Just When You Think You’ve “Seen It All” . . .
. . . something happens to make you realize you haven’t. Lit this bit of manifest idiocy from LA:
in bid to boost voter turnout
Yeah, you read that correctly. LA is actually thinking of offering some form of cash incentive to get people to vote. The proposal envisions some form of lottery system to dispense cash to at least some who voted.
Maybe it’s just me. But if someone has to be paid to get up off their dead a** and vote, I’m not really sure I want to see them voting at all. I also wonder how this is going to square with the various laws against offering cash/other things of value for votes.
You haven’t heard the best part yet, though. The proposal comes from the LA Ethics Commission.
Category: "Teh Stoopid", Dumbass Bullshit, Politics, Society, WTF?
Facepalm.
I don’t ordinarily drink before noon, but today may be an exception to that rule.
I so despise leftists, and especially California leftists.
But remember that voter Id is evil and corrupt and a taint on our democratic process.
So how would one prevent someone from committing fraud in voting in other districts to get more money?
Voter fraud doesn’t happen, you see. That’s why we don’t need ID.
Like most of my fellow SoCal natives, I would not be particularly upset or perturbed if the city of Los Angeles were to one day drop into the ocean. This is just one of many reasons why (I also hate the Dodgers 🙂 )
Most NorCal residents regardless of political stripe would like to see it happen, too 😀
I would say I can’t believe this but given it is LA in California, I can. So, the ill-informed voters who are tweeting to find out who Kim Kardashian will vote for, will be heading to the polls for their big payday. Voting is a right and privilege. It is one of the freedoms our armed forces have for more than two centuries fought and died for. To keep us free and able to vote in free elections. To pay anyone to vote, is a slap in their faces and pissing on their tombstones in my opinion. The problem with low voter turn out is not going to be answered with money. Any more than “cash for clunkers” or “cash for guns”, programs worked. The problem is people who simply do not care about or even know about the process, meaning and value of their vote. It is something they would sell to the highest bidder if they could. In fact they do. When the liberals sweet talk them about “hey, vote for our guy or gal and you’ll get more free stuff coming to you”.
Let’s hope this gets tabled as the inane concept it is and doesn’t cause other communities to jump on board.
I still like Robert Heinleins idea in his book “Starship Troopers.”
In that novel, the voting franchise was limited to “veterans”. A “veteran” was not necessarily someone who had been a soldier, but rather someone who had volunteered for a two-year stint in “Federal Service”. Whether a soldier or not, these service jobs were apparently all fairly hazardous. Only after retiring from federal service could you vote or hold public office. The book focuses mostly on the soldiers, so both fans and critics tend to look on the rule as “only combat veterans get to vote,” even though the book made it clear there were non-military paths.
The argument for this was that the responsibility of voting should be reserved for those who have demonstrated an understanding of individual sacrifice for the greater good, i.e. voting is not about getting something for myself but about getting something for everybody else. Whether or not Heinlein himself felt that the voting franchise should be so restricted, the book makes a fairly passionate argument for it.
I can’t finish without posting the following quote:
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
Robert A. Heinlein
Ok, I’m done trying to look smart now, but I do agree with all of the above.
I agree.
Ex,
You forgot one or two things.
#1-The person had to have been HONORABLY discharged from his tern of Federal service.
#2-That two year term of service could be EXTENDED INDEFINITELY in times of delcared emergency.
But I agree with the rest of your post in its intent.
NOW — all that being said, I’d take the voting privilege back to its original constituancy, those who own property and/or business in the community. No renters. No one on welfare or any form of handouts or entitlements. The arguments for this (and against conflict of interest) are reletively obvious).
Yeah. And King Kanute will roll back the tides.
One of my favorite books, even though they tried to ruin it by turning it into some cheesy craptastic B movie albeit with boobs. I digress.
Even in the original Constitution only landowners could vote. I’m not a landowner, but would gladly go back to that. I can promise you we would have a different President.
In other news, I think I saw somewhere that on the last election, Ferguson, MO had an 8% voter turnout. After seeing some news video taken there, that’s actually good news.
“. . . cheesy craptastic B movie . . . ”
I think you’re being too kind. I’m not sure I’d even rate it as being worthy of being called a “B movie”.
