Constitutional Do-overs (Mulligans)

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~iversen/PDFfiles/LottKenny.pdf

About the article, Raj, the comment about how women see government as insurance in the event of divorce is very true. Women tend to bear the brunt of single parenthood. If you look at poverty in my church community, you will mostly see single women with children, or single women who were stay-at-home mothers but who are now divorced and often disabled, or lack job skills to support themselves. In that case, you could say that the decline of families has caused the rise of the welfare state.

Of course, as we see more people choosing to not marry or have children, maybe that will be less about gender. No spouse, no children, no church community, no savings? Even men in that predicament want big government.

Nah, women initiate 2/3 of divorces. Most of the time these women are still economically better off than they were pre marriage compared to post due to child support and alimony payments

plus you have to ask:

  1. was she crazy and drove away a good man

Or

  1. did she procreate with a loser and has poor decision making skills

The problem with this view is that is used the Constitution to cherrypick whose interests will be represented and whose will not. You don’t like Big Government (however defined), a fine position to take - but the battle for and against Big Government needs to take place in the rough and tumble of democratic politics, not by using the supreme law of the land to create a barrier to entry to certain citizens’ interests.

If we saw some correlation between brown haired men and affinity for socialism, would we restrict brown haired men from voting? No, that isn’t a good idea. Same for women.

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This in absolutely no way comes close to all that matters for “bearing the brunt of single parenthood.”

Her choice of language is flawed in of itself.

Dissolving a marriage leads to single parenthood. She’s framing them as victims of circumstances when it’s not the case

Not really. Women voting is a desecration of the commons type situation. If they all do what is in their best interest, everyone is hosed.

I read it as “people look out for their self interests, women’s self interests are more likely to be of a single parent than men”

Not victims, but statistically planning.

How would you feel about ignoring gender and instead using land/business ownership as a prerequisite for voting?

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I don’t think Puff was referring to the circumstances of a woman becoming a single mother, but the fact that they usually end up with the kids.

That would be excellent if your goal is to roll back entitlements.

Entitlements are never going away (well until the government can no longer borrow money) under universal suffrage

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I see no reason not to do so, but I don’t believe one has the right to take the life, liberty or property of another except in response to a criminal act. The only way it wouldn’t make sense to do so is if I believed a right to vote is the only right that exists.

PWI has gone totally bonkers.

Women make-up about 50% of the population and about the same portion of the labor force. Pretty sure they should get a say in political matters


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Can we just all agree before we go any further in this thread that we’d be much better off if straight, white males didn’t have a say in political matters? :stuck_out_tongue:

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It desecrates the commons because
someone wants a public policy to do some form of good for someone?

Super. Since that has nothing to do with real world that we live and have always lived in, that was no help whatsoever.

And resurrect feudalism? No thanks.

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That would definitely roll back entitlements, but I think it would have significant negative side effects. Land and business owners can fairly conceivably become a class that is insular and hard to enter (it certainly has been the case in parts of history and still is in some geographies). Men and women have their interests and well-beings intertwined throughout most parts of society. The same can’t be said of those with property and those without.

That said, there are obviously other ways to limit suffrage while achieving good results.

Only married women with children can vote would be interesting. Alternately, only married couples with children can vote, but they can only vote if they agree. The point is to find some demographic that is spread throughout society, has a proper time horizon, and can be expected to balance the needs of others.

The mental block most people have with this is they see the “right” to vote as integral to acknowledging that you are a person. You have to get past that and believe that the goal of voting is to make the right decision, not just to make everyone feel counted.

“Landmark 2020 Election - Zero Votes Cast”

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I never thought I’d see the day when libertarianism fused with oligarchy to create the perfect constitution and country, but here we have arrived.

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