Right-wing commentator: Poor people voting is ‘un-American’

So, stripped of the divisive rhetoric, what this commentator is saying is that it's unfair to inspire poor people to register to vote because you can count on them to vote for the candidate(s) who will further their interests.
Wow, did'ja ever hear of such a thing? You certainly don't see the rest of us doing that!
< /sarcasm >

reply to post by beezzer


I agree with you, those that continue to have babies when they cannot afford it, do drugs instead of looking for a job or are just plain lazy siphon from the system billion's. Some truly need help but we need better checks and balances in place to make sure they buy food with the money, spend it on their kids and dare I say cap the amount of money given by welfare to support only one child so they might have a little common sense and use a condom or birth control pill.

Those of you that dont agree are probably mostly either sympathetic rich people or poor yourself or live at home with you parents leaching off of them or worse welfare with my upper middle class tax dollars I bust my arse to make.

The more you do for others the less they do for themselves...my father taught me this when I was young and I thank him deeply for this because my strong work ethic and do not give up attitude has kept me employed.

flame all you want, in the end Allah will straiten you out...

sniper out

Are you kidding me? "Non-Productive" A majority of Americans arnt living off Ramen and water for they're health....Its because there is NO employment. If Anyone is "Un-American" its the conservatives. Id like to see this man live the poor life for a day and then have to read the crap he writes.

Matthew Vadum is not a researcher and certainly not a scientist, just a biased man seeking attention. How was he even allowed to publish? Who employs a "researcher" with an unobjective and skewed mind? Then allowing him to publish his own political agendas.

I'm tempted to say, let's not give this man any attention, but instead we should understand what goes on inside the heads of these kind of people. What make someone disregard individuals to this degree based on income? What is the next step if you deny people to vote based on certain variables? Will skin color, age or religion be next?

To exclude individuals from the human society because they are following their own interests? Don't rich people do that? Don't we all? Isn't it human nature to do so?

Unamerican, unpatriotic, it's funny, the people who throw those words around are usually the ones supporting un-american and un-patriotic ways.

This damn country has some people so screwed up.

God have mercy on us all.

The new status quo of GOP ideology is becoming more and more obvious: 1) all millionaires and billionaires are self made captains of industry and the future saviors of our nation, and 2) all poor people are bottom feeding urchins...uneducated drug addicts...criminals...every last one of them.

Originally posted by stupid human
Why not limit votes to those who pay taxes? If your not contributing then you shouldn't have a say. It might save the wealthy from having to spend untold billions thru PACs. Corporations are the sole providers for millions of Americans earning a good living. Those paychecks are taxed. Why should all these dollars be taxed again and again. Profits paid to investors are taxed at 25-35%.
Granted they are not taxed on the state level, and social security and Medicare are not included. As well as disability or local city taxes or county taxes. But if you are smart enough to invest you are not going to need these services.
People who make smart sound financial choices are much more qualified to make the hard choices. Why are people having children they can't afford. Because they don't have the ability to make smart decissions.
Votes should be counted by the accumulated wealth of the individual. The more you pay in taxes determines the power of your vote. If you want to talk about fair? If you go to a restaurant and you make more than everyone else, and everyone wants to split the bill by how much they make. Well, then your going to be taken to the cleaners.
I say 1 vote for every $10,000 you have saved. Maybe then people will start solving their own problems and stop expecting others to solve them.

Absolutely not, in your world, only the rich who have had everything handed to them on a silver plate more often than not would get a say in how things are run.

"People who make smart sound financial choices are much more qualified to make the hard choices"

I doubt some privileged 21 year old kid who goes straight from education to work in daddy's multi-million pound company is in any position to make any important decisions because most of those people have led sheltered lives. Everyone gets a vote in a 1st world country, end of story. Says a lot that the greedy rich people want to take way the votes from the poor. Shocking.

Originally posted by whaaa
www.rawstory.com...

Many conservatives appear to think badly of poor people, but Matthew Vadum of the Capital Research Center takes it a step further. According to the title of his latest article for American Thinker, he believes that "registering the poor to vote is un-American."

"Why are left-wing activist groups so keen on registering the poor to vote?" Vadum asks. "Because they know the poor can be counted on to vote themselves more benefits by electing redistributionist politicians. Welfare recipients are particularly open to demagoguery and bribery."

