Correction. Anything you can learn about software engineering you can learn without going to school in the first place and the theory is best learned and reviewed and re-learned organically alongside practical experience.
Take two software engineers and set them side-by-side. One with a four year degree and one with four years of self-study/work experience. Ask them to devise, implement, deploy, and test a solution to a real problem you are having and don't yet know the answer to. That four year student will be lost. They've never learned that in the real world nobody else knows how to do their job, nobody provides you all the information or the tools necessary to solve the problem like in a lab or even knows what that would be. In the classroom your problems are presented in a progression that implies what you've studied recently is what will be required to answer them. In fact, in the classroom solving a problem without using what was just taught (and thereby demonstrating you've learned it) will often penalized. There are no such hints or clues in the real world. The self-study engineer will immediately set out figuring out what he's going to need and how to go about finding and getting it just like he has done with every challenge for the last four years.
That said I think going to a university AFTER 4-8 years of self-study and experience would be a very valuable experience. By that point you have a context and mental framework to put all that organized and spoon fed material into and you'd get a lot more out of it.
Of course from a job hunter's perspective it is better to have a four year degree than not. How much better depends on experience. In a small number of cases it could hurt you.
There is no quality of school factor in a guy w/degree vs guy without degree comparison. In general I'd say four years of Ivy league employment experience trumps Ivy league school experience. A great deal of it depends on the employer and for higher level positions companies can and will make exceptions on degree requirements.
Does a degree help if you are concerned with actually being good at what you do once hired? No. Not in the slightest. You'd learn more in a one year guided self study apprenticeship 100% of the time if you have the raw talent to be any good.
In a world where every position now lists requirements dramatically in excess of what is needed to fill the role (mostly so they don't fill it and can justify hiring an H1-B worker) it's just one more useless thing that rules out perfectly qualified and possibly better candidates. But there is no shortage of qualified talent or increased demand. There is only a desire to increase the labor pool and drive down wages.
"a different culture that values online social presence and considers it a sign of abnormality if you don't have a presence"
Which is definitely not a good thing. As someone who does use social media the only actual benefit is one potential way to organize events and an occasional amusing cartoon.
This is a rather poor trade off for the mass volume of disclosed personal data and the wide open police state door it provides. A huge part of the platform is the completely false sense that you can limit what you share and who you share it with... but you can't. Illegally hacking your facebook profile via a third party contractor is standard hiring practice these days.
Really, because I can open a shell and interact with them all the same way and compile much of the same code.
The kernel is the OS. Your app can sit directly on top of the kernel and interfaces with the system operated by it through it. If your app does not require an OS to provision it's resources and provide an interface to hardware it is, is part of, or includes, a kernel.
Shells, guis and the like are generally well over the kernel level. Hell, they are well over the init level.
"If you believe congress can't fund war without declaring it, you've already failed constitutional law 101 so you're out."
You seem to be confusing the currently practiced bastardization of Constitutional law which has almost nothing to do what the document says with reading and understanding the Constitution. A couple words have changed in common usage ("well regulated" for example) but for the most part the document is written in clear and plain English. Technicalities and loopholes are invalid interpretation.
If your first order of business isn't dismantling the government of today and restoring our Constitutional democracy with all limitations on goverment power put back in place you shouldn't be voting. The shortcuts and power grabs are illegal if they contradict the Costitution, the supreme court is not empowered to deliberately misinterpret the document. For instance, the NSA warrantless surveillance cannot be legalized by an act of congress nor blessing by the supreme court. It would require Constitutional amendment. No doubt you'd point out that they are doing it regardless. I'd point out the victim's inability to stop the rapist doesn't make rape legal.
'And if you don't see the basic contradiction between 'any systematic disregard of individual rights by definition cannot be in the interest of "the community"''
There are 100 people in town X. All have a right that says none can be convicted of a crime without positive identification. 51% voted for rep Bob. A rule is passed by bob which 15% of people support saying there is a $10 fee for turning right on red and that everyone accused will automatically be assumed identified because it would cost too much to prove identity.
Joe is arrested, asserts the prosecution must prove it was him who turned right. In most cases Joe is treated as one guy vs the interests of the entire community. The entire community is 100 people, every one of them is an individual like Joe but only 15% support this law and 49% didn't vote for the guy who made it. The decision made here would apply equally to 100% of them in Joe's spot therefore honoring Joe's rights strengthens and benefits 100% of the community whereas failing to honor it weakens that right for 100%. Even Rep Bob and the 15% who supported the law have their right weakened if it is denied to Joe.
