Tea Party Nation President proposes taking vote away from tenants

Populist Tea Party Nation President Judson Phillips wants to take the vote away from almost all Americans: "the founders of the country originally put 'certain restrictions on who gets the right to vote. One of those was you had to be a property owner. And that makes a lot of sense, because if you're a property owner you actually have a vested stake in the community. If you're not a property owner, you know, I'm sorry but property owners have a little bit more of a vested interest in the community than non-property owners.'" We could also apportion votes based on how much property you owned -- if you owned a hundred houses, you could get a vote for each of them. (Thanks, CliffLandin, via Submitterator!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Antinous / Moderator

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wgmleslie

The Founding Fathers also didn’t extend the vote to Negroes or the Fairer Sex.
wil9000

Source! Please please source! This needs exposure everywhere!
- OldRipbeak
  
  Here’s the link that is sourced in the link from the original submitterator link (phew!): Tea Party Leaders Attack Constitution
Slowermo

I use to argue the point some people make that marriage wasn’t intended for same sex couples with, “Well, voting was originally for white male property owners, do you want to go back to that?” I guess that’s out the window.
knowles

is this from an onion article?
- loutr
  
  I was genuinely surprised when BB opened up after I clicked the link in Google Reader. I thought I was reading the Onion feed.
jonw

clever. the Indians who didnt recognize individual ownership of pieces of the earth clearly they didnt have any stake in their community.
Anonymous

Source:

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/11/30/tea-party-voting-property/
user23

I’m also pretty sure the Founding Fathers didn’t allow pasty faced, unattractive men with a hairstyle that looks like 3 carefully balanced frisbees strung together a vote.
jaypee

Link: http://teapartynationalism.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=135:tea-party-leaders-attack-constitution&Itemid=104
gandalf23

The number of Representatives in the House has remained static for about a hundred years. At a speech before a ball game on July 4th I heard a local Representative say that he “represented” 500,000 people. That’s too many. When they fixed the number of representatives they each represented 25,000ish. Which is a much nicer number, as I have a chance of convincing 12,501 people of something, but convincing 125,001? Not likely. And if our reps are representing 500,000 people how much representation am I getting? 1/500,000? So let’s increase the size of the house quite a bit, and have one representative per each 25,000 people. Yeah, we might need to build a bigger House. Maybe they can rent out the stadium the Redskins use. :)

Also, I think we should go back to the Senate representing the States, not the People (as that is the House of Representatives job) or we should abolish the Senate.

I think if we did both of those thing we’d see a) a lot more people involved in politics, b) more representation, and c) the states would once again have a voice on the federal level. All of which are good things.
- gandalf23
  
  errr, I meant “but convincing 250,001? Not likely.” Sigh. Must remember to preview first!
ins0mnesiac

http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=8716
pyster

I am all for restricting voting rights, but not based on land ownership.

In general I feel that democracy is the tyranny of the majority. I feel one needs a VERY strong ‘constitution’, where governmental goals, right of citizens, etc are clearly defined, and where a select few make decisions that cannot conflict with these.

There are democracies with Sharia law. Democratic countries kidnap people, torture them, and dump them on the streets offering them no justice. Democracy kept slaves, treated women like second class citizens.

Look around you… Do you want any of these people deciding the fate of anything? The will vote based on their stupidity and bigotry and ignorance of the facts.

I offer no solutions… No complete systems. But when our robot masters come I will turn over many of my fellow man with a sardonic smile on my face.
- mdh
  
  yes pyster, that is why the US is a Constitutional Republic which applies democratic methods, and not a Constitutional Democracy. Learn the difference before you tell me about why I am wrong, because I am not.
  - Anonymous
    
    Help me out here: What is the difference between a Constitutional Republic, and a Constitutional Democracy?
  - littlebrother
    
    Yes and that is part and parcel of the anti-democracy plan of the entire GOP. The poster mdh is repeating a theme that is rampant in the party of plutocracy, the party who wants to remove millions from the voter rolls, wants to remove citizenship from millions. Republicans argue against democracy day in and day out.
    
    The corporations control the globe, and the only check on their power is democracy, and they are doing everything in their power to dis-empower that, to hamper government, stop political action and with their goons on the supreme court and the Citizens United decision to give corporations the right to spend any amount they want on elections.
    
    The republicans want one dollar one vote, they want evveryone who was scammed out of their houses to lose their vote, everyone who mortgage is underwater to lose their vote, whose debt is higher than their wage to be disenfranchised.
    
    My father went to Europe, landed at Normandy to stop the people who would eliminate democracy, and that not too big a sacrifice. Thats who we are.
    - mdh
      
      that is a MIGHTY strawman you’ve erected in front of me. My gosh I have sweeping views on this topic. No, really, I just meant that pyster was being dumb. Nothing like what you said.
      
