The Heritage Foundation - Leadership for America

August 25, 2008 Brian Sikma writes:

If I am too lazy to register to vote then my voice shouldn’t count in the public debate. An essential part of self-government is self-motivation to govern. If a citizen won’t even bother to register to vote on their own, why should the government force them to participate? If some potential voters want to simply excuse themselves from participating in their future that is their sad but legitimate choice.

August 25, 2008 ic writes:

Sounds like someone wants a People’s Republic of America. Or may be someone wants to pave the way for a draft to “volunteer for national service”?

August 25, 2008 anonymous writes:

“But there is an issue the left is willing to let the government keep track of a citizen over: voter registration.”

Don’t forget law-abiding gun owners. The Donkeykrats are more than willing to track us, too.

August 25, 2008 Mark, Florida writes:

In some countries they force you to vote (even if there’s one party on the ballot). It’s a leftist thing.

August 25, 2008 Forget FISA. Should government always know where you live? or “How I learned to stop worrying about privacy” « The Rhetorican writes:

[…] Tags: News, Politics trackback Some people seem to think government should keep track of you “from cradle to grave” for the sake of up-to-date voting registration records.  Not the people you’d expect, […]

August 25, 2008 Wildmonk, Califon writes:

I think the rationale is that educated voters - and reading “The Daily Kos” does not qualify as “education” - vote for Republicans in numbers that are far too high for the elite. The citizens too lazy or uninterested in learning enough to vote intelligently are assumed to be likely to vote for the candidate the offers them stuff, promises not to make them stand on their own two feet, or who makes an explicitly racial appeal. Ergo, forcing the unwilling to vote is likely to result in more votes for Democrats than Republicans.

August 25, 2008 ZEITGEIST writes:

[…] TRACKING CITIZENS “FROM CRADLE TO GRAVE.” […]

August 25, 2008 Kyle Bennett writes:

Brian,

I don’t vote because I want to excuse myself from participating in *your* future. I can take care of my own future perfectly well without all you votists getting involved, thank you very much.

August 25, 2008 Don Meaker writes:

I am all for reporting people’s death. My second wife’s mother has voted for the current Mayor of Chicago 3 times, and she died before he was born.

I submit that any right to privacy ends at death. I don’t think that there is a political machine right to voter fraud.

August 26, 2008 Steevo, Vancouver, WA USA writes:

Kyle, your statement doesn’t make much sense. Nobody’s imposing their future on you nor telling you you have to vote. Brian is saying the government should have no right to force your registration. He’s also saying, if the citizen cares it should be his/her responsibility to take the initiative. That’s it. If you don’t wanna… fine, but you’ve made the decision to shut yourself out and your complaining and/or silence doesn’t carry much weight.

August 26, 2008 C Smith writes:

Convinced?
I’m convinced of the need for a national movement to repeal the 16th Amendment.

August 26, 2008 Kyle Bennett, AZ writes:

Steevo,

Look at it this way: voting is nothing more than the attempt to have some small say in telling other people what to do. I defy you to come up with any explanation that doesn’t boil down to just that.

I don’t want to tell other people what to do. I wouldn’t do that to Brian, or to you, it’s just common courtesy. There’s more effective ways to attend to my own future that don’t require me to be rude, and to butt into other people’s business.

If you vote, you have no right to complain - you helped to create and perpetuate the problem. Goldman’s idea is all about making sure everyone bellies up to the cannibal pot so that those who do it voluntarily don’t have to feel so guilty about it.

August 26, 2008 submandave writes:

“If a citizen won’t even bother to register to vote on their own, why should the government force them to participate?”
“In some countries they force you to vote … It’s a leftist thing.”

The votes of tose insufficiently motivated to register on their own are easier to maniputlate, coerse or buy. Forced participation allows the “winners” to tout and claim great support and mandates where none really exists (e.g. Saddam’s 97% election win just prior to OIF).

Slogan for the left: form over substance.

August 26, 2008 DensityDuck writes:

Kyle: NICE troll. It’s a shame that so few people are biting.

OP: Privacy is a social construct, not a fundamental right. Privacy was invented so that people could live in the tight confines of an urban environment without killing each other.

Privacy is as much about the watcher as it is about the watched. When we do certain things, we do them as a signal to others that we don’t want to be looked at right now; i.e. going into a dressing-room. If we were truly worried about security then we wouldn’t be in some flimsy-walled cubicle with walls that don’t go all the way up; we’d be at home in a sealed chamber. The dressing-room stall is really about screening THEM from seeing US–not protecting US from being seen by THEM.

August 26, 2008 voter registration ? cradle to grave? writes:

If anyone has seen the piece written by Greg Palast the investigative reporter. You will in no doubt know that this is more about disenfranchising the populace than privacy. Please see his piece on Karl Rove and the vote caging event that was caught but never reported by the main stream media. When will we learn not to believe what they say. The media is controlled period. It is not a conspiracy it is a fact. And rather than sit on one’s bum and stick a head in the sand , don’t take the path of least resistance which is human nature and the current actions of the Sheepole. go to www.gregpalast.com and see the work on vote caging and I got Karl Rove’s emails. Then you too will know a partial truth as to what is occurring. When Bush and his cronies tell former Atty General to make Federal Prosecutors charge service personnel over seas for voter fraud because they have requested an absentee ballot to vote and aren’t living at their listed address we have a problem folks. We need a revolution like the world has never before been witness to. An over throw of the establishment and the status quo. The system is broken and and could be repaired if we just governed using the U.S. constitution. We live in a police state. I for one have never heard of free speech zones, but try giving out a pocket sized constitution outside of these zones at the DNC and you’ll get tazed, pepper sprayed and a baton upside the head. I invite any of you to do it. Wake up people. the Amero is coming and with it the North American Union and then hell will follow. If you refuse one thing refuse to be chipped with RFID by verichip or any of the other Orwellian spook companies. See if you can get hold of IBM’s archives and how they used, and sold the Hollerith punch card machine to aid Nazis in cataloging Jews for skill sets in the camps. Then look at the logo they used then and compare it to current ones used. Or do what I know you will do, nothing and be the one sheep that wakes up when the sheep in front of him is having its throat cut screaming wait a minute this isn’t right. Join the resistance at www.restortherepublic.com google the one video that they don’t want you to see. “America Freedom to Fascism” by the late freedom fighter Aaron Russo. I say banned because United Artists theaters refused to show it, blockbuster and Movie Gallery won’t carry it for rent. Take the time out of you day of watching Oprah and Judge Judy and see this film. Take the pill, be educated then tell someone else. By the way I still haven’t received my free copy of the Constitution from this forum I ordered 100 to give to kids at a martial arts tournament coming in a month. Thanks for reading and for listening.
Yours in truth and liberty,
Phillip