The definition is citizenship is arbitrary. It seems reasonable to have different regions apply different definitions that work for them.
Your opinion seems to be that people always votes selfishly? That everything is zero sum? If that’s the case then why did the people with power in NYC choose to give up power to those without a voice? Democracy is a force for good when done right.
If they live and vote in your city, shouldn’t they have a voice in the place they live?
> Those who are here illegally and will vote for more free stuff and those who are incredibly wealthy and will vote for more tax breaks for themselves and their properties.
The wealthy are already doing a fine job on tax evasion, I’m deeply skeptical that there are a game-changing number of wealthy non-citizens in that group. As for the “free stuff” argument – even liberal U.S. cities rarely give things away without many strings and historically this has always been a net economic win because people who aren’t in poverty participate more in the economy. I’d be shocked if it cost the city even half of what, say, the hundreds of millions of dollars spent annually due to lawless behavior by the NYPD.
The article explicitly states that only certain legal residents will be allowed to vote.
Also, green card holders and immigrants with other statuses in NYC have significantly less income than both naturalized and U.S. born citizens(see figure 8 in [0]).
I’m currently living in a jurisdiction that allows most immigrants to vote. All resident EU citizens can vote in local elections in the UK, and all resident Commonwealth citizens can vote in all elections. I don’t think members of these groups vote overwhelmingly for free stuff or for tax breaks.
> Here are people who are not citizens of your country and they get a vote in how things are run.
gasp - people living in and contributing to a country getting to voice their democratic opinions on how things are run? what an absolutely terrible idea! they will just vote for more free stuff, everyone knows this! the party that doesn't get their vote told me so.
Everyone can vote in local elections in Ireland, no matter their citizenship.
In fact everyone can run for local election too... If you live in a place you should have some say on how it is run, how your taxes are spent. It causes no problems. National and constitutional votes are a different story... I am much less in favour of letting citizens who live abroad vote... at the end of the day, they have no skin in the game.
If something isn't a new proposal, but rather something that's been proposed and debated in multiple places, it seems kind of odd to automatically assume it passing somewhere is a conspiracy theory.
The EU already has this albeit only for citizens of other EU countries. One of the important things a government does is allocate tax money, and sets priorities. If you pay taxes you should have a say in how this money is spent. I also think it's really weird that I get to vote in my home country and decide what the people there should do without having to live the consequences of those decisions or even pay for them.
> Seems about the same as US states allowing people from other US states to vote.
That's not a correct analogy. The EU is a voluntary economic coalition of multiple sovereign nations while US States are administrative districts of a single sovereign nation. EU nations allow residency status to citizens of other EU nations, but it's definitely still "moving abroad" not like "moving from California to Texas"
But the EU wants to move in the direction of a single sovereign nation, doesn't it? Letting citizens vote for EU level elections is a step towards that.
But most EU countries won't yet allow EU citizens from other countries to vote for, e.g. president of that country, to my knowledge.
I don't know if it wants to move there, but even if it does it's not there yet. So it's not the same as someone moving from Texas to California. That's like saying I am about the same as Steph Curry because I spend a couple hours a day practicing three pointers.
>while US States are administrative districts of a single sovereign nation
this is false. under a unitary government system
that would be true but the US runs under a federalist system. states and the federal government are considered sovereign---at least as far as domestic issues go---and maintain a clear separation of powers. federal government is involved with national and intra-state issues while the states are involved with police and making regulations for their citizens. the federal government, can't, for example dissolve a state government like China could dissolve a province's government.
Total tangent but: Ignorance of the federal structure of the US is unbelievably rampant, especially at an intuitive level and even (or especially?) among educated parts of the population.
I recommend keeping an eye out for it whenever you're baffled by political discourse around a given topic. It's pretty fascinating how often it pops up and explains how two sides of a conversation can be speaking completely different languages.
Not exactly, but we're arguing semantics. Nothing I said contradicts what you wrote.
