Have any other countries in the world instituted an academic requirement to democratic voting? Like a MA you get that allows you to run for office or vote for leaders?
That was the plot of Starship Troopers.
Was there an academic requirement in Starship Troopers, or just a military service requirement?
A general academic requirement, though, is a terrible idea, and is on its face discrimination in rights based on wealth - maybe this isn't a bad thing in the eyes of libertarians, but most reasonable people and courts have disagreed.
Not to mention that, as long as racial minorities are disproportionately poor, discrimination based on wealth is ipso facto discrimination based on race.
What Guild is proposing is a poll tax. The Jim Crow South used them to prevent black people from voting. The 24th Amendment banned them.
I am not accusing Guild of racism -- in fact he pointed out that he WASN'T suggesting only rich white males be allowed to vote. I merely think he is ignoring the obvious fact that most people with higher education ARE rich and white, if not necessarily male, and I am increasingly of the opinion that he has not spent much time studying history, because he keeps proposing social and economic strategies that have already been tried and which had disastrous consequences. (I'm waiting for someone to explain to him what happened the last time America tried the "The economy is none of the government's business" approach he keeps advocating.)
Democracy, as Churchill observed, is the worst form of government except for all the others people have tried. Of course it has its inherent flaws, and an uninformed or indifferent populace is perhaps the greatest among these. But the alternatives are worse. Our own democracy smells a lot like oligarchy right now, and an academic barrier to voting would only intensify our problems.
The way to a more informed voting populace is better education. And that means better PUBLIC education, because rich people are NOT the only ones who have a right to an education.
