I think your idea could work - the problem is, history has shown that every time the voting class had rights above the common man - eventually that class started only caring about themselves, and holding onto power/money/what-have-you instead of the original goal of a responsible electorate with everyone’s best interests at heart.
Solving the problem of how to keep humans from becoming selfish, power-hungry and corrupt seems a harder problem than just increasing the education level (and BS-detector level) of the electorate as a whole, so that’s why I advocate for the latter.
Which ones? How are these experts expected to get the power to do this? What about their own political slants? They are, after all, people too, and not free from bias. And how, exactly, do you figure out what is in someone’s head. You can only tell by external markers, what they do and say. [quote=“kizontije, post:52, topic:95736”]
And that just does not happen, yet.
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it doesn’t matter. You don’t get to impose your will on others, unless they are harming you, those you love, or the community in general. You don’t get to make decisions for others.
How is this just not another form of elitism. I’ve known plenty of people with PhDs (or getting them) and it’s no guarantee of being able to make good political, social, economic, or ethical choices. A technocracy could be just as dangerous as any other sort of dictatorship. Imposing your will on others, even for “their own good” is not any less oppressive. Many a dictatorship began as a means of saving people from something worse.
As a Green Party voter, I’d choose “four or more” because there are more parties out there than just the Republicans and Democrats. However, almost everyone in the legislative branch at the national level is a Republican or Democrat, and the Republicans and Democrats are the two major parties, so I’d be wrong.
However, if I answered two, I’d also be wrong, because every ballot I’ve ever seen has more than just the two major parties represented on it.
The question is ambiguous. Moreover, it can be used to deliberately exclude those of us who think minor parties deserve representation, which will only crush those minor parties even more than they are already. So, it’s worse than ambiguous, it’s a tool for deliberately excluding people based on party affiliation.
Why do you think knowing the answers to some pub trivia questions about voting will determine this? Someone can be informed and engaged but deeply selfish. They could know the political process inside and out but still swayed by bullshit emotional arguments.
John Sununu has a PhD in mechanical engineering from MIT, and one of the highest IQs ever measured. It doesn’t change the fact he’s a complete fucking shitbag who has regrettably become entrenched in the political establishment.
Meanwhile, the working class who keeps getting fucked over should have a say in what’s happening to them, hmm? If they’re disenfranchised, it’s because they are actively being disenfranchised and kept in the dark. They’re not stupid or genetically inferior or whatever, that’s just the disenfranchisement working as intended. We need less disenfranchisement, not more.
The way you offered the idea was problematic for historic (as well as other) reasons but it still prompted a fruitful discussion. And I know from my own experience that privilege sometimes causes me to say things that, in retrospect, are insensitive and uninformed but still offer an opportunity for conversation and a chance for me to learn.