Two people asserting conflicting rights is another story. A community is nothing more than a collection of individuals and is distinct from government not synonymous with it.
"That's why the founding fathers were interested so much in making sure we were a republic, and not a full on democracy. They certainly knew how to construct an actual democracy or at least a much closer one than we have today."
They DID construct something much closer to an actual democracy than what we have today. The founding fathers were wealthy merchants and so cared about government having the power to protect their economic interests. Power beyond that didn't matter.
The founding fathers gave the federal government no standing army, only the navy which could be used to repel foreign invaders and more importantly for them protect merchant vessels from pirates. All military power on land was spread among the people. There has never in history been a nation that closely resembled a democracy where the few did not need to fear the collective might of the angry many. It cannot exist.
Similarly, everyone had a right to trial by jury and any jury could nullify the law on a case-by-case basis for any reason. The federal government could create treaties to protect trade, regulate interstate commerce, and provide means for copyrights and patents.
Congress was configured in such a way that only the illusion of participation by everyone was maintained; it was and is a body by the wealthy, for the wealthy, and of the wealthy.
The problem is that in the information age there are too many people who realize we aren't a democracy or a representative republic and the notion that wealth follows merit has been soundly debunked. Today third party candidates get arrested attempting to attend presidential debates, the NSA gets busted in a horrific conspiracy and the president openly supports them without getting impeached. Congress the passes a bill "legalizing" the unconstitutional actions claiming it fixes the problem. Which is a blatant slap in our collective faces... a pointless one because congress does not have the authority to bypass the constitutional requirement of warrants nor does the supreme court let alone the FISA court. Peaceful protestors in the occupy wallstreet movement are beaten, gassed, arrested by order of the officials they elected and the police who are supposed to be arresting anyone interfering in their protest.
"It is a vehicle for legitimacy."
It is a vehicle for the ILLUSION of legitimacy. The problem is the illusion is dispelled. We no longer believe we have representatives. We live in a world where direct democracy is possible and if we are to have representatives we want representatives we believe will do better than ourselves. So we drop the electoral college and we actually have more intelligent people do the voting.
Our society is built on science and we now want what is correct. In the information age of reason and science aristocratic rule by the wealthy at gunpoint is no longer acceptable.
Do you honestly think the reason the trample it is because they don't know what it says?
They trample on it because it's in their interests to do so the same as every king and every government. That is why the people can nullify their laws in the form of juries and the domestic military power was granted to and distributed among the people in the right to bear arms. They also made ir really hard for the government to give itself power by making amendments difficult.
How are they supposed to make mischief when they can't imprison us, have no federal police force, and there is no standing army for greater than two years in peace time? All they get is the Navy to protect our shores.
Oh wait, you mean people of low IQ have given up every item that gives the people the power to check government in a more meaningful way than asking them to pretty please not screw us?
"You seem to be in the US, so that will disenfranchise 50% of whites, and 85% of blacks, according to current data."
100 is the median of the scale but more than 50% OVERALL score at or above 100. Getting a 100 is perfectly achievable with a middle school level education since the tests are designed to avoid an education requirement. Elementary, middle, and high school are free in the United States. If your "current data" is correct they'll have disenfranchised themselves.
"The biggest problem with the idea of having more "intelligent" people be the voters, or the idea of even the most "wise" people be the voters is not necessarily that they are wrong, but that no one believes that they are right."
The idea wasn't to have only the intelligent vote but rather to remove those with such a low IQ they have no chance of really understanding the choices they are making. These individuals are already being told what is right by people more intelligent than them and it is in many cases the persuasiveness of those people rather than reasoned consensus that gets the votes.
By setting the bar near 50% we assure every group and view will remain well represented. So as part of the disqualified group you will still find qualified voters rallying with you.
That is why the target is average and not high. Combine at least average IQ with understanding the Constitution (who you are voting for and what powers you are giving them) and critical thinking/logic skills and you've got someone who has a CHANCE of understanding the choices they are making.
Whether making good or bad choices people of low IQ lack the ability to understand those choices. But the bar is low enough that every political group will still be represented.