      Though, you putting all that on someone (me) who has said nothin of the sort in years of commentary here…. is pretty dumb too.
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        Oooh, are you a closet Teabagger? You had me fooled. 3,800 comments and you never gave yourself away once.
      - Cowicide
        
        I’m f’ing confused… what happened? sigh… I gave up on pyster a while ago… so, anyway…
cda

This is too funny, but I’m not going to share my giggles with others until I see a source.
Anonymous

@wil9000 Seems it was a statement made during his weekly radio show. The Google has a lot of stories popping up when you do a search for his name but none of them are really primary sources.
Smallberries

Why not base voting privileges on I.Q.? That would knock the vast majority of the tea partiers out of contention and would vastly improve political discourse. Naturally this is impossible, but one can dream. Also: I’m going to kick Judson Phillips’s testicles up into his atrophied brain if ever I meet him.
- xzzy
  
  Better idea: make voting a math problem.
  
  “To vote for Sarah Palin, solve for x: x^2 – 5x + 3 = 0. To vote for an evil robot, add two plus two.”
  - blurgh
    
    “To vote for Sarah Palin, solve for x: x^2 – 5x + 3 = 0. To vote for an evil robot, add two plus two.”
    
    Don’t forget: “Express your answer exactly, as a fraction.”
- Anonymous
  
  IQ testing is a pretty terrible way of measuring the various kinds of intelligence, is kind of impossible to remove the cultural bias from, and just sucks generally. I’m saying this as someone with a fairly high IQ.
niro5

As much as I dislike the tea party and their crazy ideas, I can hardly fault him for wondering aloud. The US electorate thinks Palin is great, thinks Obama is Muslim, and elected Bush in 2004. Clearly something is wrong.

Surely allowing only property owners to vote is not the way to go, but I don’t think he’s saying that is the direction to go, so much as he is wondering aloud. It’s hard to say without sources.
Anonymous

Aha, a better link to the Theory of Stupid… and (let rejoicing ring out through the heavens) it’s uniquivocally, finally, in the public domain!

http://www.searchlores.org/realicra/basiclawsofhumanstupidity.htm

A brilliant work by the late Professor Carlo Cipolla of Berkeley.
Anonymous

“Some of the restrictions, you know, you obviously would not think about today.”

This comment, before the one so heavily featured, automatically makes this a nonissue. He is saying that the concept made sense, but we couldn’t do it now a days.

Nice try. The Tea Party is nuts, but we will have to get them elsewhere…
spoke

It was from the Tea Party Nation’s weekly radio show. Here is a write-up and audio clip: http://thinkprogress.org/2010/11/30/tea-party-voting-property/
pyster

We cant base it on IQ because smart people often arent good people.
- mdh
  
  and land owners are often in absolute hock to the banks.
  
  Will this mean the bankers control will at least be aboveboard?
  - Anonymous
    
    > and land owners are often in absolute hock to the banks. Will this mean the bankers control will at least be aboveboard?
    
    Well why not. I mean you don’t have voting rights for the stocks you’ve invested in via your 401k now do you?
  - Jake0748
    
    I don’t know if homeless people are allowed to vote even now. Don’t you have to have a residence to get a voter registration card?
- Phrosty
  
  Citation needed.
- Cowicide
  
  We cant base it on IQ because smart people often arent good people.
  
  I’ve found that mean (bad) people tend to turn out to be the most inept at their jobs and/or coping with other people (especially smarter ones). The worst of whom (and their dumb peers) consider themselves to be quite smart.
  
  Meanwhile, truly smart people with a sizable heaping of emotional intelligence are the “good people” out there, so to speak.
  
  But, I’d still like to see some dumb, good studies that show smart people are bad. ;D
  - Anonymous
    
    Cow, you need to acquaint yourself with the basic laws of human stupidity, also known as “The Theory of Stupid”.
    
    It’s really quite brilliant, especially in the original format.
    
    Try here, while it lasts:
    
    http://web.archive.org/web/20070403024312/http://cantrip.org/stupidity.html
    
    Laugh, then cry.
    - Cowicide
      
      Thanks!
  - Anonymous
    
    We have a means for testing certain types of intelligence in a way that is considered objective enough (the Raven’s Progressive Matrices being one of the more “culture fair” ones).
    
    Do we have a similar means for testing emotional intelligence? I’m not aware of any scientifically sound means for doing so.
    
    I would argue that people with a lot of emotional intelligence happen to be more empathetic and therefore more capable of making decisions for whatever greater good they can perceive, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the same as the ability to make an informed, ethical choice. Informed, ethical choices don’t always feel good to make and don’t always benefit people in one’s immediate sphere; in fact, sometimes those choices work against the interests of one’s group.
    
    Someone who is smart yet stunted in regards to their emotional intelligence would probably be very effective at manipulating those nearby (or the rules that govern a society, for that matter). That smart person wouldn’t have to be mean to commit great harm against others, just evil in a very structured, methodical sort of way.
    
