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

[SBGM247]

Trigger warning: strong political views / rant incoming. A shrinking group is expected to fund an expanding system. The system increasingly penalises work while rewarding dependency.

AIBU to think the modern state is a parasite, and that only those who are a net positive in taxes should be able to vote, rather than forcing working people to support an ever-growing dependent class?

Currently ~21% of working-age adults are economically inactive, meaning not working and not actively seeking work (according to a research brief from the House of Commons). Democracy is broken if voters can vote themselves benefits paid for by others. Representation should be weighted toward those with demonstrable responsibility and contribution.

Currently, the state is extractive and hollowing out the middle class. As anyone that has the eyes to see and ears to hear will know, dependency is rising and and demographics are changing at a rate not seen outside of wartime.

To address this simply, I think if you’re on benefits you should lose the right to vote until you’re a net positive. That would restore equilibrium.

This is essentially Chesterton’s test of a society.

"An honest man falls in love with an honest woman. He wishes, therefore, to marry her, to be the father of her children, to secure her and himself. All systems of government should be tested by whether he can do this.

If any system, feudal, servile, or barbaric, does in fact give him enough land, work, or security that he can do it, there is the essence of liberty and justice.

If any system, Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Green, Reform, or technocratic, does in fact give him wages so low and conditions so insecure that he cannot do it, there is the essence of tyranny and shame."

If the state could stop turning people into dependents that working people have to pay for, that would be great. The state is bloated, fixated on wealth redistribution rather than wealth creation, and actively working against the people it is meant to represent. It is incapable of creating the conditions for wealth, stability, and independence. This is managed decline, and we need some adults in the room who have read a book. AIBU?

Yes. The thread you're finding hard to follow can be best picked up in the Chesterton quote in my original post. Reread it.

What net benefit is there for the high earning, hard working, disabled person in this scenario not having the vote?

The NHS has ‘lost’ the money that funds their treatment either way. What benefit is there for the greater good / “betterment of all” if they don’t have a vote?

The quote that mentions the Green and Reform parties that were formed after Chesterton’s death? Unless you mean a different Chesterton to the one I’m thinking of?

David Starkey does some good stuff explaining Tony Blair damaged the UK’s unwritten constitution by breaking roles that were meant to overlap, be restrained by convention, and held together by habit rather than statute.

He turned conventions into law, removing the ambiguity that had restrained power.

He split the Lord Chancellor’s role, stripping out its balancing function by separating overlapping responsibilities into narrower, technocratic ones.

He replaced multi-role institutions that forced trade-offs and judgment with single-issue working groups, fragmenting authority, weakening accountability, and removing the tension that had restrained power.

He created the Supreme Court, weakening parliamentary sovereignty by importing a more politicised judicial model.

He made long-standing roles redundant without replacing their constitutional function, damaging precedent and eroding the informal guardrails that had held the system together.

Yes it's worth paying for absolutely

It's a heuristic. There will be exceptions to the rule but it's still useful if not always true etc...

Is that the most intelligent answer you could produce?

If my pet poodle gave birth I would expect it to produce offspring with at least some poodle DNA. I could choose the parentage carefully to aim for a healthy pedigree puppy. From the puppy's perspective it's DNA is pure luck since it has no agency in choosing it.

I pay 55% tax not including all the hidden taxes

I'm thumb typing with minimal effort.

Do you know something ? It took me four passes of that wall of text before I realised it wasn't actually answering the question posed.

It's not luck at all.

I explained it to you but I can't understand it for you. Sorry.

Well, yes. That's because you are one of societies good eggs.

But as a sovereign citizen aren't you exempt from taxes ? I'm sure I was once told that. Somewhere.

Unfortunately for you, repeating yourself like a broken record doesn't make your argument any more valid.

No need to be sorry. I'm grateful you spared a few seconds of your time to even consider my existence. I know how busy you are.

The state also governs people who don't pay tax. They're entitled to their say as much as anyone.

Ironic.

@SBGM247

Mate, this is so clearly lazy AI to any of us currently working in industries involving it at all 😂

“…fragmenting authority, weakening accountability, and removing the tension that had restrained power.”

We did live in a society like that, once. It was highly exploitative and those who were wealthy made damn sure it was as hard as possible for anyone else to 'level up' by restriction their access to education, etc. This ensured that if you were born into a certain social class, you had no means of raising yourself out of it.

If the only means by which a child can receive education is by hoping that somebody is kind enough to volunteer, that child may never get the opportunity to be educated to the same standard as the child of wealthy parents. What that means is that a cycle of class poverty becomes impossible to get out of. Of course, that suited a lot of people, because, as has been said on this thread, the wealthy need people to do the dirty stuff they don't want to do.

So you make sure they've no way out. No route available to them. You don't make people more self sufficient by this approach, you simply make them less capable of changing their own circumstances. So then we are back to a state of affairs a lot of people put a lot of time and effort into getting us away from. A class-riddled society with little mobility and a small number of people holding not only all the wealth, but all the means of obtaining it.

I really feel you should acquaint yourself with history of this nation, so you can have some idea of the problems with that model.

If you read this thread at no point have I said people shouldn't have access to education or healthcare. In face, the opposite. They should! But if they're taking more than they're giving they don't get to vote.

I don't care 🤷‍♂️

The most honest thing you’ve said all afternoon. Well done

But I specifically asked you about that example. You didn’t say it would be an exception. You said a high earning, hard working person with a disability that costs the NHS more than they pay in tax should lose their vote.

When I checked if that’s what you meant, you clarified yes, they should and that it would be for the betterment of all.

I asked what the net benefit would be and now you claim heuristics?

You were very clear. Even high tax payers who become disabled and cost more than they put in should lose their vote.

With no net benefit (unless you can actually think of some) this is simply a punishment for someone being disabled and doesn’t benefit anyone at all.

The same money is still ‘gone’ from the NHS. The same tax is still paid into the system. The disabled person just loses voting rights.

OK? But now we're clear and understand each other. Great.

Yep.

You'd probably find some people who aren't allowed to vote becoming less and less compliant in that case.