of power, but the vast majority did not. Most countries in the Western World began granting the “right” for landless men to vote during the mid-Nineteenth Century, anywhere from 50 to 60 years before it was granted to women. Men certainly did not have the vote for “thousands of years” before women.
The rise of the philosophies of Socialism began in earnest during the time frame of the mid-Nineteenth Century to the early Twentieth Century. It was also during this time frame that our Western countries changed from adhering to the principles of a Constitutional Republic to those of a Universal Democracy.
"Democracy is the road to Socialism." – Karl Marx
Yes indeed, Mr. Marx.
And it is interesting to note that a fairly good spattering of the Suffragettes were deeply involved with the Socialist Movement. One naturally wonders then if their demonstrations for democracy had more to do with the advancement of Socialism than it did with the issues of “women’s rights.”
In fact, one might say that a wise person who wishes to condemn that women did not have the vote for the approximate half century when only men did, would do well to at least examine the arguments of those who opposed women’s suffrage before attempting to speak with authority on the subject. Don’t you agree?
Should one undertake such a task, one would soon find that many of those who were opposed to women’s suffrage took such a stance out of concern for preserving the nature of the state. They were concerned about the changing of the principles of a republic into the principles associated with a democracy, and what affect women’s nature would have on this.
You see, it has long been known that women tend to choose collective security over individualism and freedom. This was well known in the past and it is still well known today. Sure, sure. Some men will choose security over freedom as well, but in general women choose collective security while men choose individual freedom.
Have a look at who the majority of women vote for today as opposed to men. In the USA, women overwhelmingly support the Democrat Party and its socialist principles of bigger government while men tend to be the majority of supporters of the Republican Party, which theoretically stands for smaller government and more individual freedom.
In fact, here is a study titled How Dramatically Did Women's Suffrage Change the Size and Scope of Government? which was written by John R. Lott, Jr., and Larry Kenny for the University of Chicago. http://www.law.uchicago.edu/Lawecon/WkngPprs_51-75/60.Lott.Suffrage.complete.pdf?abstract_id=160530 It illustrates that since the advent of women’s suffrage in the early Twentieth Century, women have consistently voted for larger government and more Socialist policies.
Now, all political correctness aside, if it is shown that the women’s vote is slowly but surely changing our countries from places which enshrine the values of freedom into nations which do not allow for freedom, but rather enshrine the values of totalitarian Socialist government… do you think that people should have the right to discuss this phenomenon freely with out the shrill chirping of feminists and their mangina enablers in their ears?
I mean, you do believe in free speech, don’t you?
And oddly, free speech is actually a universal “right” which is laid forth in our constitutions while, curiously, the universal “right” to vote is not. Even a five year old has the “right” to free speech, but not the right to vote.
One might even go so far to suggest that a responsible citizen has a duty to point out that if we keep following down this road without creating some checks and balances, we soon will wind up with a form of government in which none of us has the ability to vote at all.
Political correctness coupled with intimidation from feminists and manginas does not change “facts,” and such people who believe that they have the “right” to vote for the destruction of the constitutions upon which our countries are founded, are in fact exercising a vote of treason.
People who would vote for treason, regardless of their sex, should not have the “right” to vote at all. Don’t you agree?
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Read more about voting "rights" and the subject of Republic vs. Democracy here:
http://no-maam.blogspot.com/2007/04/republic-versus-democracy.html