    Read some Hannah Arendt, if you have the time.
    Eichmann in Jerusalem
    - Cowicide
      
      Thanks, I’ve read the banality of evil before I think. But, nonetheless, thanks!
      
      I wasn’t really talking about some sort of systemic trend I’ve discovered through research, just my own anecdotal experience on the matter, FWIW.
      
      I’ve just found that smarter people tend to be quite a bit more humane and trustworthy than the dumb ones, that’s all.
  - pyster
    
    We have observed differ things.
    
    I see no relationship between IQ/intelligence/education and one being a ‘good person’.
    
    I also do not group mean people in with bad people. There is a lot of difference there.
Tdawwg

This is actually brilliant, considering all those homeless or soon-to-be-homeless Republicans, conservatives, ‘Baggers, etc. The same wholesale fraud and financial chicanery these folks vote for EVERY TIME will be the cause of their own disenfranchisement: first economic, then political. If we could somehow combine this with a “buy a lot for $1 in Detroit” initiative for poor progressives, then I see this, paraphrasing Barbara Bush, “working out quite well” for everyone!
Anonymous

When the whole ‘Constitution, written by rich white guys’ thing came out for the Tea Party guys, I was going to suggest this, as sarcasm, as the negative consequences of their ideology. I guess they beat me to it. Very sad.
mccrum

I always thought we’d move forward into more rights for more people. This reduction of rights here and there seems like the wrong direction to go. Should we move back to separate but equal while we’re at it?
knoxblox

So if you get a vote per acre, Ted Turner’s going to decide the election?
- mccrum
  
  Here in NYC, it’ll be the Catholic Church, followed by NYU. You know, since corporations are now individuals.
- mccrum
  
  Here in NYC, it’ll be the Catholic Church, followed by NYU. You know, since corporations are now individuals.
- foxtails
  
  You beat me to Ted Turner. The other choice would be China.
prentiz

In Scotland, the title of Laird historically came with the ownership of specific plots of land. What various sneaky types have done is to apportion the land into tiny 1cm X 1cm plots and sell the “right” to call yourself the Laird of wherever thousands of times over.

My point being, should this ever come to pass, a similar tactic to could be employed to re-enfranchise the non-property owner. Given 1 acre yields some 40 million 1cm3 plots, it would be quite cheap to do.

Course, you’d have to make sure you won the election and changed the rules, otherwise the property owners would just set a minimum size…
Zan

So 95% of the vote will come from banks and commercial real-estate firms? Wonderful.
- Anonymous
  
  Zan wrote: “So 95% of the vote will come from banks and commercial real-estate firms?”
  
  Yeah, it’ll be great because we know banks care about us and have our best interests at heart. I can hardly wait!
mdh

Christ, what an asshole!
Paul

So, basically what he’s saying is that he wants the US to be more like Russia where mega-rich oligarchs call the shots?

Or perhaps he just likes the idea of a monarchy where land and wealth go hand in hand.

It’s funny how quickly extreme “conservatism” can start to look a lot like the kind of real-life communist regimes they so despise.

All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
Lewis Baumstark

I wonder if people with mortgages are considered land-owners in his world-view? If I’m paying on a house, do I get to vote or do I have to wait until my 60′s to elect my representatives?
- user23
  
  and….
  it could be argued that even if a home owner had no mortgage, laws of eminent domain render true ownership null.
Phikus

“I believe [the Tea Party] can make this country what it once was… An arctic region covered in ice.”
- turn_self_off
  
  One nuclear winter, coming up!
Anonymous

It’s funny because if you own a house, you don’t really own the land it is on. You’re basically renting it from the town. So basically anyone that lives in a condo or apartment should be able to vote as well.

So, the homeless can’t vote?
Anonymous

Of course, what no is pointing out is that part of the “property” the Constitution was referencing were slaves.
glatt1

If we base it on land ownership, I’d be willing to subdivide my property up into a million little postage stamp sized parcels and sell them each for 5 bucks with the stipulation that I can still live here. I’d give a million people the right to vote, and also be able to retire.
Anonymous

Maybe we should also hire a company to reject anyone who has a name that is just too darned similar to a known felon! When they find out on election day, it will be too late to straighten out the mess and their vote won’t count. Yea!
I say, if their name is similar to a felon, they must be at the very least THINKING of doing something wrong, so they are future potential felons!
Gosh sakes, they might elect one of “those other people”, and you know what that means, don’t you?
All hail the genius that is John Ellis Bush, deciding the future for us!
He sure set us on the right path, where we will be safe!
Anonymous

