We need to stop letting just anybody vote

www.americanthinker.com

I hate to make a suggestion that I know, before I suggest it, will never be implemented in my lifetime. On the optimistic side, at age 78, that might not be so long. It might have a chance in my grandchildren’s lifetimes.

If there is any one major social factor that is at the root of the present, and worsening, chaos in America, it is voter eligibility. We allow just anybody to make for us our most vital civic decisions, including those concerning taxes and war. The system was workable when the great majority of Americans knew the basics of representative government, had some familiarity with our history, and shared our cultural values. Those days are gone.

Today’s voters include a large, diverse group of disinformed people. Too many of them are historically illiterate, and all too often hostile to the values of Western civilization. How that came about, whether through erosion or explosion, is not the immediate question. Not only is it a fact, but it will get worse, as illegal voting is becoming all but institutionalized under leftist policies.

At the beginning of our nation, voting was a right, but a right with attendant responsibilities. The restriction of voting eligibility to landowning males seems downright Neanderthal today, and that is not what I am advocating — but the underlying principle was a necessary foundation of civic life. Landowners had an obvious stake in the policies of government. Eventually, that principle was extended to other citizens, to the professions and skilled tradesmen who were building our republic. They understood that freedom does not consist of getting free things, and indeed, they understood that nothing the government gives us is free anyway.

I have seen statistics that say women vote differently from how men do, and that women are more likely to favor politicians who promise to protect them, which is a duty of their men. Let us remember, however, that it was men who enacted the Nineteenth Amendment and thereby yielded to women the power to vote.

Instead of allocating voting rights by sex, I would assign them according to competence. It has been duly noted by others that many voters are unable to pass the test required of foreigners seeking citizenship. Given the enormous consequence of voting, why isn’t that test a minimum requirement?

The question arises: If someone devises a better system of voting, how will it ever be accepted? Few will vote for it. Surely, without public support, there is no way to reform the system.

The answer to that question is a troubling one. The present system will not reform itself, and any attempt to replace it by violating the Constitution not only is doomed to failure, but would bring about something even worse than what we have now.

Must we stand by and watch for our society to collapse of its own weight? That prospect is terrifying. Any serious study of history provides numerous examples of the reigns of terror that inevitably accompany social collapse, especially during and after revolutions.

What we can do instead is educate as many people as possible, to train them, to impart to them the spiritual and social values that will be needed once that collapse inevitably occurs. They must be ready to step in when needed. I know that this may sound dramatic, even apocalyptic, but realistically, we cannot just sit out and hope for the best.

There are things we can do now to mitigate the future conflict that will precede a renewed American republic. We can push for immigration reform, beginning with the mass expulsion of those who have no right to be here. We begin with violent criminals, then fraudsters, and then those who bleed us dry on tax-funded social programs. Make no mistake: We must continue to deport every possible illegal alien, even the nice ones.

For the present, and later at the critical moment, we must prepare ourselves by becoming the only kind of citizen that can rebuild a lost republic. We must inculcate in ourselves the virtues that our Founders exhorted us to develop, and which they themselves imperfectly exemplified.

We must more than admire those men, we must be them.

Image via PickPik.