I'm not saying the IQ minimum would solve everything. I'm just saying that there is no benefit in people of such low intelligence being able to vote.
I also think you should get up to 20 votes, never more than 20 never less than one. One per year you've both been a citizen and physically residing in the US. Maybe drop the minimum voting age to 15. Do the same at the state and city level. Maybe that will encourage young people to get involved and they'll stay that way.
Move away and you begun losing one per year after the first year. Allows people to vote for third parties. Plus it reduces the ability of a large flux of immigrants to change the political landscape over night. You get a voice but you need to give it time to understand what life is like in a place before you go changing it to what was familiar back home, you get the loudest voice when you've been somewhere long enough that it is home. Move around a lot? Maybe you shouldn't pick the mayor for a place you just moved to and are leaving in 3 months anyway.
Who said anything about retakes? Although once every 10 years to maintain doesn't sound terrible. Ever fail and you are done maybe a retake within 30 days or something but not new chances every 10 years.
The bar at 100 is low on purpose. It eliminates only people with little or no chance of understanding the decisions they are making leaves a large enough pool to fairly represent everyone interests. If the primary thing supporters of an agenda have in common is their very low IQ I can't imagine it being a bad thing for it to go away.
"50% of the population can't vote based on a test that you can easily improve at simply by practising."
I fail to see a problem with that.
"Some people claim atheism is a religion."
The dictionary says otherwise. We can make up a new word for those who don't follow a religion and keep doing that if you like.
"Also, not all religions are the same, e.g. Buddhists are not nearly as deluded as Christians, who are not nearly as deluded as Muslims, in general terms."
Irrelevant. The Constitution is the highest law in the land, it outranks all public officials at all levels of goverment and mandates a separation of church and state. You check your religion at the door, by law. For the same reason congress lacks the authority to tax churches. Whether a person agrees with the law or not should not be prerequisite to vote, demanding government have absolute obedience to the limits imposed on it by the Constitution should be prerequisite to voting.
If you think representatives should be able to vote in accord with their religion you can both support an amendment to that effect and a firing squad for those who do so before that amendment is made.
Government officials deliberately violating the Constitution and assuming authority not granted to them for any cause is treason.
"If you believe any citizen should be able to own a nuclear ICBM or place land mines in the front yard, you're out."
It's the law. Period. See the above.
Random civilians with widely distributed military power are less likely to be able to affect widespread tyranny than random people in a chain of command that answers to those who might try to seize power from the people. The bigger the weapon the more expensive and the more people it takes to afford them. Nobody should have biological weapons, chemical weapons, or nuclear weapons. But so long as the government has been granted our permission to have nuclear subs we've retained our right as the people to have such weapons to point back at them.
"If you think rights are not a balance between opposing forces, and that include both freedom from interference and freedom to prosper and be happy, you are out."
What I said is not inconsistent with that.
A person in a toll violation case being denied a "beyond reasonable doubt" burden, the right to a court appointed attorney, the right to trial by jury, and being automatically assumed as the driver because the state wrote that it could do so in the statute is a good example. This violates a number of provisions in the Constitution and a body empowered by the Constitution (states and therefore their governments are a constitutional construct) lacks the authority to do so. These provisions exist to bar the government from infringing on the rights of the people, when ANY individual objects to this it is not their personal right vs the state it is the right on 100% of the individuals in the nation vs the small subset who support and benefit from cheaper toll enforcement.
The court is also ultimately empowered by the Constitution and therefore lacks the authority to issue a ruling which violates its provisions.
Again, Constitutional enforcement should be absolute. Believing as much is prerequisite to successful participation in our constitutional democracy. That issues pre-empts anything you disagree with in the specifics. But there is always changing it, either via the mechanisms in the document or popular amendment since the people are not limited by the terms of the Constitution and ca overrule it as jurors or change it by popular vote.
"You can be really smart and the worst kind of racist, intolerant bigot, or simply a total self-centered jerk who will not care that his decisions disfranchise everyone as long as he benefits."
Of course you can. But a 101+ IQ doesn't make you really smart more than 5 out of 10 people are smart enough to score over 100 so racists, jerks, and caring people would all be well represented. The only people excluded would be those with essentially no chance of understanding the decisions they are making and the impact of those decisions.