Still, Federal Law supercedes State Law, and no State Constitution can contradict the US Constitution.
Your Federalist idea was probably more true before the Civil War, but these days not so much. No, in practice, States are administrative regions, not sovereign powers. Whenever governors or state legislatures start behaving as if they are, they get slapped down by the Feds. qv the Rhode Island governor trying to prevent New Yorkers from entering; California legalizing Marijuana; Arkansas cops raiding Indian reservations selling cigarettes.
I mean, unless you want to define "administrative region" as "able to be dissolved by Presidential fiat" then, sure. Ok. Otherwise it's a distinction without a difference.
Not on state issues. The federal government has to stay in its lane.
> no State Constitution can contradict the US Constitution
Yes, they can, unless explicitly overridden. For example, most states do not have grand juries, even though the U.S. Constitution requires one before charging someone with a felony.
There's a legal definition of "administrative district" I was unaware of that necessarily excludes States? If so, this could be one of the most interesting conversations I've yet had on HN. If not, this is the silliest conversation I've yet had on HN.
Agreed that it's silly. There's pretty much nothing sillier than when people who have never worked in the field try to pass themselves off as legal experts on the Internet.
It's even more silly when those same people deliberately truncate statements. What you claimed was "States are administrative districts of a single sovereign nation"
Argue whatever semantics you want about the definition of "administrative district." Sovereignty has a well-developed legal definition, and it emphatically applies to each of the fifty states.
The Supreme Court has ruled on this issue countless times, from Chisholm v. Georgia (1793) ("I acknowledge, and shall always contend, that the States are sovereignties") to Gamble v. United States (2019) (reaffirming the dual sovereignty doctrine).
You're arguing against the statement "The US is a single sovereign nation"
States having sovereignty is a distracting non-sequitur. It's not relevant.
The original comparison was States to EU members. If you want to argue they all have 'sovereignty', fine. They all have a thing called 'sovereignty'. But Italy doesn't care about Oregon's sovereignty. Italy doesn't deal with Oregon as a nation. Oregon can't declare war on Italy nor negotiate peace. Italy doesn't recognize Oregon's governor as a Head of State. For all intents and purposes, to Italy and the EU, Oregon is an administrative district not a "sovereignty".
A Greek citizen cannot move to Sweden and vote in national elections as easily as a Texan can move to Massachusetts and vote in state elections. There are a lot of reasons for that which have zero to do with State "sovereignty".
Non-sequitur. Remember, the comparison is the EU (multiple sovereign nations, plural) to the United States, a single nation. Is it the word 'sovereign' that's confusing people, here? 'Administrative districts'?
>Is it the word 'sovereign' that's confusing people, here? 'Administrative districts'?
Perhaps, since US States are closer to sovereign than to administrative districts. In reality, they are neither. But to call them administrative districts is easily falsifiable, so I think that's why you got pushback.
Things like gay marriage up until a few years ago, abortion laws and drug laws today are the most visible examples where states are far from administrative districts. People can open up stores in some states to sell drugs out in the open, despite them being illegal according to the US Government. Yet there is nothing the Federal Government can do to stop it. Even taxation where you see some states have no state income tax (Florida, Tennessee and a few others) while states like California tax almost everything. The Federal government has no power over the states in those areas. None.
Whereas gun laws are probably the best example of the limits on that sovereignty only because the enumerated things in the Constitution (ie 2nd Amendment) put some limitations on the freedom of states to do as they please. But the Constitution is a small document and the limitations contained are few, leaving states with far more power than an administrative district.
> to call them administrative districts is easily falsifiable
Perhaps if we had a common definition of what "administrative district" means, then I would agree. Until then, we're all just making things up inside our heads and arguing about that. Even the lawyer scolding me here for discussing such matters without his permission admitted there is no legal definition for that term.
