In his attacks on the ‘childless’ left, JD Vance once hyped a plan to give parents more votes
In his attacks on the ‘childless’ left, JD Vance once hyped a plan to give parents more votes
A viral clip from 2021 shows Donald Trump’s running mate hyping an antidemocratic plan once pushed in Hungary that would give people with children more voting power.
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I can actually see the logic here, you're more likely invested in the future if you have children.
It's not undemocratic for people to be uneven, it already happens (we don't allow children to vote, some places don't allow criminals to vote)
I don't think we should do it, but it's not necessarily a bad idea.
By this logic, people's voting power should depend on their age, and people with terminal illnesses should have no vote. Incredibly dystopian
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There have been many suggestions around such things.
We already have a system that disenfranchises people, based on where they live, the entire federal Senate for example, each state gets 2 senators regardless of it's population. Puerto Rico gets zero, and yet they're US citizens who have to pay federal taxes.
How is this suggestion worse than those?
I thought you peaked with "involuntary slavery is compatible with democracy", but this might be worse.
That first sentence is just not true. The childless left are the ones fighting for the future, while the right does their best to burn the world for quarterly profits
"for the future"
There is no future that matters to me if it doesn't contain humans.
We definitely need to leave the environment a better place for them too.
These things aren't mutually exclusive.
It’s not undemocratic for people to be uneven
Spoken like a true American!
Democracy does not require equality...
You realize that right? Go look up the definition, there's nothing about "everyone is equal" in there.
Bull-fucking-shit.
First off let’s talk about that hot take of yours that people with kids are more invested in the future.
One of the reasons that I don't have kids is because of the future. I don’t deserve a medal for it, it’s just where I stand. But, talk with parents about why they had kids. It’s never about how great that child’s life is gonna be- climate change will make their life fucking hell.
It’s a patently stupid reason to disenfranchise voters because people with kids are slightly more likely to be conservative than people without… and people with lots of kids are significantly more likely to be conservative.
Further, it’s the kind of ignorant argument that those with lots of kids will accept as a reason to vote against their own best interests.
Second off, the idea that parents are voting for their kids requires a patently false assumption that parents will always be voting for that child’s interests. Kind of like how it was assumed slaveowners had the best interest of their slaves…
Which, given the republican push for child labor…just how dystopian do you want to get?
The suggestion wasn't to remove the vote from people who don't have children.
So your entire argument is predicated on a faulty base.
The suggestion wasn’t to remove the vote from people who don’t have children.
No. the suggestion was to give people who already have a vote increased voting power. next you'll say it's okay because kids only count as 3/5's a person.
The state of Wyoming has 2 US Federal Senators, for 576,000 citizens. The state of California has 2 US Federal Senators, for 39,000,000 citizens.
We already have systems that change voting power of an individual based on arbitrary things.
Why is this one worse?
Are you really arguing that because we have an unequal voting system, we should make it more unequal?
I'm saying that it's already unequal, and nobody is planning on changing that.
So why shit on other ideas like you aren't already doing that.
Because the idea being shit on is awful and would make the problem objectively worse.
You’re actively arguing to disenfranchise who-the-fuck-knows how many Americans based solely on the fact that they choose to not have kids. And your argument is “parents are special” which is bullshit and then “but it already sucks”.
Yes. So why make it worse? Parents aren’t special or better. Many parents are too stupid to use birth control and wind up with “Ooops babies”. There is no objective moral superiority to being a parent, nor any objective insight or wisdom that non parents lack.
So your justification is patently absurd. And you come back with “but why not?”- because it would make things worse.
Because your ideas are horrible. You're not just building a bad system hundreds of years ago that's over time sorted into a partisan warp on policy that we can't easily get rid of, you're proposing, in the modern age, selecting for the type of person you want to influence the government. That's very much worse.
Why? We select the type of person we want to influence the government all the time, they're called party conventions. The parties get together and figure out what their platform will be, and only the people who are in that party get to vote, and the people with money get to influence the result.
What are you even arguing for against at this point? Just take the L and stop trying to get the last word in, because every new reply you make is more intellectually bankrupt than the last.
You aren't going to win this argument, because the core of this argument you are making is that this Neo-Nazi / Christofacist ghoul that Trump has selected as a running mate is somehow "right" about his plan to disenfranchise people.
If this is what you actually support, you are a fascist, full stop. If you are on J.D. Vance's side, you are a fucking Nazi.
The world must be nice when everything is so black and white.
Ideas can have some merit and still not be a good idea, maybe you should go back and read my very first comment if you're unsure as to whether or not I'm arguing for or against this policy. I said it right there.