Could eminent domain then be used to strip you of your right to vote?
nyar

1790 Only white male adult property-owners have the right to vote.
1850 Property ownership and tax requirements eliminated by 1850. Almost all adult white males could vote.
1870 The 15th Amendment is passed. It gives former slaves the right to vote and protects the voting rights of adult male citizens of any race.
1915 Oklahoma was the last state to append a grandfather clause to its literacy requirement (1910). In Guinn v. United States the Supreme Court rules that the clause is in conflict with the 15th Amendment, thereby outlawing literacy tests for federal elections.
1920 The 19th Amendment guarantees women’s suffrage.
1924 Indian Citizenship Act grants all Native Americans the rights of citizenship, including the right to vote in federal elections.
1961 The 23rd Amendment allows voters of the District of Columbia to participate in presidential elections.
1965 The Voting Rights Act protects the rights of minority voters and eliminates voting barriers such as the literacy test. The Act is expanded and renewed in 1970, 1975, and 1982.
1971 The 26th amendment sets the minimum voting age at 18.
1972 In Dunn v. Blumstein, the Supreme Court declares that lengthy residence requirements for voting in state and local elections is unconstitutional and suggests that 30 days is an ample period.
1995 The Federal “Motor Voter Law” takes effect, making it easier to register to vote.

Read more: U.S. Voting Rights http://www.infoplease.com/timelines/voting.html#ixzz16yLXZAQv

So… no. 1 citizen, 1 vote regardless of status of property ownership. Blacks people, women and the native people of the US (Native Americans) can vote as long as they are registered to vote, and are over 18 years of age.

Tea Party are some crazy bitches.
Setkheni

As a property owner, “shut the hell up Judson, it’s not the seventeen-frigging-hundreds.”
ill lich

How exactly is he “populist” if he is trying to disenfranchise a large portion of the populace? (Including a large portion of his own party?)
- David A
  
  Tea Party never was populist.
  
  Practically their entire platform is to given tax cuts to billionaires, deregulate large corporations, and cut spending for the old and the poor.
  
  Then again, perhaps it’s because they actually believe in the twisted logic of trickle down economics.
  - sapere_aude
    
    Yup. The Tea Party movement is actually plutocratic corporatism in the guise of populist nationalism. The rhetoric is populist, but the policies the Tea Party movement advocates are designed to benefit big corporations and billionaires at the expense of the middle class and the working poor.
bardfinn

On the one hand, could work out quite well — Since we’re time travelling backwards, every Negro would finally get their forty acres and a mule, naturally.

And I and my family would never have to pay any taxes of any sort ever again – even sales tax.

“That’ll be $10.81 sir” “I believe you mean $10.00 straight *flashes ACLU card* *Tea Party President Trading Card* *Tribal membership card*”

(note: sarcasm)
Artimus Mangilord

Only owners would get to vote AND they get a mortgage tax deduction? Poor dumb renter is me.
Anonymous

Tea anyone?

Judson Phillips is a fool, so all our military personnel, firemen, policemen and elderly who donâ€™t own property canâ€™t vote?

How about all people who have filed bankruptcy canâ€™t vote (like Judson Phillips), or those who fail to answer questions about our country history canâ€™t run for public office (like Sarah Palin or Christine Oâ€™donnell), how about that, please.

So what do you think these losers want next, SLAVES?
Alan

It’s brilliant, disenfranchising non-property owners! All of a sudden, people who live in expensive cities and must rent can’t vote (which happen to largely be Democratic strongholds like New York City, San Francisco, Washington DC, etc); poor people can’t vote (overwhelmingly Black or Hispanic); most young people would not be able to vote. Leaving, of course, people a lot like Mr. Phillips.
- bob d
  
  And the voting population would be primarily rural and conservative. Yep, I can see why he likes the idea.
DanC

Did he actually say he wants to take the vote away from tenants? It sounds to me like he’s just making a pointless but technically true statement about the way the voting system originally worked.
ozymandias0811

This makes some sense to me but property ownership (as pointed out above) is probably an anachronistic differentiator. Ideally there would be a way sort net payers of taxes from net consumers of taxes. I think about this every time I hear about programs to register the homeless to vote. If someone can’t order their own lives, why should they have a say in ordering mine? Also, how many of you are outraged every time we hear about congress voting to raise their own pay? How is this different than when net consumers of taxes vote for politicians that promise them more government benefits?
- SamSam
  
  Wow. So everyone who lost their jobs this year would not be allowed to vote and fix the problems that cost them their jobs, because they started collecting unemployment? Meanwhile the bank CEO that downsized them while collecting millions should get a proportionately larger vote?
  
  That’s a great idea. I wonder why no one else has proposed that.
  - ozymandias0811
    
    Spare me your class warfare sarcasm, SamSam. It’s just an idle musing on a very functional level. We likely stuck with universal sufferage forever. Developing an algorithm to do the sorting would be awfully difficult. The unemployment scenario you bring up is a perfect example of why. I personally don’t consider unemployment (up to a point) to be redistribution. The money that’s paid into the system while someone works (which ostensibly would have been part of their salary) is the same money paid back. But of course there is no personal accounting of how much you paid vs how much you get. The same goes for other state sponsored ponzi-like programs such as Social Security. Determining what someone’s “net” is is almost impossible under the current system.
    
