---
title: Suffrage
categories:
- culture
content-tags:
- politics
- voting
---

I often bow out of political conversations by putting forth a view so radical that others will write me off as unreasonable.  A favorite one is suffrage of the stupid.  The manner in which money exerts control over the republic is a symptom, I assert, not a source problem.  The root cause is that buying media time unduly buys votes, because the electorate is too quick to have their opinions influenced by simplistic messages.  Why not propose, then, that the only viable solution is to stop letting dumb people vote?

That usually gets a few wry grins and neatly ends my participation in the matter.

I turns out, though, that pesky Samuel Clemmons beat me to the punch with [an even better idea][1].  It is easy to imagine him removing himself from discussions about politics in a similar manner.  [Thanks to Robert Heinlein by way of [Bob Racansky][2].]

   [1]: http://www.nitrosyncretic.com/rah/gondour.html
   [2]: http://bobservations.blogspot.com/2003_03_02_bobservations_archive.html#90118288