"Registering them to vote is like handing out burglary tools to criminals," he continues. "It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country-- which is precisely why Barack Obama zealously supports registering welfare recipients to vote. ... Encouraging those who burden society to participate in elections isn't about helping the poor. It's about helping the poor to help themselves to others' money."

Poor people also pay taxes every time the buy anything. And to disenfranchise any segment of a population because of income is treason. And how about the working poor Mr Vadum; a class of people growing larger every day. theeconomiccollapseblog.com... Class warfare indeed.........

This sort of elitist conservative attitude will in the long run help the progressives. Poor people will now hear of this attack on them and register to vote in record numbers and they will vote in their self interest; just like all members of all political flavors.

And the GOP/TPM calls the progressives elitist........

edit on 4-9-2011 by whaaa because: (no reason given)

Un-American!?

Fuc*ing retard!

reply to post by whaaa


I would tend to think the exact opposite. If anyone knows what this country needs in order to improve...It would be the poor people.

kinda funny...I'm poor, hell i am below the poverty level (I live on $1,300 a month provided by the VA) and I vote conservatively, so that person's argument is rong

reply to post by whaaa


People on welfare do not pay taxes ... Welfare is nothing more than a tool to make people dependent on the government for more control. That's all welfare is about. Here! Have some free money and vote for me! It's all about control.

As far as not letting people on welfare crutches vote ... they're bought and paid for. What is the old adage ... Don't bite the hand that feeds you? I am one of those almost poverty level ... it's getting scary for some of us. I couldn't get welfare if I begged for it. I make too much money! Yeah, right. Walk in my shoes!!

I don't trust either political party, Demopublicans or Republicrats!

Originally posted by illuminatislave

Originally posted by Elsek
To many people on here are loons. You have to weed out the sane from the insane.

Nope, you need the loons to just reassure yourself that you're not going crazy

These "loons" will say end entitlements because it will hurt a certain sector of people, but yet in the same breath they will balk at their mother or grandmother's SS and medicare being ripped away from them.

They're not only loons, but they're hypocrites and dishonest

Well, you see, people who have paid into the system with their paychecks do have it due them. Who would argue that point? People like Irwin Schiff call it a ponzi scheme, because new people have to join in to keep it going, and yet politicians have ransacked the funds. Oh while I'm thinking of politicians ransacking funds, I just read something today about how the Obama admin has raided some emergency fund in order to pay for some vacations and suits and such. What pockets wil their hands be in tomorrow? This admin just reminds me of carpetbaggers during the Civil War.

Can only comment with regards to the UK.

Poor people should vote, young people I don't think should vote. I don't know how things are in the US, but in the UK you can vote when you're 18. I honestly don't believe that 18 year olds in the UK have the necessary experience in life to vote for leadership of a country, regardless whether or not they have 10 kids and in a council house with a state paid income of 40k a year, as that that does not equal living in the real world. I personally believe that you should have experience of working, responsibility of bills and bascially living in the real world before being able to vote where by the winner will affect all these everyday issues that the majority have to deal with.
Poor people doesn't necessarily equate to having limited life experience or devoid of any understanding of paying their way, so why shouldn't they be allowed to vote? Although, poor people generally vote for the party that's giving out the money rather than one that will save, but very few people vote with an objective open mind and for what will benefit the country as a whole. Everything is about what is the benefit for me if I vote for X party and X party gets in to power. It just so happens in times where the economy is on a downward spiral, generally, people will look to the party that will save rather than who will spend. I guess poor people won't change their mind either way, but with a UK welfare bill of 170 billion a year, the biggest expense that we have, then maybe re-education is necessary or better still providing these people with an alternative to being poor. Many in this country are used to living off the working tax payer and getting an income from benefits that dwarfs many average working families. However, as I said, poor people doesn't necessarily mean that they don't work or don't have a legit reason for not working i.e disability. So to say poor people shouldn't vote, is a bit of sweeping comment of discrimination that could affect many good people who do work hard but don't make much money.


For what it's worth, I think voting is a waste of time anyway, they're all the same and will simply serve to benefit those who truly control a country. I still vote, but I honestly see no difference in any of them! Lately my vote has been going to anyone other than the main three in the UK (Cons, Libs and Lab).

Here is what else Vadum said (in that article)

"'Something that needs to be explored is the roots of ACORN in the 1960s,' Vadum continued. 'It grew out of the radical welfare rights movement. And the idea behind that was that not enough people were on welfare and that you needed to pack the welfare rolls with as many people as possible in order to overwhelm the governments -- the various levels of government -- and cause social chaos.'"

