Smallville Drinking Game

Vote for Meritocracy

I thought I posted this a couple of weeks ago, but apparently not.

My buddy over at Eccentri City (EC) and I were having a conversation about the sad state of our political system. During the discussion, I pointed to the Democratic primary as an example. When they were breaking down who voted for who, there was a trend. Most of the Clinton voters were lower to middle class and less educated. Most of the Obama voters were better educated and more affluent. As in, the same type of people who voted for George Bush, were voting for Hillary.

The point I was making to EC, is, do we really want the less educated, poor assed, not as bright people actually making the decision as to who should be president? My opinion is of course not, we have 8 years of proof of what happens when you vote for the person you'd rather have a beer with.

EC responded with that's why we need a system based more on meritocracy. For those of you who don't know, as per dictionary.com meritocracy is "an elite group of people whose progress is based on ability and talent rather than on class privilege or wealth."

EC's idea is that the voters use this in adjusting how their vote counts. Currently, it's one vote per person. Under EC's system you get points for achievements in your life. For Example: You get a point for military service, a half point for an Associates degree, and a full point for a bachelors. What you do for a living should also play into effect. The college professor should get potentially 2 points as compared to a corporate office monkey like myself, who only gets 1, to the Wal-Mart employee who gets no additional points. If you are a welfare mother with 5 kids, you actually loose a point.

Personally I think it's a pretty good idea. It makes sense that the person who is potentially more knowledgeable on the subject have more say in it.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I've heard comments that this system would be too complicated to impliment and maintain.

Yea, luckiliy we have concise systems like the electoral college and buildings filled with volumes of tax code as a good example of how simple our current system is.
MGD said…
you know, I thought about going into the pitfalls of the electoral system in this post as well, but that antiquated system can be an entire post of its own.
Anonymous said…
Another benifit to a meritocractic system is that your are less inclined to be voted into office on simple popularity as it happens now in our democracy. In a meritocracy, the culture of merit vs. popularity based on superficial criterion prevents people like Arnold becoming the governer of our most powerful state because "he looks like a guy who can kick butt if aliens attack!"

Unlike government institutions, corporations oftem run on this type of system because they are forced to be efficient and promote the best people to survive. I think we ought to extend that efficiency and fairness to the public world.
Rooster said…
to expand on the "welfare momma with 5 kids get a point taken away", I would like to see it taken a step further.

We take that vote, and actually remove it from the candidate being chosen by her.

Why? Because that usually means that she supports the candidate that in reality promotes these welfare momma's living off our tax dollars.
Rooster said…
OK, I thought more about my last comment and I changed my mind. I don't it would be necessary based on the cost to benefit ratio.

Who was I kidding? Welfare momma's don't vote. They are too busy changing their 5 babies diapers, trying to claim money from the 5 different fathers. Oh ya, and the whole taking our hard-earned tax money that could be used for solving real crimes/terrorism/etc.

Not that I feel strongly about this or anything...
Anonymous said…
Let's play with the idea of minimum credits. In Rooster's example, maybe the welfare mom has NEGATIVE credits, thus excluding her from sufferage all together. Moreover, you would need minimum credits to even run for office, thus not including GWB, who may have had money and political connections, but has been weeded our by the meritocratic system.

Just a thought.
Quorri Scharmyn said…
Oooh.... I like the idea of not being able to run for office unless you have a minimum number of credits.

My fear is that, aside from all the awesomeness this system would entail, we would be excluding a large number of people just because they were born poor. It is usually possible to go to college and graduate anyway, like I did even though I grew up severely impoverished, but it's not always possible. So, we would have to offer college as a realistic option to everyone or provide food and housing to everyone or some other system of making sure that people had all the same chances as anyone else. Otherwise, it seems like it would just be rich people on top as usual...