    Also, I am very skeptical of your assertion that the factors that cause unemployment can be fixed via voting for one candidate or another. Market economics is cyclic. Bubble psychology is a fact of life.
    
    Thirdly, my post did not advocate a “proportionately larger” vote for net payers of taxes. This phrase implies multiple votes as a function of tax contributions. While this would certainly solve our problem of the people on the wagon getting the same say as the people pulling the wagon, there would likely be serious unintended consequences as a result.
- Anonymous
  
  It’s very anachronistic. In ancient Rome, property was a basis for franchise because it gave you a stake in the community. If anything happened to the city, the rich would have lost their holdings, but the poor would do just as well anywhere else.
  
  Today this is essentially backwards. The rich can and do move to other countries, but the poor are dependent on what happens here. If you really want a good measure of who has local interests, you’d come closer seeing who collects benefits.
Anonymous

Yea, for sure the Enron guys, Bank Of America guys, Merril Lynch guys and all of those wealthy property owners “have a vested stake in the community”.

For sure Mr Lay thinks on the best interest of the community, oh yes, he does.

I own a property, but I have no different interest or I am no better citizen than my “rented house” friends.

What an Ahole.
UncaScrooge

My plan: Legalize the sale of votes.

The end result: Politics would not change in any noticeable way, but every election would be a windfall for the citizens.
OrcOnTheEndOfMyFork

Actually, it’s a lot simpler than that. Republicans are consistently strongest in rural areas where most people own their property versus the cities where most people don’t own property and vote Democrat.

It’s a new spin on an age old Republican tactic at keeping Democratic supporters from voting. That said, it’s nothing more than revisionist porn. There’s no chance they’ll be able to make the necessary Constitutional changes to make it stick.
The Mudshark

What a truly fantastic idea.
Narmitaj

I own a pair of shoes. Is that enough property? Of course, I’m not American, but any foreigner who owned a house in the US – even, presumably, one of those $100 or $1 places in Detroit – should be allowed to vote, as they’d have a vested interest in the place too.

It’s not that weird allowing foreigners to vote – here in the UK voters in the General Election can be nationals of the Republic of Ireland and 55 Commonwealth countries including biggies like India and Canada, though they have to be resident in the UK. (At the same time, all sorts of nationals can’t vote, including prisoners, members of the House of Lords, and soldiers aged 17 (well, anyone aged 17)).
allen

I didn’t actually notice a significant increase in investment in my community when I bought a place a few years ago. If “investment in the community” is really what the tea party wants to value, they should be proposing that you earn the right to vote every election through by volunteering at soup kitchens, habitat for humanity, needle exchanges, neighborhood beautification projects, etc…

Oddly enough, the tea party proposal would disenfranchise most of the volunteers I have met at activities designed to better the community.
teemo

How about we just require government issued photo identity, social security number along with proof of residence (for proper district voting)? 1 vote, 1 person. When you vote, your SS should be ticked in a nationwide database as having voted, not how you voted, just that you did and carry the time and place. Any attempts to vote on that SS again get law enforcement involved. Make voter fraud a federal felony.
jenjen

Notable among the states with the lowest rates of home ownership: New York and California. States the tea party finds inconvenient.
Anonymous

I welcome our new medieval lifestyle.
Anonymous

I had this crazy idea that only people who pay taxes should be allowed to vote. And the value of a vote should be proportional to the amount payed. This is more of a response to my old complain why people who pay no taxes got to say what to do with the money I pay in taxes.
vtRusseell

“We could also apportion votes based on how much property you owned — if you owned a hundred houses, you could get a vote for each of them.”
This is completely untenable. John McCain wouldn’t have known how many votes he had in the last election.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0808/12685.html
pKp

Hey, why not make voting subject to a psychological stability test ?

Of course, you’d have to test the candidates too, and I guess that would blow a big hole in most of the American political class.

Anyway…keep it up, USA. It’s really hilarious from where I’m standing.
Sagodjur

Does anybody have the URL of the “random political philosophy generator” that these people are employing to come up with what they say?