A high IQ doesn't even mean you are smart, only low IQ's have been shown to indicate performance or success (low performance and lack of success). Having a 150 vs 115 hasn't been poven to matter at all.
An empathy test might be useful to give politicians but not voters. There is no benefit in electing the guy whose wife just died because you feel bad for them. And those voters would be more likely to be duped by politicians trying to sway them with plea to emotion rhetoric. Like making people afraid of terrorists so they will agree to give up freedoms or spreading fear of the dangers of making moonshine so they can keep it illegal, raise tax revenue that lowers the taxes of the wealthy and put lots of red tape in place that makes it difficult for new startups to compete with large established companies.
True. Note, it does not grant the authority to rule according to personal opinion or political leaning rather than in accordance with the law. There are quite a few examples where the Constitution is clear and the court has blatantly misinterpreted it. The Constitution leaves us no recourse but popular amendment does.
"His test was on the constitution as it is constructed now. The answers are matter of fact. That doesn't mean that you can't vote to change it. It just means that you have to pass a test on what it says now. The ability to do that would seem to be a solid prerequisite for a reasonable person to then work to change it anyway. If you don't understand it now, how can you propose effective change?"
Bingo. You might not think civilians should have missiles. But the law says they can and neither the president nor congress is empowered to change that. The courts are not empowered to support their illegal actions. Regardless of whether you think that is a good idea or not that is what should happen if you try to walk in a gun store and buy a missile.
That doesn't mean you can't be in favor of an amendment. It means that you should understand this is the law and should be followed until changed. The Constitution provides mechanisms by which it can be changed. You should support those as well as the rest. There is also popular amendment. The Constitution outranks government but the people outrank the Constitution.
No, it's the law. At present it is the highest law of the land and therefore you shouldn't be allowed to vote if you support any branch of federal, state, or local government trying to infringe on it in even the slightest way.
You might think it's a bad law but the idea was that military power would be distributed among volunteer militias, who should be well trained, and assembled into an army only in time of war. The few in power should fear the anger of the many who are not and armed government hands that have no increased chance of being safe, sane, or trustworthy have never been the source of freedom or democracy. Those things have only come to exist where the people were armed. But that part is opinion.
If you disagree you should be pushing for an amendment. But while it is the law we should all be quick to raise a pistol to the head of any government official or judge who declares otherwise. Whatever changes you'd like to see, they aren't worth the damage done when government is allowed to take power it is denied to make them happen. Those limits, checks, and balances are there for a reason.
"if you don't support certain current political lines of thought, you can't vote"
On the contrary, it has little to do with current political thought and a lot to do with requiring things be restored to the constitutional government with its careful separation of powers. For far too long morons have supported government violating the constitution and overreaching their constitutional authority simply because they supported the end used as an excuse. Just because you want Y doesn't mean you shouldn't demand congress, the president, or a court follow the law rather than take a short cut to get Y. Amendments are hard to get for a reason, not the least of which is to offset the disproportional representation of the electoral college.
What did I say that indicated I didn't know about half the people would be excluded? Average and high IQ hasn't been successfully correlated with high function but low IQ has been shown to strongly correlate with low achievement and performance. The lower the IQ the stronger the correlation. Since about half the voting pool remains you'd still have a statistically significant sample of essentially every group and interest but the low IQ group.
I'd also favor all individuals who want to vote taking a critical thinking and logic course. Perhaps at the middle school, high school, and college levels. I don't care if children making logical arguments and critically assessing what teachers and parents say makes things more challenging.
"It's probably not really a good measure of anything but the ability to do well on IQ tests."
Low IQ (75 and below) has been shown to highly correlate with low achievement and poor academic performance. The lower the score the stronger the correlation. 100 seems like a reasonably low bar for voting and one that is just as but no more likely to exclude the wealthy.
A reasonably intelligent person needs no more than a middle school education to score over 100. The test favors native American English speakers (anyone born here) and education but not to a degree that excludes a clever foreigner or individual with less education. Seems like a reasonable minimum bar to qualify to make important decisions that impact others to me. With an average of 5 out of 10 people making the grade there should be statistically significant representation of every group but the low IQ group.
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Correction. Anything you can learn about software engineering you can learn without going to school in the first place and the theory is best learned and reviewed and re-learned organically alongside practical experience.
