Quote (Scaly @ 20 Oct 2017 14:04)
I think we can all agree that people who are utterly unqualified for their government roles end up in charge of shit they know nothing about regularly in both American and UK politics.
I'm talking about Cruz on climate change and NASA, Trump on everything, letting UKIP or the DUP have any seats whatsoever and so on.
I propose a simple solution. A course. A course that educates people on voting, free and paid for by the government with a minimum pass mark required to succeed and earn the right to vote.
Details are open for discussion of course but I believe this course should be at least 2 years of study part-time (or a year full-time) and you should have refresher courses every so often, say every 5 years maybe, to maintain your voting rights. Also a mandatory week long course before every major election that includes the views of all parties so people know exactly what they are voting for.
I believe this would reduce the amount of dumbass voting by a substantial margin and the week course before a major election would force politicians to be clear about their intentions and held accountable if they are found to be lacking in the mandate on which they were voted into their position.
Open to further ideas of course.
i admit that sometimes i wish uninformed idiots just wouldn't vote, but you just can't restrict voter rights by putting obstacles in place that would target a specific group, that's what the republicans are doing in the US (especially in the south), and it's highly undemocratic.
as soon as you make those courses mandatory and even gate the right to vote behind a test, you're clearly crossing a line. incentivising political education (financially maybe) is something i could get behind. it would have to be strictly bipartisan though, something i imagine would be hard to achieve considering parties banking on misinforming or keeping voters ignorant regarding particular topics would probably claim any information was partisan and biased...
ofc it is frustrating to see how so many people support idiots that would be exposed by the tiniest bit of political knowledge, or even critical and rational thinking, but what it comes down to is that it is everyone's right to support those asshats, and if enough people vote for them, they deserve it...