I may have to make that if there isn’t already one out there.
blueelm

How much property do you have to own? If I buy some land in Detroit or Picher OK does that count?
- uberman
  
  The inch project in Detroit could be an interesting way to get a vote cheaply :)
Cinnamonbite

Works for me. I own 2 houses. Been trying to sell the one for 5 years (7 houses in my old subdivision have been foreclosed on this month) so this will be added incentive for someone to buy it.
And all my tenants have been skags and scum. They shouldn’t be allowed to vote. No uneducated person should be allowed to vote, afterall, we don’t allow children to vote because they don’t know anything and are unable to make good and sensible decisions for themselves. Well, what’s the difference between a normal 12-year-old and a white trash tenant?
- Maggie Koerth-Baker
  
  It’s my experience that when one person finds that everybody they deal with is crazy, or scumbags, or evil, or stupid … it’s usually not all those other people causing the problem. There is, after all, one common denominator in that long list of conflict.
  - Tdawwg
    
    The common denominator being those other people! As Sarkozy said of the rest of the EU, “L’enfer, c’est les autres.”
bcsizemo

Well two points:

-most counties/states have laws regarding how many time a plot can be divided and to what extent… So it is very possible to start with a large area of land, and end up with it being broken into several acre lots that can not be subdivided. Or at least that’s how it is around where I live. (I don’t remember if it’s a county thing or North Carolina thing.)

-Perhaps he is making this remake as a way to get people to think. He makes one valid point. If people have nothing to gain or loose then what makes them willing to make a “smart” decision about their leaders? I’m not saying what he might propose is right, but the idea that people need more direct control over their representatives (all the way up) is a good thing.

I’d love to see a government set down a plan. 4 years or 10 or 20 whatever. Something solid that everyone agrees on. A place we all want to be at when it’s all said and done. Pass it as a law or enact it in a way that constrains future decisions from overriding it. Like a form of personal self control, but for the government. That’d be nice.
- lectroid
  
  “Something solid that everyone agrees on.”
  
  AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!
  
  Hoo boy. Good one. Now tell me about the unicorn you’re keeping in your yard.
- Pajo
  
  I’m sorry, your comment is really infuriating when it implies that property owners are the ones with something to gain or lose. I am a professor working in New York City, and I can only afford to rent, and will be renting for the foreseeable future. Probably everyone like me is a non-participant nihilist, huh? Seriously, I can’t believe how deeply ingrained the myth of property as person-making is in this country. Wake up.
  - bcsizemo
    
    Did I ever say you need own property to have anything to gain or loose?
    
    Did I even agree with what he was saying?
    
    Did you even read my post all the way through?
    
    I don’t care if you own property or not. But I would like to see a way that makes our voting more personal. There is no accountability for things said in Washington. As a politician your goal is to get into office. That usually means saying what needs to be said, and doing likewise. It doesn’t matter that if you don’t do any of those things because the worse thing that will happen is not being elected for a second term.
    
    If you are part of an HOA you show up if things are to be voted on. That or you just accept what everyone else decides for you.
    
    Personally I’d like to see the public’s opinion matter.
    - SamSam
      
      But the point is that you said that people with “nothing to gain or [lose]” don’t need to make “smart” decisions, and the implication is that such people maybe shouldn’t vote. This is the same logic as Phillips’s.
      
      The problem with it is that there is no such thing as a person with “nothing to gain or lose.” Every citizen (and many non-citizens too) has something to gain and lose in national elections. You show me someone who has nothing to lose and I’ll show you someone on his deathbed.
Paul T Spresser

Why not just let the IRS allocate votes based on wealth? The richer you are, the more say you have. I know that’s how it works already, but in so doing you end the hypocracy of rigged “elections” and regular people can stop trying to believe their vote counts.
- Anonymous
  
  There’s actually a certain brilliance in “one dollar, one vote” At least it makes the uber-wealthy have to choose between political enfranchisement and not paying taxes via offshore shelters and creative accounting. Of course, the bought-and-paid-for politicians would then just turn around and repeal it, but maybe the American government would get an influx of cash (taxes from rich peoole) first.
  
  Captcha humor: Woubly faces
Anonymous

Is the “populist” part of their party description supposed to be ironic, or just completely ignorant?
braininavat

What happened to ‘No taxation without representation’? Does the Tea Party platform call for eliminating all taxes for non-property holders? Would these people still be citizens?
- blueelm
  
  Who knew that irony could taste like tea and ocean water.
- Baldhead
  
  “What happened to ‘No taxation without representation’? Does the Tea Party platform call for eliminating all taxes for non-property holders? Would these people still be citizens?”
  
  They would be serfs. Or thralls, maybe. Either way taxes wouldn’t happen as we think of them now. Of course, the land owners were taxed quite nicely throughout history…
  - Coherent
    
    re: they would be serfs. Or thralls, maybe.
    
    Exactly! What he’s really advocating is a kind of weird new Feudalism. Why doesn’t he immediately see the obvious and immediate implications of his idea?
    
    I’m often astounded by the inability of people to simply think things through. They just open their mouths and things come out and never once do they trouble themselves to imagine the implications.
peter x

Ack the irony!!! Cant take it…

Blam !! (sound of my head asploding)
johnnyaction

Welcome to America the Dollarocracy!