Take two software engineers and set them side-by-side. One with a four year degree and one with four years of self-study/work experience. Ask them to devise, implement, deploy, and test a solution to a real problem you are having and don't yet know the answer to. That four year student will be lost. They've never learned that in the real world nobody else knows how to do their job, nobody provides you all the information or the tools necessary to solve the problem like in a lab or even knows what that would be. In the classroom your problems are presented in a progression that implies what you've studied recently is what will be required to answer them. In fact, in the classroom solving a problem without using what was just taught (and thereby demonstrating you've learned it) will often penalized. There are no such hints or clues in the real world. The self-study engineer will immediately set out figuring out what he's going to need and how to go about finding and getting it just like he has done with every challenge for the last four years.
That said I think going to a university AFTER 4-8 years of self-study and experience would be a very valuable experience. By that point you have a context and mental framework to put all that organized and spoon fed material into and you'd get a lot more out of it.
Of course from a job hunter's perspective it is better to have a four year degree than not. How much better depends on experience. In a small number of cases it could hurt you.
There is no quality of school factor in a guy w/degree vs guy without degree comparison. In general I'd say four years of Ivy league employment experience trumps Ivy league school experience. A great deal of it depends on the employer and for higher level positions companies can and will make exceptions on degree requirements.
Does a degree help if you are concerned with actually being good at what you do once hired? No. Not in the slightest. You'd learn more in a one year guided self study apprenticeship 100% of the time if you have the raw talent to be any good.
In a world where every position now lists requirements dramatically in excess of what is needed to fill the role (mostly so they don't fill it and can justify hiring an H1-B worker) it's just one more useless thing that rules out perfectly qualified and possibly better candidates. But there is no shortage of qualified talent or increased demand. There is only a desire to increase the labor pool and drive down wages.
"a different culture that values online social presence and considers it a sign of abnormality if you don't have a presence"
Which is definitely not a good thing. As someone who does use social media the only actual benefit is one potential way to organize events and an occasional amusing cartoon.
This is a rather poor trade off for the mass volume of disclosed personal data and the wide open police state door it provides. A huge part of the platform is the completely false sense that you can limit what you share and who you share it with... but you can't. Illegally hacking your facebook profile via a third party contractor is standard hiring practice these days.
Get the hell out of my business.
Obviously that isn't true. I ran 3 different android versions on my last tablet.
Really, because I can open a shell and interact with them all the same way and compile much of the same code.
The kernel is the OS. Your app can sit directly on top of the kernel and interfaces with the system operated by it through it. If your app does not require an OS to provision it's resources and provide an interface to hardware it is, is part of, or includes, a kernel.
Shells, guis and the like are generally well over the kernel level. Hell, they are well over the init level.
But what else would you run on it? ChromeOS, SteamOS, and andoid are the most popular choices and those are all linux distributions.
"If you believe congress can't fund war without declaring it, you've already failed constitutional law 101 so you're out."
You seem to be confusing the currently practiced bastardization of Constitutional law which has almost nothing to do what the document says with reading and understanding the Constitution. A couple words have changed in common usage ("well regulated" for example) but for the most part the document is written in clear and plain English. Technicalities and loopholes are invalid interpretation.
If your first order of business isn't dismantling the government of today and restoring our Constitutional democracy with all limitations on goverment power put back in place you shouldn't be voting. The shortcuts and power grabs are illegal if they contradict the Costitution, the supreme court is not empowered to deliberately misinterpret the document. For instance, the NSA warrantless surveillance cannot be legalized by an act of congress nor blessing by the supreme court. It would require Constitutional amendment. No doubt you'd point out that they are doing it regardless. I'd point out the victim's inability to stop the rapist doesn't make rape legal.
'And if you don't see the basic contradiction between 'any systematic disregard of individual rights by definition cannot be in the interest of "the community"''
There are 100 people in town X. All have a right that says none can be convicted of a crime without positive identification. 51% voted for rep Bob. A rule is passed by bob which 15% of people support saying there is a $10 fee for turning right on red and that everyone accused will automatically be assumed identified because it would cost too much to prove identity.
Joe is arrested, asserts the prosecution must prove it was him who turned right. In most cases Joe is treated as one guy vs the interests of the entire community. The entire community is 100 people, every one of them is an individual like Joe but only 15% support this law and 49% didn't vote for the guy who made it. The decision made here would apply equally to 100% of them in Joe's spot therefore honoring Joe's rights strengthens and benefits 100% of the community whereas failing to honor it weakens that right for 100%. Even Rep Bob and the 15% who supported the law have their right weakened if it is denied to Joe.
