So how exactly does this analogy work? Are you not attempting to determine the rules in your neighbors house by not allowing him to vote?
You pay sales tax regardless of whether or not you pay federal income taxes. Where do you live where poor people don’t have to pay sales tax at Walmart?
I’m trying to think about the concept of someone who’s never paid a tax of any kind before.
So they haven’t ever had a job in their entire life (social security tax is non refundable).
Haven’t purchased a non food good in their entire life (sales tax).
Don’t have a driver’s license (govt tax).
Never had a utility or insurance in your name (guess that seems fine since they’ve never had a job before).
Of course you can. That’s a silly joke. That poor person has full legal ownership (under the US constitution) of the funds he/she uses to pay the taxes. At the state level, very few people will receive refunds in excess of what they paid in, and even fewer of those people will go their entire lives without making a purchase of a good.
Well at least we’re now ignoring various levels of govt and their taxes.
If you meant “people who don’t pay net+ federal income taxes shouldn’t vote” you should have just said that. While I still disagree with that (because, duh), it would have at least made sense.
It’s not earned. It’s not given voluntarily. If you believe money taken from others is the same as earned income/investment income/inheritance/gifts, that’s terribly scary.
I’ve always found this phrase really odd. Like it was made up to make criminals feel better. If you assaulted/robbed/raped/killed someone and you get caught->charged->convicted->do time… you haven’t paid anything of value to anyone. You were punished for your actions by being thrown in a cage for a bit.
The person you harmed isn’t somehow unharmed (especially in murder) because you were in a cage for a while. Even if you paid “restitution” in cold hard cash the victim’s life is still way worse off than if you hadn’t harmed them. And there’s no way ‘society’ will ever get the value back of your trial and incarceration (free food, housing and healthcare for years).
So society is demonstrably worse because of a felon’s actions. They are literally the most selfish people we have. Why should they get a vote again? Serious question.
She knows her policy. While the average voter doesn’t want a white paper deep dive into policy, someone who sounds like they know their stuff can get traction in 2020. 2016 being an aberration, people like to know the person in the WH to actually know something about the job and the issues at stake.
She’s smart. And she can explain stuff. She’s not a charismatic speaker, but she’s forceful and authentic.
She has a good backstory - humble beginnings up to the Senate. I don’t think the Native American scandal is much of one, despite Republican efforts to keep it alive - after all, if lying to advance one’s career is disqualifying for the Presidency, who is going to run for the GOP then?
She has anti-elite populist economics - some of the same stuff Trump appealed to and won on. And she’s championed this stuff for years, unlike Trump - a silver-spooned businessman notorious for screwing over blue collar contractors during his time - who doesn’t understand such economics, doesn’t actually believe it, and simply used it as a marketing scheme to sell his candidacy.
She’s a woman - and women are turning against Trump faster than American banks did when he was bankrupting everything he touched. Electorally, normally I don’t think of women as a unified bloc of voters, but here, I think women are going to be pretty unified in wanting an antidote to Trump, and Warren is a good fit.
The business sector doesn’t actually hate her. They differentiate between her and Bernie. And the business sector wants stability and predictability more than anything right now.
I have no idea of she’ll be the candidate or not, but she’s formidable. And recall that Trump’s victory in 2016 wasn’t the result of his base (despite the optics of the MAGA rallies) - it was the disaffected Democrat-leaning swing state voters. Can Warren appeal to them with her populist pitch? Definitely. Especially now after this dumpster fire trade war. Trump has every reason to fear a Warren candidacy.
As always…thanks for the insights on Warren, @thunderbolt23.
When someone appears to “surge” in the way she has (even though she has managed to stay in the top four, depending on where Harris tended to fall); I become curious as to why.
I know that there were those who joked that she has a position paper on just about every topic known to man…but in this day of “fly-by-night/I-use-my-(big)-gut” politics…I guess maybe that isn’t a bad thing?
As you said…let’s see how strong she stays. One thing is for certain…Trump is ready to tear he apart…
I think Trump is actually more exposed to Warren than he is to Biden. Warren will cream him among white suburban women and is making noises that could make inroads into Trump’s blue collar working class base.
Combine those two and he gets blown out of the water.
Yeah…one can “go-to-well” a little too often, @zecarlo…and begin to look more and more like a buffoon.
I remember seeing these old black and white films of the end of Senator Joseph McCarthy…unshaven and disheveled… ranting and raving about Communist being everywhere to an almost empty chamber…like someone almost possessed…and other Senators just shaking their heads as he had gone to the “Communist Well” one time too many…
Despite the ridiculous whining one hears to the contrary…white males are still a strong and powerful voting block…and will remain so in the foreseeable future…
As a group…polls suggest that they are solidly behind Trump.
I’m not really disagreeing with much here merely that we essentially let someone who is out of prison do everything that everyone else does. To me it makes sense that that includes voting.
Also we need to remember that some felons have done things that didn’t hurt anyone else (weed use).
It just makes sense to me that if we let them essentially do everything they did before they got in that we wouldn’t draw the line at voting. I don’t think screwing up when you’re 19 or something should eliminate you from having a say in how the government is ran when you’re 60. If we can’t trust these people to vote for some reason why are they free anyways?