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What if: suffrage just for landowners

Political ·Saturday May 3, 2008 @ 15:33 EDT (link)

Another gun-related sidebar: Eric's gun control reductio:
If you ... are gung-ho for gun control, I suggest you live up to your convictions by posting a big sign on your front lawn that reads:

THIS HOME IS A GUN-FREE ZONE

I wish you joy of all the delightful visitors you will attract.

No? Sound like a bad idea to you? Then perhaps you should consider how dependent you are on the kindness of 'gun nuts' and rethink your position.

Considering the following quote attributed to Alexander Tyler:
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
I was trying to think of ways to stave off this inevitable socialist grabfest that drags us down to the society of Atlas Shrugged, where need and incompetence are virtue, and ability is a liability. So, what if voting were restricted? I know it's been done over time various ways (literacy requirements, poll taxes; literacy doesn't seem like a terribly onerous requirement now, and nor do poll taxes, provided the money goes to something truly universally useful, like, say, paying for voting apparatus).

How would this play out if the requirement was to be a landowner (probably also done in the past)? Would renters get shafted very badly, and would it really be unfair? What about joint owners (and can a million people be considered "joint owners" to get around the law?) (It seems valid that a married couple can both be considered owners; in other cases, a single owner must be designated for voting purposes... does this give real-estate developers power to enfranchise people for their own benefit? No, because the owner must really have power over the property, i.e. ability to sell it for personal gain at will, and they are still private in the voting booth.)

By definition it would be unconstitutional, but so was selling alcohol at one point; laws can be changed. It would ensure that those voting had some stake, and perhaps lower the rate of "[voting] for the candidate promising the most benefits." But I think ultimately it would fail, because even some homeowners want handouts; it just reduces one type of handout (housing), which wouldn't be much of a dent. And on the other hand, there are many responsible renters who shouldn't be penalized just because they're paying rent to an owner rather than a mortgage to a bank. The real fix is a more ambitious change....