Social Justice Warriors Thread

[Ex-California]

If you want to prevent people on the dole from voting, income requirements are a better factor than property ownership. In expensive, urban centers, there are people in the top 5% of income earners who do not own a house. Because of the mortgage deduction, these people are paying tax at a higher rate than their peers who own homes.

Regardless of property ownership, I think people who make more than $80k or $100k a year should definitely have the franchise in this system solely due to tax contributions.

[Martin Hash]

The problem with restricting enfranchisement is you have just removed those people from your pool of allies: they now have more in common with each other than they do with you. Plus, having removed their responsibility to follow The Law (why should they, they have no say), you encourage crime, discourtesy, and lack of social integrity on their part. Threats of punishment do not encourage civic responsibility.

p.s. Revolutions happen: either in the streets or at the voting box.

[Fife]

Wherein we are treated to the Wilsonian admission that the "rule of law" is a dead letter in their playbook.

[Ex-California]

The problem with restricting enfranchisement is you have just removed those people from your pool of allies: they now have more in common with each other than they do with you. Plus, having removed their responsibility to follow The Law (why should they, they have no say), you encourage crime, discourtesy, and lack of social integrity on their part. Threats of punishment do not encourage civic responsibility.

p.s. Revolutions happen: either in the streets or at the voting box.

And like I said earlier, voting disenfranchisement is one of the easiest issues for agitators to rile up the populace.

I think that peace and stability are more important than the bad decisions that the uneducated may make. The active-passive citizen distinction always ends up in bloodshed

[Martin Hash]

It hasn't so far...

[Martin Hash]

Wherein we are treated to the Wilsonian admission that the "rule of law" is a dead letter in their playbook.

The Law is not miraculous: it certainly won't enforce itself, people have to WANT to obey it. Take that away, in fact, add contempt for The Law, and things deteriorate rather quickly. The easiest way to generate contempt is through arbitrary enforcement, or worse, targeted enforcement. And as Laws tend now to coddle The Rich while penalizing The Poor, people seem more-n-more to think they would do better having new allies.

[doc_loliday]

It's a big part of why I think there needs to be much greater involvement of society in the military. Direct involvement.

We can take this in a completely different direction. Take waste of money by the MIC. Veterans know all about it. We've seen decades of it, but we are a small segment of the voting block. If a substantial segment of the voting block had intimate first hand experience with it, we'd be more likely to be able to curb it. But, as it stands, most people's experience with it is only a vague understanding that there is waste, but not exactly where that waste is.

Not that I'd encourage it, but if most people had experience working for government, they'd have a better understanding of really how much of their money is being wasted.

Similarly, when middle class people accept that there is welfare fraud and abuse, but inwardly believe it must be a small amount, have no idea that it is actually an absolutely enormous amount, that it's the rule rather than the exception. You're being told about the poor by people that have never been around the poor.

[Martin Hash]

There's a lot of military worship in America: it's just a job. However, for some people, it's how they learn to take responsibility for their actions, or learn to take instruction, or learn a skill, or learn leadership. Personally, the "learn to take instruction" part would have put me in the brig almost immediately, and maybe even ended up in my execution. I refuse to be told to do inane things by idiots, certainly not to risk my life for their distorted value system. In fact, you find ONE person from the military who can take me on intellectually & I'll join, and if you can't, put me in charge, I'll run the fuckin' military.

However, since might-makes-right, I totally 100% understand why a military is needed, and there's plenty of people who could use what they have to give. I even recommend the military as a career option to many people. I recommended it to my own kids. My youngest even went to the recruitment office to see what's up. You try forcing folks though, you run right up against their liberty. I, for one, will spend my life fighting against people trying to force everyone into the military mold.

[Speaker to Animals]

Not serving is exactly like not taking responsibility for yourself.

[Martin Hash]

Not serving is exactly like not taking responsibility for yourself.

Says you with your own value system which I obviously don't respect, just like you don't respect mine. So if you want to say "fuck you" to me, guess what my response will be?