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Title: TEA Party Says Only Property Owners Should Have Right To Vote
Source:
tucsoncitizen
URL Source: http://tucsoncitizen.com/three-sono ... ers-should-have-right-to-vote/
Published: Dec 5, 2010
Author: tucsoncitizen
Post Date: 2010-12-05 18:31:55 by Brian S
Keywords: None
Views: 10247
Comments: 20
If the motives of the TEA Party weren’t known by now, after this weekend it should be even more obvious that they really do want to take this country back… back to the 18th century! Getting out the vote is the enemy of the TEA Party. The President of the TEA Party Nation made the case this weekend that voting rights should only apply to property owners, because only they have a “vested stake in the community.” This is the most ridiculous thing and form of classism I have ever heard. If you are poor and live in an apartment, you have no stake in the community? You don’t care about local school board, taxes, propositions, politicians, and pro-war candidates? Of course, this type of thinking helps out the rural folk, since in a dense urban setting, many people have no choice but to live in apartments, whereas almost anyone can own cheap land out in the country. What if one a purchased an acre of land, and then split it into a million different pieces and gave them away to poor people? They would now be “property owners.” Or let’s say a rich Democrat purchased an eighth of an acre for millions of poor people, but out in the countryside where they don’t live, or just put a million people on the owner’s list with you. Would that make a difference? Does owning property really make a difference? What’s next for the TEA Party? That whole blacks being 3/5 of a person is a really good idea? The sad thing is that I know some are internally thinking… yes. Tea Party Nation President Says It ‘Makes A Lot Of Sense’ To Restrict Voting Only To Property Owners You want to vote? Picture from the Voter Rights rallies... and how history is ready to repeat itself. Every week, the Tea Party Nation hosts a weekly radio program, calling itself a “home for conservatives.” Two weeks ago, Tea Party Nation President Judson Phillips hosted the program and discussed changes that he felt should be made to voting rights in the United States. He explained that the founders of the country originally put “certain restrictions on who gets the right to vote.” He continued, “One of those was you had to be a property owner. And that makes a lot of sense, because if you’re a property owner you actually have a vested stake in the community. If you’re not a property owner, you know, I’m sorry but property owners have a little bit more of a vested interest in the community than non-property owners”: PHILLIPS: The Founding Fathers originally said, they put certain restrictions on who gets the right to vote. It wasn’t you were just a citizen and you got to vote. Some of the restrictions, you know, you obviously would not think about today. But one of those was you had to be a property owner. And that makes a lot of sense, because if you’re a property owner you actually have a vested stake in the community. If you’re not a property owner, you know, I’m sorry but property owners have a little bit more of a vested interest in the community than non-property owners. Listen to it: Phillips is advocating a policy of voter disenfranchisement that has its roots in the 18th century. When the United States was first founded, ownership of property was one of the requirements to vote in most elections. Many of these restrictions were phased out by the 1820s and replaced with requirements that the voter pays taxes. By 1850, these requirements, too, were phased out. Nashville Scene blogger Betsy Phillips calls the Tea Party Nation president’s idea a “frivolous proposal designed to stoke intergenerational antagonism — as if the people who are older and can afford a home are somehow better citizens than the 18-year-olds who are going off to war to die for our country.” Unfortunately, numerous major conservatives have advocated for rolling back the voting rights of Americans. Supreme Court justice Anthony Scalia, Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), and Sen.-elect Mike Lee (R-UT) have all advocated for repealing the 17th Amendment, which would end direct election of U.S. Senators and return Senate elections to the purview of state legislatures. (H/T: Tea Party Nationalism) 
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#1. To: Brian S (#0)
That's too much like the founders desires. It wasn't 'till 1850 a non property owner could vote.
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