Neither would I. They destroyed the book and burned it when writing the script for that pile of sh**.
Time for some stupid useless trivia. The movie didn’t start out as Starship Troopers, it started out as a movie called Bug Hunt that Verhoven’s crack dealer said read a lot like Starship Troopers. So they bought the rights, fudged the names, filed off the serial numbers and released it.
The cartoon that was a tie into the movie (What the hell, I loved it as a kid, but really?) was openly an attempt by the crew to fulfill their contract while trying to sneak as much of the book in as possible.
I have always thought that Mr. Heinlein’s credit in the film should hav read as follows:
“Based very, very, very, VERY loosely on the novel by Robert A. Heinlein.”
I’d be happy if they just made tax day election day and you had to show an income tax form 1040 to be eligible.
Nice.
Nice concept. I like it.
Well, if they’re stupid enough to broadcast it to the press, they’re stupid enough to think it’s legal.
And I have wondered why there are so many recent movies set in Dystopia.
Some good ‘ol Bioshock;
Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? ‘No!’ says the man in Washington, ‘It belongs to the poor.’
Now the “poor” is the voting stock.
When you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on Paul’s vote!
Only way this would work is if we could also pay people NOT to vote. Just saying…
I’m not from California. Will there be a method to still be compensated for voting, perhaps by mailing in a ballot(s)?
🙂
My grandfather voted Republican until the day he died and then he voted Democrat.
He must have lived in either Chicago or Alice, TX. (smile)
Thats better then trying to stop citizens from voting like the republicans do.
No one is surprised that you are all in favor of voter fraud. How many times did you vote in the last election?
Requiring proof of identity and eligibility is NOT the same as preventing eligible voters from voting, dumbcluck. Even an idiot like yourself should be able to make the distinction between the two.
Or perhaps you lost your eligibility to vote somewhere along the way. Is that perchance why you don’t like the idea of people having to prove identity or eligibility to vote?
VWP,
After all my warnings, you still believe rat poison is crack and rubbing alcohol is gin … You poor little thing!
Ta Ta!
Honestly, I can’t say that I blame shitbird here for being in favor of getting paid to vote-it’d probably be the only way other than bus station hummers he could ever “earn” a dollar.
Yes, VWP… we know, we know. Liberals are the “saviors” of minorities and such – in spite of what history really tells us.
The difference between you and virtually everyone on this blog is that we believe virtually everyone has the means to obtain some kind of I.D., but you and others tell them we don’t think they’re capable – which is an insult either way.
Yeah, because those same people who can show ID for their welfare checks, EBT cards, cigarette and booze purchases not to mention able to drive a car can’t seem to find it around election time.
Do you work overtime to be this fucking stupid or are you just gifted that way?
Instinct: I think he’s just “special” in that respect.
VWPindejo, we’re talking about California, Soviet Socialist Republic of. This state, though great in many ways (none of them political), has been giving “valid” driver’s licenses to illegal aliens for YEARS. So please enlighten me as to who the fuck exactly would be disenfranchised by requiring ID to vote. After all, even the Goddamned illegals possess that valid form of ID, and I have a pretty good idea what percentage they comprise of the regular voter turnout, and in what districts (hint: the low-function, high-crime areas that always pick somebody with a D after their name all have that in common).
Then again, it is a lot harder for sick fucks like you to get your hands on small children when you have to show ID. Maybe that’s why you’re so rabidly against it?
KMBIA
Mark Twain made a proposal the every citizen get one vote. Additional votes could be earned by education, military service, age and property. There were several other ways to earn more votes, but they escape me now. His premise was that an educated man of means was a better citizen than some uneducated drifter and deserved a bigger say in the affairs of state. It was more than just net worth as we have today, but more about the contributions to society that one coulds contribute. I always liked that scheme. Why should a person that has been a drag on the society have the same electoral power as someone who has made a lifetime of positive contributions to the nation? With the takers having a bigger say than the contributors and elections becoming nothing more than beauty contests between politicians promising more and more public money to the voters, maybe it’s time to give his proposal some thought.
PS Draft dodgers, even if pardoned, would never get even one vote.