Voting rights

Aaron Haspel at God of the Machine ruminates on poll taxes, voting qualifications, and the general phenomenon of people voting themselves entitlements in a democracy. All of which calls into question the general mythology that democracy is an unqualified good. See also the US Constitution's 17th Amendment, providing for the direct election of US Senators, rather than selection by State legislatures. The amendment was passed in the spirit of direct democracy, but the outcome has been controversial, and there is a developing movement towards its repeal.

Comments

[Joseph H Vilas]

Michael, thanks for the collection of links. They're edifying.

It seems from reading these links that the 17th Amendment was supposed to have two effects: (1) increased popular participation in the Federal process, and (2) elimination of State deadlocks in Senatorial appointments. With respect to (2), why is a Senatorial appointment deadlock a bad thing? Do the States not have an interest in appointing Senators? Could the Senate not conduct its business while occasionally missing a few members? Senators are often missing from individual votes anyway.

A side note -- Reading this stuff reminds me of the District of Columbia license plates I've seen lately: the "motto" on them is "taxation without representation." But the Constitution directly specifies how the Federal district is to be governed. The District of Columbia is bloated in the same way the Federal government is; giving the District additional largesse via additional representation seems a bad idea. D.C. residents are already collectively sucking at the Federal teat. If they want to grow up and vote, they should first wean themselves from that teat, get a real job, and move to a real state. Maybe D.C. *should* be a bad place to live. It certainly shouldn't be the corrupt megalopolis it is today.