AIBU to think if you're a net negative in tax you shouldn't be able to vote?

Doesn’t get the “noggin jogging” at all as it’s transparent nonsense.

Bonkers. This is surely just a goady thread to get people riled up?

You say pensioners would be OK as they had been economically active in their lifetime - how about SAHM? Would they have to somehow prove they’d been overall a net contributor to the pot?

I did. I have answered it in good faith, taking it at the face value of being a genuine point of discussion. I have given you historical precedent. I have given you a detailed argument as to why you are not better placed than me to have a say, through voting, on the issues facing this country.

I have not called you names, or suggested you are anything other than a genuine poster. In response, you've backtracked down the, 'it was just a bit of a joke', line, you've used the bunch of flowers reaction on my posts (I still don't really understand that reaction button) and at one point you agreed with everything I said, in complete contradiction to your original position.

I'm not really offended, I'm just passionate about voting. I've voted every time since I've been old enough. And I think it's a right I earn by being a law abiding citizen of this country who takes the time and trouble to understand what it is I am voting for. In a true meritocracy, I'm the very person who ought to be top of the list of voters, because I'm someone who thinks it's an important thing to do.

I don't see that my bank balance has any bearing on my ability to make an informed decision. I DO pay taxes, just not as much as net contributors like yourself. So my money is going in the coffers. But even if it wasn't, even if I paid nothing at all (which would mean I'd have to not buy anything or go out anywhere), I'd still have the 'right' because I live here.

The government doesn't just decide who gets what and who pays what. The decisions it makes impact all our lives to a greater or lesser degree depending on the situation. Hyperbolic, I know, but if we get bombed, I'm just as dead as you. If I've voted for a government that causes WW3, and I knew it's actions were going to result in that, I would have to take some responsibility.

That's what voting is about. Taking responsibility for the place you live in and the actions of its government. My right to vote gives me the right to challenge, to question. If you don't want a nation of dependents, why would you entrench the dependency of lesser earners by removing their right to vote.

If course, it's all a bit of a thread for laughs, you don't really want to discuss, but that's a shame. It could have been far more interesting.

You know full well that I've read your posts, including the AI generated ones. We've had enough back and forth on this thread for you to know that.

As I said, no substance, no sign of intelligent debate. No intention to engage in any sort of meaningful discussion. Not someone well-equipped to make decisions on behalf of society.

Prove me wrong. How will limiting voting rights to net contributors improve things and for whom?

Where do you stand on the fact that universal credit is a subsidy allowing large companies to pay less? Do Tesco shareholders get a vote or does their dependency on UC to remain in profit make them ineligible?

Also apologies if I've missed it but have you clarified your intent behind women with kids not paying taxes? Is that meant to encourage men to stay at home and women to work in a couple or not? What about the fact that this would leave mostly only people without children with a vote?

If, and it's a very big if, your intention was to start a genuine discussion about the state (or what you refer to as the state when it's clear you actually mean the welfare state), then the clumsy and inept way you've gone about it should suggest to you that you aren't quite as well equipped to make decisions as you thought you were. You haven't said anything of substance. You haven't acknowledged any of the flaws in your plans and explained how you think they could be overcome. There is nothing to suggest that you are capable of making competent decisions on behalf of society.

But there's still a couple of hundred posts left before the thread is full. Plenty of time for you to articulate intelligently what policies you would actually want to see implemented by the net contributors, what the consequences might be, and how you would tackle them.

But the overwhelming majority do not so why do you act as if you’re winning the debate?

Oh, this is excellent bait OP. Reeled everyone right in!

The country should be run by a group of 15 sensible mums who dont actually want to do it. The world should be managed on this basis actually. No men. They have made enough of a mess already.

There is no data to suggest people choose benefits as a lifestyle. How could there be? One of the options for reasons for claiming isn't 'choose not to work', so where would it come from? How can any researchers draw conclusions that people who have convinced decision makers they are unable to work are really simply unwilling?

This absolutely.

I'm not a dependent. I don't claim anything. What this government does affects me because I live here. So why does the fact that I don't earn what you earn equate to me forfeiting my right to vote in your utopia?

You haven't really explained that, to be honest. You have said you'd like me to be paid more, and in the next breath, you've said you don't think you should pay the taxes that would be necessary for me, a state employee, to be paid more.

You oddly think we'd be better off if only people who were 'net contributors' could vote, but haven't answered any of the valid reasons given by myself and others as to why that is the case.

I can't help wondering if this is a little bit like the team that wins the election never complains it is rigged. You are unhappy because the wrong lot got in. You're fine and dandy with who votes when everybody votes your way.

Which would be funny if that's the case, because it's actually been a long time since voting lines have been divided along the lines of, 'rich - labour poor - Tory'.

Voting is a responsibility I take very seriously, because people died in order for me to have it. I don't think it's a light-hearted 'joke' to discuss taking something away from me that someone once thought was valuable and important enough to starve themselves in protest to get it.

If you are offended that I am offended it might be because you don't value your right highly enough, which hardly gives me confidence that you are the best person to be in possession of it.

Is this bollocks still ongoing?😂

The poster who pays high tax to sit on MN all day. Yeah right

Defeated by a landslide majority then! Oh well, never mind. Perhaps a few tweaks to your manifesto and you may get a better result next time.

I’m writing this for the third time OP: the laugh is on you.

You’re claiming to be playing around but it’s a dangerous area to play in.

“Don’t play with matches.”

You’ve been saying hateful things; now you’re trying to day it’s just a game. You can’t have it both ways.

Two hundred people have pushed the agree button but it doesn’t mean they’ve thought it through.

i think you need to straighten out your thinking too.

It must be hard when one's clever thread devolves into nothing but people laughing at you.

And as I lived in a very deprived area and nothing was given to me, I feel like it's a little unfair for others to suggest I don't care

Oh dear, dragging out the hard up childhood. Low, very low. More to the point, in your example the one doesn't follow from the other. Critical Thinking 101.

Your lack of caring is evident in the very premise of this thread.

Petulant.

And I'm the problem. Got it.

What a sad little troll you are.

The state is not 'building a dependency class'. We have had a welfare state for a long time and the general direction of travel since the 80s has been to make it progressively more difficult to claim.
People are typically claiming benefits because they are too old to work, too sick to work, or their wages are too low to live on. None of those things are a reason to disenfranchise them. Nor would taking their vote mean they were suddenly young, healthy and got a pay rise.
There is no data for the number of people who choose benefits as a lifestyle. However, should this group exist in a significant number, I'd very much doubt preventing them from voting would change their attitude.
So your idea would achieve nothing of value while destroying the democratic process. An idea with a significant cost and no benefit is invariably a stupid one.