Should women have the right to vote?

[J.R. Brown]

No, because unlike voting, the right to bear arms is actually in the Constitution.

You decided to take one example of something you can deny people the right to vote over, and say that you can deny people the right to do all kinds of things over that, which is true but irrelevant.

Comparison would be if it said: "No one over the age of 18 shall be denied the right to bear arms on account of age." In that case, there would be no constitutional right to bear arms. You could ban all guns, or make people pass a test, etc., but you couldn't use, say, a 19 year old's age to disqualify him.

So it's okay to be fascists as long as the states retain their rights?

*Why don't we just bring back slavery. Better yet lets take the voting rights away from everyone and only let the richest and most influential corporations vote. One vote per corporation. Now that's freedom of speech. We can have a fascist aristocracy. That's my dream for the future.

*Im not serious. Power to the people. I'm Rick James biatch. Control yourself.

[J.R. Brown]

Mentioned, not granted.

"No one over the age of 18 shall be denied the right to bear arms on account of age."

That grants no one the right to bear arms.

Have you ever heard of implied rights. The whole structure of the Constitution implies certain rights. That's why the federalists were opposed to the Bill of Rights, because they were afraid that morons like you would come along and say "Oh this isn't in the Constitution so it must not be a right."

[J.R. Brown]

As in, (A) a legislature justifying its action purely by the fact that it does not violate the Constitution, and (B) circumventing other measures of the Constitution by this means, saying the enumerated powers no longer matter.

If you think the Constitution implied a right to vote, you're a g idiot, because universal suffrage did not exist in even the most remote form at the time of the revolution. Go read a basic history text book, and then we'll talk.

Actually, I did better than that. I am taking Intro to American Politics and we talked a lot about the Constitution at the beginning of the semester, the values and principles that are conveyed in the Constitution (freedom, equality, etc.), not specific words, promote the simple principle that everyone has a voice in this government.

At the Constitutional Convention Madison and Hamilton argued for a Constitution with structural protections that ensured individual rights would be preserved. These structural protections promote freedom and equality. What do these principles mean to you? How can you have a democracy without a majority of the public having the right to vote, even if it doesn't explicitly say these things, democracy and freedom are all in the Constitution. Only allowing male landowners vote or the extremely rich wouldn't be a democracy, that would be an aristocracy. And preventing woman and certain ethnic groups from voting is fascist.

If you don't think that that is true then I don't know what to tell you. By the way what is your point in all of this? Do you think that the American people shouldn't have a say in what goes on in their government? I just want to say that it's people like you who the founders were afraid of. They wanted a land where two men or women with completely opposing views both had the right to stand up and speak their opinion and not be killed or arrested for that.

The same thing goes for voting. They wanted to empower the people. Besides, everyone having a vote is pretty much given in a democracy and a republic. I suppose that the founders believed that the people would have enough common sense to know that that they would not have to write "Every citizen has the right to vote". I think that that is implied in the first amendment. You know freedom of political speech.

[J.R. Brown]

You don't support democracy? Are you a fascist? What form of government do you support?

Actually, in Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration of Independence he mentioned something about abolishing slavery but the southern states didn't go for it, so he took it out. And Alexander Hamilton was a racist aristocrat, so I agree with you on that.

EQUALITY and FREEDOM are in the Constitution. What the hell do you think the first amendment is all about. Do you know what equality means.

[J.R. Brown]

Slavery is irrelevant. If you consider all white, landowning males over the age of 21 being able to vote "universal suffrage," I guess you can call Jefferson a universal suffragist.

The word freedom appears not once in the original text of the Constitution, and only once in the Bill of Rights, in relation to free speech.

The word "equal" appears only as a mathematical value, and part of the 14th amendment, which did not confer upon the population universal suffrage, as is easily seen in the fact that it actually provides for subtracting disenfranchised voters from the census data for redistricting purposes. If such a ridiculous notion of "equal protection" were to be upheld, two year olds would have the right to vote, as arguably would illegal immigrants.

We broke away from England saying that all Men are created equal in the Declaration of Independence. Besides that, people's views evolve over time and the founders knew that, that's why we have the power to amend the Constitution. Maybe we should amend it to say that all people have the right to vote. Then, for people who don't understand the principles for which this country stands for and don't automatically assume that all people have the right to voice their opinion will have it written down on paper.

[J.R. Brown]

Slavery is irrelevant. If you consider all white, landowning males over the age of 21 being able to vote "universal suffrage," I guess you can call Jefferson a universal suffragist.

The word freedom appears not once in the original text of the Constitution, and only once in the Bill of Rights, in relation to free speech.

The word "equal" appears only as a mathematical value, and part of the 14th amendment, which did not confer upon the population universal suffrage, as is easily seen in the fact that it actually provides for subtracting disenfranchised voters from the census data for redistricting purposes. If such a ridiculous notion of "equal protection" were to be upheld, two year olds would have the right to vote, as arguably would illegal immigrants.

We broke away from England saying that all Men are created equal in the Declaration of Independence. Besides that, people's views evolve over time and the founders knew that, that's why we have the power to amend the Constitution. Maybe we should amend it to say that all people have the right to vote. Then, for people who don't understand the principles for which this country stands for and don't automatically assume that all people have the right to voice their opinion will have it written down on paper.

Well, if you believe in democracy, we better repeal the Bill of Rights, kill of judicial review, etc.

As for me, I'm more concerned with freedom.

People can express their point of view, but voting is about enforcing it.

What are you talking about? So people should give sort of a endorsement of a candidate but they should not choose their leaders. How is that freedom? I am sorry, I am having trouble understanding what you are talking about. Could you explain it to me better without insulting me? I always thought freedom was part of democracy.