How about an "epistocracy"? (legal, drugs, FBI, marijuana)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
And what if presidents had to pass some kind of test?
If most voters are uninformed, who should make decisions about the public's welfare?
By Caleb Crain
Plato, one of the earliest to see democracy as a problem, saw its typical citizen as shiftless and flighty... A more practical suggestion came from J. S. Mill, in the nineteenth century: give extra votes to citizens with university degrees or intellectually demanding jobs.... Jamming the stub of the Greek word for “knowledge” into the Greek word for “rule,” Estlund coined the word “epistocracy,” meaning “government by the knowledgeable.”
And what if presidents had to pass some kind of test?
If most voters are uninformed, who should make decisions about the public's welfare?
By Caleb Crain
Plato, one of the earliest to see democracy as a problem, saw its typical citizen as shiftless and flighty... A more practical suggestion came from J. S. Mill, in the nineteenth century: give extra votes to citizens with university degrees or intellectually demanding jobs.... Jamming the stub of the Greek word for “knowledge” into the Greek word for “rule,” Estlund coined the word “epistocracy,” meaning “government by the knowledgeable.”
The OP wouldn’t be posting things like this if her candidate had won in 2016. ��
You've got that right. Dems want open borders so the most uneducated and uncivilized can flood into this country and shape our political futures. OP is posting crazier bits of nonsense because they are desperate for new material. OP's daily display of TDS has long been a worn out act. Actually, it was quite stale upon the first year of Trump moving into the white house.
If people like the OP would devote as much energy towards something productive, instead of parading their level of rage and butt hurt, this country would not be in the mess it is in today.
There is no criteria to be elected to the Electoral College.
Generally speaking, it’s how political parties reward some loyal connected people.
I never said there was. The electoral college gives the states (remember we are the United States of America, not the United Citizens of America) a say in the process as well to the individual citizens. Meaning we are not a pure democracy, by design.
We've already dabbled in epistocracy, during the Progressive Era.
It lead directly to the rise of Eugenics, which lead directly to many injustices including forced sterilization... no thanks.
Exactly. As I am fond of pointing out, we have had exactly one PhD president in our history--Woodrow Wilson. Wilson:
•was a progressive who fervently believed in the claptrap of eugenics, which was all the rage in academia at the time.
•began the practice of America as world police by getting us involved in WWI.
•started the war on drugs in 1914 with the Harrison act. Until then opium, coca, and marijuana had been legal and commonly sold in pharmacies
•started the income tax and sold it to Americans on the basis of low, low rates. The top rate was 7% in 1913 for those making over $500,000/yr ($12.8 million in 2019 dollars).
•Formed the precursor of the FBI and set in motion the hordes of federal law enforcement that we have today. By the time of his successor, Harding, the FBI was already up to their eyeballs in political hijinks. They broke into the homes of 2 Dem senators in connection with 'teapot dome' in an effort to gather dirt on the two.
•re-segregated the federal work force, which had been de-segregated by Republicans following the Civil War.
•threw people in jail for printing anti-war pamphlets he found objectionable (the Schlenk case).
We had one other PhD presidential candidate I know of--George McGovern in 1972, who had a PhD in history. He lost 49 states to the rather unpopular Richard Nixon.
Later in life, McGovern ran a small business, a bed and breakfast inn. He wrote a piece in (IIRC) in the WSJ about it, and admitted that he had been all wrong about the need for increased regulation on business during his political career.
This would seem to be a step back toward a caste system. When the US was first established only white men with land could vote under the theory that they were the ones with both skin in the game and the intelligence to vote. That was a bad theory then and it's a bad theory now. One of the core elements of the legitimacy of our system is that every citizen over a certain age gets a vote (with a few exceptions like incarcerted individuals). Everyone who lives under the laws gets a say in those laws. I recognize this is aspirational and the system is far from perfect with gerrymandering and other issues. However, the fact that it isn't perfect shouldn't be a reason to introduce more imperfection in the system. I bristle at the idea of someone or someones deciding who is "worthy."
There is no criteria to be elected to the Electoral College.
Generally speaking, it’s how political parties reward some loyal connected people.
But that is not the point. The point of the EC is that you give the vote to the populace but it is all a sham because the populace is not to be trusted to vote for the "right" person. One of the unspoken benefits of universal suffrage is that everyone has a stake in the outcome, and by giving the people a sense of ownership over the selection of our leaders it makes them less likely to riot and revolt when things aren't going well for them. So the political powers choose the EC members to vote they way they want them to vote, they keep the electorate at bay by a sham vote, and there we have American democracy.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