Two people asserting conflicting rights is another story. A community is nothing more than a collection of individuals and is distinct from government not synonymous with it.
"That's why the founding fathers were interested so much in making sure we were a republic, and not a full on democracy. They certainly knew how to construct an actual democracy or at least a much closer one than we have today."
They DID construct something much closer to an actual democracy than what we have today. The founding fathers were wealthy merchants and so cared about government having the power to protect their economic interests. Power beyond that didn't matter.
The founding fathers gave the federal government no standing army, only the navy which could be used to repel foreign invaders and more importantly for them protect merchant vessels from pirates. All military power on land was spread among the people. There has never in history been a nation that closely resembled a democracy where the few did not need to fear the collective might of the angry many. It cannot exist.
Similarly, everyone had a right to trial by jury and any jury could nullify the law on a case-by-case basis for any reason. The federal government could create treaties to protect trade, regulate interstate commerce, and provide means for copyrights and patents.
Congress was configured in such a way that only the illusion of participation by everyone was maintained; it was and is a body by the wealthy, for the wealthy, and of the wealthy.
The problem is that in the information age there are too many people who realize we aren't a democracy or a representative republic and the notion that wealth follows merit has been soundly debunked. Today third party candidates get arrested attempting to attend presidential debates, the NSA gets busted in a horrific conspiracy and the president openly supports them without getting impeached. Congress the passes a bill "legalizing" the unconstitutional actions claiming it fixes the problem. Which is a blatant slap in our collective faces... a pointless one because congress does not have the authority to bypass the constitutional requirement of warrants nor does the supreme court let alone the FISA court. Peaceful protestors in the occupy wallstreet movement are beaten, gassed, arrested by order of the officials they elected and the police who are supposed to be arresting anyone interfering in their protest.
"It is a vehicle for legitimacy."
It is a vehicle for the ILLUSION of legitimacy. The problem is the illusion is dispelled. We no longer believe we have representatives. We live in a world where direct democracy is possible and if we are to have representatives we want representatives we believe will do better than ourselves. So we drop the electoral college and we actually have more intelligent people do the voting.
Our society is built on science and we now want what is correct. In the information age of reason and science aristocratic rule by the wealthy at gunpoint is no longer acceptable.
Do you honestly think the reason the trample it is because they don't know what it says?
They trample on it because it's in their interests to do so the same as every king and every government. That is why the people can nullify their laws in the form of juries and the domestic military power was granted to and distributed among the people in the right to bear arms. They also made ir really hard for the government to give itself power by making amendments difficult.
How are they supposed to make mischief when they can't imprison us, have no federal police force, and there is no standing army for greater than two years in peace time? All they get is the Navy to protect our shores.
Oh wait, you mean people of low IQ have given up every item that gives the people the power to check government in a more meaningful way than asking them to pretty please not screw us?
"You seem to be in the US, so that will disenfranchise 50% of whites, and 85% of blacks, according to current data."
100 is the median of the scale but more than 50% OVERALL score at or above 100. Getting a 100 is perfectly achievable with a middle school level education since the tests are designed to avoid an education requirement. Elementary, middle, and high school are free in the United States. If your "current data" is correct they'll have disenfranchised themselves.
"The biggest problem with the idea of having more "intelligent" people be the voters, or the idea of even the most "wise" people be the voters is not necessarily that they are wrong, but that no one believes that they are right."
The idea wasn't to have only the intelligent vote but rather to remove those with such a low IQ they have no chance of really understanding the choices they are making. These individuals are already being told what is right by people more intelligent than them and it is in many cases the persuasiveness of those people rather than reasoned consensus that gets the votes.
By setting the bar near 50% we assure every group and view will remain well represented. So as part of the disqualified group you will still find qualified voters rallying with you.
That is why the target is average and not high. Combine at least average IQ with understanding the Constitution (who you are voting for and what powers you are giving them) and critical thinking/logic skills and you've got someone who has a CHANCE of understanding the choices they are making.
Whether making good or bad choices people of low IQ lack the ability to understand those choices. But the bar is low enough that every political group will still be represented.
