Universal Suffrage in an Age of Rigged Elections

It is insane to think that the average person would have the requisite knowledge to make a legitimately informed decision about the fate of a nation.

As the midterm mayhem begins to subside, questions surrounding election integrity are only ramping up.

Was the election rigged?

Did the Democrats pull a fast one in Arizona? 

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Serious question…Is there a hex on Maricopa County?

What happened to the Red Wave?

And so on.

Now, I believe that the elections, at least as far as I can tell, were rigged.

Whether or not there was any actual vote tampering or fraudulent counting, I of course cannot prove in a legal sense. However, I cannot see why anyone thinks that politicians would not break the law in order to steal votes. They already steal your money. Why should we think they won’t steal other things too?

In addition, the fact that the Democrats repeat the phrase “free and fair election” over and over and over again is, for me, almost a guarantee that the opposite is true. I have about as much confidence in a politician saying, “free and fair election,” as I do in a politician saying, “safe legal and rare” or “safe and effective.”

Furthermore, given the dodgy nature of mail-in voting and the fact that people can vote without ID, I think I would have to be an idiot to think that a political opportunist would not take advantage of such a loophole.

There are some commentators on the Right who believe that the key to fixing the issue with elections is to tighten up the process, which in fairness seems to have worked well in Florida. If we think back to 2000, Florida was the battleground for election mayhem. Since then, they have demonstrated an ability to run an effective and efficient election process. However, the result of that process was a DeSantis blow out, so it is unlikely that states with election shenanigans and Democrats in control will want to do anything about it.

Given the good, bad, and ugly associated with elections, we need to ask ourselves a question: Why do we even think voting is a good idea?

Before I continue, please don’t confuse my meaning and think I am saying that I believe people shouldn’t vote. I believe the process is dubious in many cases, but it is the process nonetheless, and it’s all there is. 

However, I believe it would be useful to get to the heart of the mythological, platonic form of “democracy” and consider just how flawed the notion of universal suffrage is, and why it can be so dangerous.

Universal suffrage is a distinctly modern phenomenon, about a century old or so. And it just so happens that the past hundred years have been the bloodiest and most violent in human history.

The regimes that have been voted in have, in many cases, plunged citizens into endless wars, bankrupt economies, redefinitions of marriage, and even into abortion by way of referendum.

This is not to say that we were living in the Garden of Eden before everyone had the “right” to vote. But I also believe we cannot pretend that the universality of voting has not had a hand to play in the universal Sodom and Gomorrah we now face.

We should not be surprised, however, as universal suffrage is a logically bankrupt notion from the jump.

Think: How is it reasonable that a stoned, postmodern-indoctrinated, 19-year-old vegan has the same moral weight in deciding the outcome of an election as Anthony Esolen?

It is insane to think that the average person—even if they are not a stoned college student—would have the requisite knowledge to make a legitimately informed decision about the fate of a nation or large region of a country. This is not to say that average people aren’t smart or that only a select few enlightened individuals possess a gnostic illumination that allows them to see how the government should act. But it is just a fact that given the responsibilities we all have, and the time we all don’t have, the complexities and inner workings of government systems are beyond the knowledge set of most people.

Heck, given the statistics on how much debt most people carry and how bad our society is at handling money, I would venture that most people struggle with the concept of balancing a checkbook, let alone a national budget.

Imagine a scene wherein the people who live in your neighborhood were consulted and given a vote as to how you should manage your money. I like my neighbors, but there is no possible way I would ever think they had the necessary insight or moral authority to vote with other neighbors on whether I should put more money into a pension fund or pay off my car.

Yet, every few years we head to the ballot box and place our votes for politicians to manage the money that they take from us so that they can spend it on things we don’t get to vote on.

The whole affair is enough to make your head spin.

Of course, I don’t really see any way out of the cycle. So, in a twist of irony, it looks like the most effective thing to do will be to find out how to shore up elections and sway more and more people to vote for sane and cognitively intact candidates.

Perhaps, if we are lucky, enough people will vote for leaders who will work to restrict voting so that it is no longer universal. 

I do not expect this to happen, but we can all dare to dream.

In the meantime, we can now take a break from politics for about 15 minutes—until the primers to the primaries begin and we can spend two years thinking about who to vote for.

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tagged as: Politics voting rights

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