1 dollar = 1 vote

“Will the senator from BP please take the floor”

Fredrick Pohl proposed this in “The Space Merchants” and the country really does seem to be moving towards this.
Paul T Spresser

Oh yes, and by the way, you can’t really cite “the founding fathers” arguement as if it were the Word of God. They had many divergant ideas on how the country should be run! Alexander Hamilton for example was for a constitutional monarchy and the creation of a “King of the United States of America”. That would be a fun platform for the next elections!
BTWBFDIMHO

One percent of the US population is a millionaire, and half of the current senators are millionaires. So, it won’t be that different…
mellowknees

So, anyone else think this Judson Philips dude is probably a massive slum lord?
jbpayton

Be careful with the accuracy of your assumptions here: Tea Party Nation =/= Tea Part Movement. Tea Part Nation is a Corporation that is considered “part” of the movement.

However, I do agree that there are a lot of messed up Tea Party people and that they are pretty fracking counterproductive in having their views on the economic and constitutional issues taken seriously when they say crap like this.
Lobster

Pass that on Thursday, by Friday every abandoned apartment building in the nation will have a new owner.
Marshall

What a dunce. This idea ignores the entire shift from an agrarian culture to an urban one and the rise of a professional class that chooses to rent as part of a functioning economy. Oh, and contemporary concepts of human rights and democratic participation.

These Tea Party arguments never hold up water under any examination whatsoever, which I think is their litmus test for a good idea.
pyster

I, myself, have pointed out that the us is a republic countless times. When someone argues I ask them to recite the pledge of allegiance. I do understand the nuances, thank you very much.

We have both direct and indirect/representative democracy here in the states. We vote on individual issues, and vote for people to represent us on other issues. I would rather bar the population from having any say. I want their input, their suggestions, their voice… but in the end I dont want them to have the right to make decisions. Why? Because I dont trust people to do the right thing, or to even understand what the right thing is.

Most people dont even have a clear and defined system of ethics They have a bunch of rote rules that they havent really questions.

If we need citation for people who really dont have a clue when it comes to reality we need not look any further than the tea baggers. Now, I am all for less government… but these people arent. They have key points where they dont want the government involved, but everywhere else they pretty much want you to live by gods law. And they just make up some of the dumbest shit, and then deny any evidence you have that destroys their opinions. They deny it because that lack the ability to actually understand the simplest things… and they are not alone. Liberals, conservatives, democrats, republicans… This particular stupid does not discriminate along party lines.

Like i said… I have no solutions to offer. Just anger against mod rule.
tsdguy

Tea Party Nation = Tea Party Movement = Pussies. Why don’t they just say what they want – all non-white, non-Christian, non-Conservative people get the fuck out of the country so they can get on with the business of? This is the part I don’t get.
coastranger

When too much accumulates in the hands of too few, the many will rise and take it back. Always. This is the lesson of history. Guess their homeschooling curriculum doesn’t cover that. And the Second Amendment fits into this scenario really well, dontcha think? The Constitution shall not be infringed without a fight.
Mitchmaster

Why is everybody so surprised? This is the country where young men who are old enough to die in overseas wars (involuntarily in times of a draft)are not old enough to sip a beer in many states. Of course this suggestion is asinine, but hardly unusual.
Todd Knarr

Since a mortgage-holder doesn’t own their property free and clear (they don’t have the title, the bank holds that until the mortgage is paid off), does that mean that they don’t get a vote either under his plan?
Crubellier

I’m a wee bit disappointed that after 130 comments still nobody has pointed out that this precise issue – a property qualification for voting – was at the top of the list of the root causes that helped kick off 30-odd years of civil strife in Northern Ireland, leading to thousands of deaths (in a country with a population of around 1 million) and a massive economic depression whose impact will be felt for decades to come. So yeah, good luck with that one, America.
Anonymous

Not just property owners, but Tax Payers in general. TheFounding Fathers believed if yu do not put into the system, you do not have the right to voice your opinion in how the system works.
Teller

Tea Party Nation doesn’t speak for the Tea Party movement. In fact, other Tea Party groups encourage people to stay away from their functions. No wonder – so cluelessly fringey.
Promethean Sky

I’ve been joking about this for a few months. It sure seemed like a good exercise that Poe’s Law was not absolute, that some things are in fact too absurd to be taken seriously. Now I’m frightened.
treacle

I think we should do like the League of the Iroquois did:

Representatives of each city/town/village to the general parliament/assembly are men.

Representatives are chosen exclusively by the women of said city/town/village.
Hools Verne

Slum lords really are the pillars of their communities.
Anonymous

So, essentially, this guy is proposing “Power to the (rich) people”?

I’m thinking he’ll get a lot of support, philosophical, and, more importantly, financial.

Creating a new class of serfs and tenement dwellers would suit a lot of our Betters, I would think.
mvymvy

btw . . .

