Just a thought...

I would love to hear people's opinion who read my articles from time to time. On this subject particularly.

The idea that I will interest you in is restrictions on voters. Restrictions on who can vote that is. Alexander Hamilton had if not the most influence on our founding, the second most aside from James Madison. He said that he feared the ignorance of citizens and their tendency to allow their emotions to fluctuate when making decisions. It is this reason that he was not a big fan of the Virginia Plan (the plan eventually chosen as our government with a compromise included) that was written by James Madison as a proposal for our national government. He feared democracy. He was not in favor of an aristocracy or monarchy, but he was against pure democracy. He did favor representative government to keep the voter out of most all decisions other than who would be those representatives. And even with that there were restrictions on who could vote for representatives.

Originally only land owning non-slave men could vote in elections. Women, Slaves, and those who did not own land could not vote. My question is should we re-think this idea of allowing all people to vote? I'm not talking about restricting based on race or gender. But should we only allow those who have worked a certain amount of weeks over the past 2 years to vote? What about those on Welfare? Should someone that has to live off of worker's taxes be allowed to vote? Should a homeless man who has not worked in 2 years have his vote count the same as a business man who has created jobs for hundreds or thousands of people like Bill Gates? If over half the country does not pay taxes, are they not more likely to vote for a candidate that says : "I will have the rich pay their fair share (meaning all the taxes while you pay none unless you get a better job and make more money) so that you will not have to pay any taxes." Even if the candidate is not close to being qualified, if half the electorate are non-tax payers, do they not have an emotional incentive to vote for the unqualified candidate simply because he guarantees that they will never have to pay taxes?

I only bring this up not as a radical who wants to only have rich people vote. I'm simply explaining some of the thoughts of our founding fathers and just maybe, despite them being wrong on many things such as slavery and woman's role, were they right on this one? Should all Americans be able to vote? I personally think not. I believe our electorate is so dumb that their decisions are the wrong ones in many cases. Our founding fathers did not vote to have a democracy. They voted and signed a document to protect us from both the rise of kings and the rise of ignorant democracy. Both they feared, and both equally feared.

What say you?