This is entirely nonsense. A delegate is not a type of person, nor is a voluntary and open party member, and political corruption is not codified electoral preference towards a better class of citizen. You've started this whole storm of comment arguing an immoral and poorly thought through philosophy of 'parents are just better political deciders' and with every whatabout and excuse for discriminatory systems have demonstrated conclusively that no, you are not.
why shit on other ideas
Because your idea is fucking stupid as fuck, that's why.
So my idea is bad (it's not my idea)
But, you're okay with the existing bad idea(s)
Hell, the US even allows effectively unlimited money in politics if we want to get into bad ideas that hurt democracy that we already have.
Where's your campaign to overturn those?
I don't get how you're not understanding this. There's no functional difference between giving more voting power to parents, or taking voting power away from the childless.
If one person is granted more voting power than the other, someone is getting their voting power diminished.
I don't get how you're not understanding this. A parent is responsible for more than 1 person, because in order to become a parent you have to have children. You disenfranchise those children by default for 18 years to increase YOUR voting power. This suggestion is just a form of voting by proxy for people who should be represented but currently are not.
Invested in the future of your children, not in the country for everyone else. I’d say you should get fewer votes because you’d be biased.
There is no country without everyone's children. There is no future worth worrying about either...
One vote. One person.
Although, maybe minorities should get 3 votes each.
Wyoming, 2 senators, 576k people
California, 2 senators, 39 million people
I don’t see any minorities. One person. One vote.
Oh and also, no electoral college.
No. No you are not. That's nonsense and I already told someone else why. Because people have children that are not theirs that they love and want to thrive.
And yet, if nobody had children, there wouldn't be any "children that are not theirs" either.
Parents are fucking tired from dealing with their kids so they should get no vote because good parents don't have the energy to inform themselves.
It's not undemocratic for people to be uneven. There's already precedent for taking away votes from certain groups.
I don't think we should do it, but it's not a bad idea.
Okay, I don't really have a problem with you having this opinion.
I have a problem with your opinion because there's some high profile eyeliner with something vaguely resembling a human behind it advocating for it.
We all know the next step is to take away the votes of anyone they don't like. "We showed parents have skin in the game. But not adoptive parents because that's not their natural born child." "Since the gays can't have children they don't get a vote." "Hispanic people are just having more children so they get more votes, we need to level the playing field."
Just because I didn't shoot children out of my dick or however they're born doesn't mean I have less skin in the game. To say otherwise is self serving garbage. I have nephews and nieces that I'm very involved with.
You want an extra vote? Go to the school board. Your vote there counts for thousands because there's no one going. That's how these far right folks with a censorship agenda get their shit done.
Hello not-a-parent.
Parent of 3, own two businesses, coach kids sport, second job and university student studying global defense challenges and organizational sustainability.
How are you keeping yourself informed with all that not-a-parent energy?
You must be an awful parent if you're keeping yourself informed because you wouldn't have the energy if you were a good parent. Do we really want bad parents voting? These people can't even prioritize their households, much less their nation!!!
If you couldn't tell, both the comment you replied to and this one is over the top garbage. Of course I don't think parents shouldn't vote. That's fucking stupid. Things are happening that affect them and their family. But to say that they should get extra votes because they have kids is also fucking stupid. Things are happening that affect me and my family just the same.
Just because I'm adopted and my nieces and nephews don't share my DNA doesn't mean I don't want a better world for them. Just because some meth heads shat me out doesn't mean they should get to vote more.
The logic is sound when viewed in isolation - in theory parents care more about the future as their kids live in it, I can see that. And that's about where the logic ends.
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what about those who chose not to have kids to provide for a better future?
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those who have kids to get more votes, undermining the whole premise
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those who are actually making a better future as non parents.
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the basics founding block of democracy of one person, one vote?
"the basics founding block of democracy of one person, one vote"
No it isn't. Democracy as an electoral system does not have any such requirement in it's definition.
It was still a democracy when black people and women couldn't vote. People just eventually agreed that it should be more equal. We still don't let certain people vote though (kids have no voice, and neither do some criminals)
As for those other people, they still have a vote, it's just a smaller amount than people who would have kids.
Again, I don't actually think this is a good idea, I just see that there is potentially good outcomes from it.
Not the ones who downvited you, your points are valid.
My argument back is that at these times black people wernt people, and women were property therefore no vote. Hell, you wernt a man if you didn't have land (hence the landowner vote).
I don't think its a good idea either, but society progresses when we can bring things into the open to discuss pros and cons - just so happens this holds considerable cons... and ironically came from a con.
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you're more likely invested in the future if you have children.
There's plenty of examples of people who will throw their kids under the bus in exchange for wealth and power.
"More likely"
"examples"
You don't understand the difference between data and anecdotes
Neither of you had anecdotes or data, so I'm questioning whether you understand the difference between opinion and actual sources.
🚨FASCISM ALERT🚨