He also talked of the Cloward/Piven Strategy, which we know that Glenn Beck also talked about on his show. If any of you really care about the truth, you would know that the radical left has been using this Cloward/Piven strategy to overburden the system and cause it to crash.
While I would never support any suggestion of leaving out a segment of American citizen in the voting booth(that would just be downright uncivil) this guy does make valid points about ACORN and Cloward/Piven. He has made a poor choice of words on the poverty thing.
I mean cmon how hard is it to figure out that if you give free stuff to people they will vote for you.

reply to post by lildaddy985

There is a lot of treasonous chatter coming from the right as of late.

What other treasonous chatter may I ask? Please be specific.

Please keep in mind these definitions of treason when you answer

the offense of acting to overthrow one's government or to harm or kill its sovereign.

a violation of allegiance to one's sovereign or to one's state.

the betrayal of a trust or confidence; breach of faith; treachery.

dictionary.reference.com...


And finally, please hold yourself to the same standard as you hold others.

Originally posted by TheSnowman

Originally posted by whaaa

Poor people also pay taxes every time the buy anything. And to disenfranchise any segment of a population because of income is treason. Class warfare indeed.........

Come on, you and I both know that poor people spend all their welfare money on drugs. They don't even buy food, they just run on crack.

Seriously though, how can you say it's unamerican for somebody to vote? There are at least 4 different amendments to the constitution that are there just to make sure everyone has an equal opportunity to vote.... I just don't have words for this guy that would get through the censor.

Hey Jack, Your "joke" puts you in the same line and makes you look just as ignorant as Matthew Vadum of the Capital Research Center for his aforementioned comments. Maybe SILVER SPOONS, like the one you and Mr. Vadum, most likely have sucked on for the entirety of your life, have long-term side effects which cause you to be unoriginal, parroting, judgmental Jack-ass'....

Personlly, I think it'd be great if evangelicals would not vote as they by definition want a theocracy possibly even more than militant Muslims (who pose no real imminent threat to our society, unlike evangelicals). Funny, but one can find a direct correlation to the our increasing dysfunction as a society with the concurrent rise of evangelical influence. Evangelicals hate God and worship hate.

Originally posted by beezzer
No, i'm not for silencing you. Your voice needs to be heard so people can see the extremeness in your beliefs.

Originally posted by David9176

I'M ALL FOR SILENCING YOUR VOTE BEEZER.

No, you are all for screwing those who are already in the dog house.

Just admit it.

Tell me how your ideology is going to help those who are struggling.

By allowing them to live off the teat of government.


And btw, just because some one isn't as extreme as you doesn't make them a progressive. Most of the time, IT MAKES THEM NORMAL....something you are not.

You are nothing but an extremist.
No. I'm just for giving everyone a chance. Not seting them up to live a sad life dependent on the government.

I guess I have a sad dependent life on the government because my father left when I was 10 and my mom had to raise me with a 40 hr/week job at a grocery store at like $9.50/hr and zero child support, If it was not for basic foodstamps [not the ones where you get actual cash] I really don't know how I could have afforded to EAT EVERYDAY...

I suspect you are one of those people who never got in a fight before or visited a poor neighborhood, but the world is not some fancy place where you can just get any job or go to college, now a days its difficult to even finish high school in a mostly african american school [i know firsthand] when your family has low income.

Seriously I can't stand people like you, who automatically assume every person who is on any kind of welfare = 100% useless to society. I'm so useless im joining the air force to try and make a life for myself and get an education, but that never would have been possible without the government assistance so my mother could afford basic shelter and to raise me on her own.

reply to post by whaaa


So then, the wealthy vote for the interest of all? For everybody's welfare? I think not. They vote for their interests only. The problem is, there are not that many of them. The poor will always outnumber them, out vote them, and slow down the train to utopia.

It makes sense then to take away their vote. No method is perfect (read: Diebold) so one more tool into the fray is not a bad idea.

Originally posted by beezzer
What did he say that wasn't true?
The poor will vote for more entitlements, it's in their own best interests. What needs to be done is to get them NOT to be poor anymore.

But what progressive would want to lose their base?

What he said was pure generalization to support his own worldview. When he votes he supports his own best interests, maybe he should not be able to vote? Perhaps if he was willing to keep his companies jobs in America and pay his fair share of the taxes their might be fewer poor?