Making Sure Only The 'Right' People Cast A Vote.

All throughout human history, the poor have always been everyone else's punching bag, boogeyman or chamber pot. These are people who were unfortunate enough to be born into poverty, or unfortunate enough to fall into it thanks to events out of their control or in a few cases, by their own hand. When most people think of the poor, they see people who've gotten where they are because of the latter, because they were simply "lazy," "unmotivated," "not smart enough" or "too busy looking for handouts." This is the Calvinist conservative view that's prevalent in these United States, pushed by wealthy captains of industry and media who want people to believe that being poor is an absolute failure of human character and that the poors are an affront to others around them.

It's already bad enough that many people wholeheartedly believe the poor shouldn't be given a hand-up, at least not with their "taxpayer dollars." And now a gentleman, in the loosest sense of the word, now wants the poors to be kept from exercising a right fought for throughout American history:

Why are left-wing activist groups so keen on registering the poor to vote?
Because they know the poor can be counted on to vote themselves more benefits by electing redistributionist politicians. Welfare recipients are particularly open to demagoguery and bribery.

Registering them to vote is like handing out burglary tools to criminals. It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country -- which is precisely why Barack Obama zealously supports registering welfare recipients to vote.

You can understand why Matt is vexed over attempts by the "left-wing" to register poor people -- the poor tend to vote Democrat, as the Dems represent the best chance of enacting social programs that help raise the poor out of poverty so that they won't have to stay...well, poor. Of course, there are those who are likely to abuse these programs, but the specter of fraud as envisioned by conservative interests pale in comparison to the number of people these programs may help and their overall effectiveness in lowering the percentage of people living in the U.S. who are in poverty.

These same people are less likely to vote for the GOP, thanks to the historic zeal shown when it came to dismantling these same social programs. Seeing the GOP shower considerably wealthy individuals and corporate interests with tax breaks, incentives and other freebies under the guise of "motivating job creators" and "getting America back on track" while telling the poor to "get off their asses and get a job" leaves a bitter taste in one's mouth. There's nothing wrong with getting a job, except the job market is sparser than Death Valley and the jobs that are found offer minimum-wage work with double or triple the workload and zero health benefits. And there are single parents, elderly and infirm who may not be able to swing holding down those jobs, at least not without making some serious sacrifices.

The last things conservatives need are 1)successful social programs that fly in the face of everything they stand for, and 2)a larger base of faithful Democrat voters who recoil at the very mention of the GOP. By keeping the poor out of the equation, the playing field is tilted farther towards the favor of the GOP. Republicans are similarly vexed about black and Latino Democrat voters -- the only faithful voters the GOP can count on are avid Fox News viewers, elderly whites and Tea Party supporters. The elderly whites are a dying breed and Tea Party supporters may be a step or two away from breaking out - or being thrown out of the GOP.

As more people join the ranks of the poor due to the fallout of the current economic recession, there grows the possibility of the GOP being set on its hindparts by hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people who will vote into office those who represent the best chance of helping them get out of poverty. Needless to say, the conservatives just aren't those people.

In affect, Vadum claims the poor people are the wrong people allowed to vote. This same argument was hashed out over allowing women to vote, and then it was hashed out again over allowing blacks to vote. Now the "Motor-Voter" statues allow "anyone with a pulse" to vote. And apparently conservatives are afraid that these groups will work in concert to keep the idea of GOP predominance in democratic voting a far-fetched and rather silly idea.

So who should be the "right" people allowed to participate in what could be said as one of the best public institutions in modern history? As one commentator at the American Thinker pointed out, only white males who owned property were allowed to vote prior to around 1850. At the time, blacks were, at best, 3/5ths of a human being and white women were just their husbands' or fathers' property. These days, we have corporate entities that are considered "people" in the eyes of the law. These "people" are considerably better-heeled than their white male landowning predecessors, with a greater amount of political clout. Going by Vadum's point, the only people who are fit for casting a ballot are the corporate "people," with small consideration made for "small business owners" who hold their allegiance to the GOP and attempt to behave and think like large corporations. These are the same business owners who could easily be knocked into poverty themselves if their businesses are pushed out of competition by larger corporations or if the owner suffers a number of personal or business setbacks.

Another commentator at the same blog had what he apparently thought was a "noble" idea:

I agree completely with this article and have a simple solution to fix it. Every person's vote is weighted according to how much they paid in taxes.   Everyone gets a default value of one.   So of that evil CEO paid $750,000 in taxes, his vote would be the equivalent of 750,000 voters who paid nothing.   No skin in the game, no say is how the real world works, but we would give them a small say.   (Non-shareholders get NO votes in the dealings of a business).   This would be "fair" and serve "justice" as those footing the bill would have the biggest say in what is done with THEIR money.

And this is how the concept of "1 man, 1 vote" flies out the window. On the other hand, those corporate entities would love this very idea, as "democracy" is now weighted heavily towards the interests of those who have the most money and the most resources. All you have to do is throw a little bit of "tax skin" in the game in order to have it rigged in your favor.

Or this could be a diabolically delicious way to get corporations to finally pay their fair share of taxes. Set up that default value of one, but continue raising that equivalent value every fiscal year. If 1 CEO's vote equals those of 700,000 non-tax paying schmucks, raise that equivalent to 14,000,000 the next year, and then...wait, that's a horrible idea.

The poor are considered unfit to cast a ballot, yet the captains of industry and media can cast as many as their heart desires. This is how nations are transformed into oligarchic institutions and banana republics.