Modest Proposal: Poll Tax
My big high school graduation gift was a stock portfolio of one share each in five different local companies (I think Microsoft, Starbucks, Nordstrom, Boeing and...something else.) Anyway, for years and years, I would get the annual report four-color glossy thing, along with a proxy vote to mail back. Since I had one share in each company, I was
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One of the fundamental premises of your Modest Proposal is that rich people should have more political power than poor people. Premises, heck, that's the stated goal: "We're now at a point where half of the country isn't paying any federal income tax at all, but they're allowed to vote ... This does not make a lick of sense. Those decisions should be made by the people who have put some skin in the game."
When I point out that this is a bad thing, you retort with a criticism of ancillary matters, such as the article title - a example of an argumentum ad hominem - rather than addressing my points. If you want to move past the Intro to Logic topics, stop making the mistakes we were taught to avoid in Philosophy 120.
Here's a new criticism: You're comparing apples to oranges. You contrast a stockholder's right to vote at the company's annual meeting with a citizen's right to vote in elections. You then give the example of "anyone off the street" person being unable to vote for the board of directors, and compare it to the fact that citizens who don't pay any income tax can still vote for the US President. The proper comparison is more like this:
stockholder votes : non-stockholder doesn't vote :: US citizen votes : resident alien doesn't vote
Of course, that resident alien still has to pay income tax, even though they don't get to vote for their representation. How does that fit with your Proposal?
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