Point Systems

Following up last week's "Thought" about the French being French. Now the Brits are acting...well..very British. Let’s examine the highly protective UK environment where legislation may soon be enacted not to keep just things or institutions more British, but the actual people. "The Plan" is to tighten the requirements for citizenship by assigning a point system that all the undesirable foreign types invading the shores of the Mother country would have to score to reach the goal of British-hood. Points would be added for things like having talents that provide positive contributions to British life, being really good at football, owning Harrods, or not killing anyone for at least 5 years. Deductions would be taken for breaking the law, being anti-social (meaning not being very good at football), displaying disregard for British values, or for questioning why celebrities like Elton John receive knighthoods. OK. Some of these are my additions but I think they are good ones.

The fact that the UK would even consider such a point system is indicative of the national culture just as what the French do to try to preserve their institutions is very French. But this UK Plan may send the wrong message although I sympathize with many of the factors that have led to this rather extreme step.

Here in the U.S. I question whether every citizen really should have the right to vote. I know this sounds incendiary but if people are totally ignorant of the people and issues, on what basis are they deciding who to vote for? I don’t worry about the foreign born who have become citizens as they had to pass a Citizenship test that proves they understand issues and how our government works. I’m concerned with the native born idiots. And if this group becomes the majority of the voting public (I think it is getting there), then the candidates will become even more evasive about their stance of the issues and just run either a popularity contest or a mud-slinging negative campaign against their opponents. Neither serves our voters nor our institutions. And this ignorance crosses all social, ethnic, racial and religious lines. The uninformed are everywhere. And their voting decisions can affect us all in a very negative way. So let’s have at least a very elementary point system to determine if someone should be granted that priceless gift of being able to make an informed decision and vote. Our Founding Fathers didn’t think the average person had the brains to make informed decisions and that’s why we had Electors and the Electoral College. Maybe they were on to something.

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