The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).

Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. Elections wouldnâ€™t be about winning states. Every vote, everywhere would be counted for and directly assist the candidate for whom it was cast. Candidates would need to care about voters across the nation, not just undecided voters in a handful of swing states.

The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votesâ€“that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).

The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for president.

The bill has been endorsed or voted for by 1,922 state legislators (in 50 states) who have sponsored and/or cast recorded votes in favor of the bill.

In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a stateâ€™s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). Support for a national popular vote is strong in virtually every state, partisan, and demographic group surveyed in recent polls.

The National Popular Vote bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers, in 21 small, medium-small, medium, and large states. The bill has been enacted by DC, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Washington. These seven states possess 76 electoral votes â€” 28% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.

http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
Anonymous

As anachronistic as this idea is it is still infinitely better than the situation we are in today where the populous vote has turned into a finely crafted propaganda campaign where winning has no correspondence to the candidates ability, integrity or history but instead is decided by who can convince the most idiots to vote for them.

IMO a better solution is completely taking the money out of the system. Taking their ability to wage the propaganda campaign away. But that has as little chance of happening as this bozos idea.
kpkpkp

That whole one (hu)man one vote thing…… it’s so… what’s the word… unAmerican. yeah, that’s the word.
wetware

A wonderful world full of share croppers and plantation owners, until of course the masses rise up in the night and remove the owners for good. Then we would just have a world full of share croppers. There is a reason they are the 1%, because they stand on the backs of the 99%.

What they really want is to have only corporations vote. Oh yeah, that’s what we have now.
- Teller
  
  So it was the corporations who voted Obama president…and, now I see it, he bailed ‘em out as payment! This IS a bad system.
eaglescout1984

Property owners were also the only ones paying taxes back then too. People like to crop out the parts of history to suit their needs and forget context.
Anonymous

Why do we need a verified source? That’s never stopped Fox News.
vinegartom

Well, while we’re insisting on a return to some older principles here might I suggest we add squatters rights to the pile. That way I can take one of your twelve vacation homes and get my vote back. Or better yet, how about noblesse oblige? I know it’s not really a law but its older than the constitution and the wealthy in this country could stand to learn a thing or two from it. Otherwise, I think you’ll find that the only law you’ll have left is the law of the claw. The ants will always outnumber the grasshoppers.
Anonymous

Does this mean that I can’t vote, living with my parents before college? I don’t own my property, my parents do, so I would be left out.

I’m pretty sure this would kick out tons of people from the vote.
Cochituate

Based on this numbnut, does that mean that if I take the property my house sits on and sell it off in 1 inch square lots, I can get a vote for each of those 1 inch plots? What a maroon this guy is.
Michael Smith

My wife an I share ownership of our home so I suppose that gets me half a vote.

But

My wife is a Malaysian citizen and ineligible to vote in Australia so who votes for her half of the house?

I hear this sort of nonsense all the time. Once when sharing a unit in the same local government area as a friend I mentioned that I had obtained a library card. My friend was outraged. I thought you had to be a land owner to join the library he exclaimed. I pointed out that he was currently sharing his parents garage with his collection of ZX81s. That shut him up.
max

for awhile i used to be an advocate of monarchy, but really there’s not much difference between nobility deciding for the masses and the masses themselves deciding because the information and opinions popularly broadcast to the masses are filtered by the industrial and financial nobility. the billionaire Koch brothers founded the tea party movement. i’d guesstimate that out of every 10 people who goes to the polls, only one actually goes down the list of voting trends for their chosen candidate. so all that considered democracy in practice isn’t democracy at all. which is partly why i don’t really give a shit if i don’t have time to vote.
Anonymous

@ 102: “Do we have a similar means for testing emotional intelligence? I’m not aware of any scientifically sound means for doing so.”

“Describe in single words only the good things that come into your mind about… your mother.”
Anonymous

#81 – GE and Exxon don’t get a voice in government because they don’t pay taxes, right?
Anonymous

Sounds like this guy learned his government policy from a game of Monopoly.
Anonymous

prerequisites, hrm, let me think…

maybe speling?
Kevin Kenny

“To vote for Sarah Palin, solve for x: x^2 – 5x + 3 = 0. To vote for an evil robot, add two plus two.”

Don’t forget: “Express your answer exactly, as a fraction.”

Is 4+1/(3+1/(3+1/(3+1/(3+…)))) cheating?
acb

Tea Party Nation: Building Feudalism with American characteristics
Jackasimov

Hey, let’s see those surveys.
mccrum

“More” in comparison to…?
mccrum

You are aware the 38% of all statistics are just made up. It’s hard to cite evidence when you’re using the word “maybe”.
Anonymous

Sure there is: 14th Amendment. They’d lose representation in the House and the Electoral College. Which makes it pretty much a self-regulating problem, doesn’t it?