I'm not saying the IQ minimum would solve everything. I'm just saying that there is no benefit in people of such low intelligence being able to vote.
I also think you should get up to 20 votes, never more than 20 never less than one. One per year you've both been a citizen and physically residing in the US. Maybe drop the minimum voting age to 15. Do the same at the state and city level. Maybe that will encourage young people to get involved and they'll stay that way.
Move away and you begun losing one per year after the first year. Allows people to vote for third parties. Plus it reduces the ability of a large flux of immigrants to change the political landscape over night. You get a voice but you need to give it time to understand what life is like in a place before you go changing it to what was familiar back home, you get the loudest voice when you've been somewhere long enough that it is home. Move around a lot? Maybe you shouldn't pick the mayor for a place you just moved to and are leaving in 3 months anyway.
Who said anything about retakes? Although once every 10 years to maintain doesn't sound terrible. Ever fail and you are done maybe a retake within 30 days or something but not new chances every 10 years.
The bar at 100 is low on purpose. It eliminates only people with little or no chance of understanding the decisions they are making leaves a large enough pool to fairly represent everyone interests. If the primary thing supporters of an agenda have in common is their very low IQ I can't imagine it being a bad thing for it to go away.
"50% of the population can't vote based on a test that you can easily improve at simply by practising."
I fail to see a problem with that.
"Some people claim atheism is a religion."
The dictionary says otherwise. We can make up a new word for those who don't follow a religion and keep doing that if you like.
"Also, not all religions are the same, e.g. Buddhists are not nearly as deluded as Christians, who are not nearly as deluded as Muslims, in general terms."
Irrelevant. The Constitution is the highest law in the land, it outranks all public officials at all levels of goverment and mandates a separation of church and state. You check your religion at the door, by law. For the same reason congress lacks the authority to tax churches. Whether a person agrees with the law or not should not be prerequisite to vote, demanding government have absolute obedience to the limits imposed on it by the Constitution should be prerequisite to voting.
If you think representatives should be able to vote in accord with their religion you can both support an amendment to that effect and a firing squad for those who do so before that amendment is made.
Government officials deliberately violating the Constitution and assuming authority not granted to them for any cause is treason.
"If you believe any citizen should be able to own a nuclear ICBM or place land mines in the front yard, you're out."
It's the law. Period. See the above.
Random civilians with widely distributed military power are less likely to be able to affect widespread tyranny than random people in a chain of command that answers to those who might try to seize power from the people. The bigger the weapon the more expensive and the more people it takes to afford them. Nobody should have biological weapons, chemical weapons, or nuclear weapons. But so long as the government has been granted our permission to have nuclear subs we've retained our right as the people to have such weapons to point back at them.
"If you think rights are not a balance between opposing forces, and that include both freedom from interference and freedom to prosper and be happy, you are out."
What I said is not inconsistent with that.
A person in a toll violation case being denied a "beyond reasonable doubt" burden, the right to a court appointed attorney, the right to trial by jury, and being automatically assumed as the driver because the state wrote that it could do so in the statute is a good example. This violates a number of provisions in the Constitution and a body empowered by the Constitution (states and therefore their governments are a constitutional construct) lacks the authority to do so. These provisions exist to bar the government from infringing on the rights of the people, when ANY individual objects to this it is not their personal right vs the state it is the right on 100% of the individuals in the nation vs the small subset who support and benefit from cheaper toll enforcement.
The court is also ultimately empowered by the Constitution and therefore lacks the authority to issue a ruling which violates its provisions.
Again, Constitutional enforcement should be absolute. Believing as much is prerequisite to successful participation in our constitutional democracy. That issues pre-empts anything you disagree with in the specifics. But there is always changing it, either via the mechanisms in the document or popular amendment since the people are not limited by the terms of the Constitution and ca overrule it as jurors or change it by popular vote.
"You can be really smart and the worst kind of racist, intolerant bigot, or simply a total self-centered jerk who will not care that his decisions disfranchise everyone as long as he benefits."
Of course you can. But a 101+ IQ doesn't make you really smart more than 5 out of 10 people are smart enough to score over 100 so racists, jerks, and caring people would all be well represented. The only people excluded would be those with essentially no chance of understanding the decisions they are making and the impact of those decisions.
A high IQ doesn't even mean you are smart, only low IQ's have been shown to indicate performance or success (low performance and lack of success). Having a 150 vs 115 hasn't been poven to matter at all.
