People shouldn't be allowed to vote.

[Martin]

Too many people are allowed to vote. Rather, I should say, too many stupid people are allowed to vote.

I'm sick of it.

There are a bunch of types of people who voted and really shouldn't have.

First, we have the I voted Liberal/Conservative/NDP because I'm a Liberal/Conservative/NDP. Oh. Who'd you vote for? Liberals. No, but I mean, what was the candidate? Oh, I don't know/remember. Great. You're an idiot.

These people form the biggest group of people who shouldn't be allowed to vote.

Now, only slightly better are the people who are voting against other parties. I voted Conservative because I'm against gay marriage. Oh, great, because our country's $1+ trillion economy relies entirely upon the legality of gay marriage. What do you think of their other policies? Oh, I don't know much about them. I'm so glad that you're helping to decide the leadership of this country based upon such a huge issue.

Now we have the people who know who their candidate's name is (these people are suprisingly rare) but can't name any of the other major candidates nor their platforms. Another informed vote right there.

Then in a very scary corner there're the "I voted Conservative because I'm a Christian" people. Oh, JUST what I want to hear. That makes me glad to live in a theocracy...oh...wait.

It's like this. If you were sick and needed a serious operation, would you get it done by someone with no medical experience who was unable to differentiate between your arms and your legs? EDIT: Let me revise this point. Would you take medical advice from people who fit the afformentioned conditions? I'm not sure about you, but I'd prefer someone with some credentials. Now, I'm not saying that people should require a degree to vote, but some sort of test to show that a person has some level of intellectual capacity would be nice. This is our country, and a huge number of people who are voting don't know anything about the country. Imagine having political campaigns that were geared towards smart people. No more "Well, yes we're going to stop trying to meet Kyoto even though the earth is using 120% of its daily produce...but... GAY MARRIAGE IS WRONG! Vote for us or burn in hell for eternity!"

I hate stupid people.
[/rant]

[Delos]

Martin wrote:

...but some sort of test to show that a person has some level of intellectual capacity would be nice...

That's what the Citizenship Test is supposed to be...not sure if you've ever had the agony of having to write one of those though.

We had a slogan on campus "Smart People Vote". It irritated me. I would have preferred "Smart People Are Informed. Informed People Vote." But alas, alas...poltical apathy is as widespread as arms (tentacles?) of the media.

[person]

on a totally unrelated topic, martin is ur avatar ur face?

[Justin_]

I don't think it is, if it is that would be. . .
Anyways, Martin I thought you'd rather be hungry? Having such rules would indicate that Canadian's take their nationality seriously, and have stringent laws to abide by. You stated earlier that you wouldn't want a strict society like that. . . Oh, unless your just being a human being, and thinking only of yourself and not of others. Other's can live in a strict society. But not me, I'm free, is that it?

I think its great that nobody knows whats the deal with politics in this country. After all, why should anyone care? No matter whose in government everything still runs the same, nobody notices the difference really. Government has become something of a ceremonial thing in this country, with so much beauracracy backlogging everything its no wonder a decision can never get made.

Until the days of extremism return to Canada, why should anyone care?

Actually, I've been thinking of founding my own extremist political party. I want to see criminals who commit heinious crimes murdered visciously. I think that would significantly lower crime rates.
-I want to see politicians go to jail for stealing from Canadians.
-I want to see politicians earn less.
-I want to dissolve the senate.
-I want to create a super air force. And dissolve the current armed forces.
-I want to tighten Canada's hold on its provinces. No more seperatism.

[Andy]

no its his ass i think a better way of wording it would be "martin is that you in the avatar?"

Justin_ wrote:

I don't think it is, if it is that would be. . .

finish your sentence... it would be what?

[person]

Andy wrote:

no its his ass i think a better way of wording it would be "martin is that you in the avatar?"

fine...

Martin is that you in your avatar?

ps: my question makes perfect sense, he can either aswer: No, that is not my face in the avatar, or Yes that is my face in the avater.

[Andy]

lol i noe it makes perfect sense.. but do you ever point at a picture in an album and ask ur parents if thats their face?

i doubt martin will kill me for this so i'll spill the scret, yea.. it is him, Justin_ you got a problem with that?

[Justin_]

wtf? Andy this isn't the same as pointing into an album and asking your parents if that's their face. I've seen avators of natalie portman, that guy in the pic could be Martin's dog for all we know...

[Andy]

wtf are u talking about.. i was talking about the way person asked whether if that was martin in the picture..

and i'd like you to show me a dog that looks like that. That picture is martin, you got a problem with that?

[Hikaru79]

I've actually been bringing up this identical point at school debates. It's a view I hold strongly.

It doesn't even need to be an intelligence test. Just a thing on current issues to prove you know what the heck is going on, and you're not just voting because you can't stand gays. Things like what the candidate's platforms are (all of them, not just your votee's), what their past performance, if any, has been.

I think it was Churchill who said something like "A 5-minute talk with the average voter is all it will take to convince you that democracy is flawed" or something along those lines.

It's almost eerie how you've written out my entire argument word-for-word.

[Martin]

Yes, that's me in my avatar, as of a few days ago. The other blue and green one was also me - both taken with my iMac (Photo Booth is so much fun). Am I stylish or what?

To Hikaru79:
I'm glad to know that I'm not totally nuts. Or maybe we're just both nuts.

To Justin_:
Yes, I'd rather be hungry than have no choices, but I don't see what that has to do with this. We need laws. I think these laws should be as unobtrusive as possible, but we still need them. I think that mandatory voting would be a bad thing. Going back to my doctor example, it's like this: I would be adamantly opposed to forcing someone into becoming a doctor. At the same time, I would also be adamantly opposed to allowing anyone who wants to be a doctor become a doctor without them having to go through school and get the skills and certification required to.

Now, perhaps you're misunderstanding what I mean by a test to vote. I'm not thinking of something like the SATs quizzing you on the last 138 years of Canadian politics. Just a simple, 10 minute long politically independent quiz. Name three political candidates in your riding and the party that they are associated with and a few things like that. Done. Pass? You can vote. Fail? Try again next year. No, it wouldn't catch everyone, but it would thin out the masses.

[person]

Andy wrote:

and i'd like you to show me a dog that looks like that

srry, but i couldnt resist (i know its badly photoshopped picture but this was done like in less than 10min)

[person]

i guess i should actually have some real input onto this thread lol

the only problem with the thing that ur all proposing is that its gonna discourage all the voters from voting, look how little amount of ppl vote in the first place

if u stick some standardized test in there, theres gonna be barely any voters left

[Hikaru79]

person wrote:

if u stick some standardized test in there, theres gonna be barely any voters left

I guess the argument is that the ones who are left are the kind of people who you want deciding the fate of the country.

[Martin]

EDIT: Kind of like how we have driving tests to drive a car. Get rid of those and there would be so many more drivers (until they killed themselves I guess).

Quality over quantity. If the number of votes was all that mattered, we'd have mandatory voting like in Australia (where not voting is a $250 or so fine). But my point is that we shouldn't want as many votes as possible - the goal should be as many informed votes as possible.

There's a civics class in grade 10 that people have to take, yet still nobody knows about politics. Talk about a useless course.