An empathy test might be useful to give politicians but not voters. There is no benefit in electing the guy whose wife just died because you feel bad for them. And those voters would be more likely to be duped by politicians trying to sway them with plea to emotion rhetoric. Like making people afraid of terrorists so they will agree to give up freedoms or spreading fear of the dangers of making moonshine so they can keep it illegal, raise tax revenue that lowers the taxes of the wealthy and put lots of red tape in place that makes it difficult for new startups to compete with large established companies.
True. Note, it does not grant the authority to rule according to personal opinion or political leaning rather than in accordance with the law. There are quite a few examples where the Constitution is clear and the court has blatantly misinterpreted it. The Constitution leaves us no recourse but popular amendment does.
"His test was on the constitution as it is constructed now. The answers are matter of fact. That doesn't mean that you can't vote to change it. It just means that you have to pass a test on what it says now. The ability to do that would seem to be a solid prerequisite for a reasonable person to then work to change it anyway. If you don't understand it now, how can you propose effective change?"
Bingo. You might not think civilians should have missiles. But the law says they can and neither the president nor congress is empowered to change that. The courts are not empowered to support their illegal actions. Regardless of whether you think that is a good idea or not that is what should happen if you try to walk in a gun store and buy a missile.
That doesn't mean you can't be in favor of an amendment. It means that you should understand this is the law and should be followed until changed. The Constitution provides mechanisms by which it can be changed. You should support those as well as the rest. There is also popular amendment. The Constitution outranks government but the people outrank the Constitution.
"SHOULD BE ABLE? Isn't that an opinion?"
No, it's the law. At present it is the highest law of the land and therefore you shouldn't be allowed to vote if you support any branch of federal, state, or local government trying to infringe on it in even the slightest way.
You might think it's a bad law but the idea was that military power would be distributed among volunteer militias, who should be well trained, and assembled into an army only in time of war. The few in power should fear the anger of the many who are not and armed government hands that have no increased chance of being safe, sane, or trustworthy have never been the source of freedom or democracy. Those things have only come to exist where the people were armed. But that part is opinion.
If you disagree you should be pushing for an amendment. But while it is the law we should all be quick to raise a pistol to the head of any government official or judge who declares otherwise. Whatever changes you'd like to see, they aren't worth the damage done when government is allowed to take power it is denied to make them happen. Those limits, checks, and balances are there for a reason.
"if you don't support certain current political lines of thought, you can't vote"
On the contrary, it has little to do with current political thought and a lot to do with requiring things be restored to the constitutional government with its careful separation of powers. For far too long morons have supported government violating the constitution and overreaching their constitutional authority simply because they supported the end used as an excuse. Just because you want Y doesn't mean you shouldn't demand congress, the president, or a court follow the law rather than take a short cut to get Y. Amendments are hard to get for a reason, not the least of which is to offset the disproportional representation of the electoral college.
What did I say that indicated I didn't know about half the people would be excluded? Average and high IQ hasn't been successfully correlated with high function but low IQ has been shown to strongly correlate with low achievement and performance. The lower the IQ the stronger the correlation. Since about half the voting pool remains you'd still have a statistically significant sample of essentially every group and interest but the low IQ group.
I'd also favor all individuals who want to vote taking a critical thinking and logic course. Perhaps at the middle school, high school, and college levels. I don't care if children making logical arguments and critically assessing what teachers and parents say makes things more challenging.
"It's probably not really a good measure of anything but the ability to do well on IQ tests."
Low IQ (75 and below) has been shown to highly correlate with low achievement and poor academic performance. The lower the score the stronger the correlation. 100 seems like a reasonably low bar for voting and one that is just as but no more likely to exclude the wealthy.
A reasonably intelligent person needs no more than a middle school education to score over 100. The test favors native American English speakers (anyone born here) and education but not to a degree that excludes a clever foreigner or individual with less education. Seems like a reasonable minimum bar to qualify to make important decisions that impact others to me. With an average of 5 out of 10 people making the grade there should be statistically significant representation of every group but the low IQ group.
"As you don't seem to realize that this would hit _half_ the voters, I'm glad you won't be able to vote with that system."
Given I never indicated either of those things I believe you'll be left behind.
http://xkcd.com/1576/