There is nothing about the plain definitions of "district" nor "administrative" that does not apply to the (US) State, and if anyone argues otherwise they're choosing an unwarrantedly restrictive definition. There is nothing inherent about that term that excludes domestic "sovereignty" nor asserts anything about State relationship to the Feds.
Again, the original contrast is sovereign nation to top-level region inside sovereign nation. I labeled this "administrative district" as a generic term for all of the States/Provinces/Oblasts/Regions/what-have-you in every country of the world, of whatever size, number, method of government. None is like the other, except that they are all districts (using the reasonable, every day, broad definition) that are administered in some way, whether by a governor, king, parliament, minister, whatever.
And now, we are literally arguing semantics.
> closer to sovereign
At the risk of my getting bullied by the lawyer again, you all really have to get off this tip. Internationally, no one cares about state "sovereignty". It has meaning only inside the US. It's like the word "Autonomous" appended to the name of some administrative districts of the USSR. It surely had some legal meaning within their framework, and for them their "Autonomy" was very, very, very important but no one else cares. As far as anyone else cares, how the US chooses to "administer" its "districts", it has nothing to do with international sovereignty. I'm sure if I said the USSR was autonomous like the US is but unlike their respective administrative districts, some pedant would argue about how this or that Oblast is "autonomous", too, completely unlike the US states. That's what's happening here.
As a legal resident of Finland, from NYC, I can vote in local, municipal elections here, too. I think it actually makes sense to let people who pay tax have a say in how it is spent.
Because there could be other reasons why you should have a say in what the government prioritizes. My main point is that living somewhere should be reason enough, and for people saying that being a foreigner disenfranchises you from deciding if the city should prioritize bike lanes or parking spaces, I say those things are paid from my taxes, and I should have a say.
"Because I pay taxes I should have a say in how that money is used" seems like an argument, but you also seem to reject the inverse of the argument "Because this person doesn't pay taxes they shouldn't have a say in how tax money is spent". That makes it seem like you don't believe that paying taxes is what entitles a person to vote.
Regarding your other point, that "living somewhere should be reason enough" that is really just a restatement of the conclusion. i.e. "Non citizen residents should be allowed to vote because non citizen residents should be allowed to vote." It's tautological.
To me, it doesn't make sense to say that long term residents who have invested in the community, potentially over generations, should have an equal vote to newcomers who are not even citizens.
By this logic, wouldn’t it be better to consider who will be investing in the community moving forward, rather than looking backward?
Where someone lives is the biggest investment they can make. It cannot be collected by rich people, and even poor people invest where they spend their time.
People putting money in to something is often out of self-interest. Those people already have the control afforded to them via money - an inequality that should be reduced, not exacerbated, by voting.
> Where someone lives is the biggest investment they can make. It cannot be collected by rich people, and even poor people invest where they spend their time
All of these arguments apply to citizenship too, even more strongly. I've lived the majority of a year on three different continents, but have never changed my citizenship. It's also not accurate to say that the rich are less able to take advantage of this: the fact that I was able to try these things out is precisely because I'm rich.
I don't think the newcomer/old-timer distinction mentioned upthread is especially useful, for the reasons you already outlined. But formal citizenship maps almost precisely to being invested in a place: it's a commitment that you identify with this society and its future, (mostly) to the exclusion of any other society.
I agree, except citizenship has significant hurdles to immigrants. And lots of people take theirs for granted.
People who immigrate and become citizens, yes - they are invested. I don't think people who are natural citizens are as invested (except by default). And I definitely don't think people who are non-citizens are not invested -- they aren't allowed to "invest" in the same way.
For local residency, it's a little different since it's relatively easy to switch residency (at least here in the US).
The best indicator of what a person will do is what they have done. Someone who has spent a lifetime in a place is more likely to spend the next five years there too. Someone who moved recently is likely to move away when whatever advantage drew them in draws them out.
Enfranchising citizens is also a message to citizens that they should care about the long term of their country, state, or city. If the state will care about you and your posterity then you should care about it. Conversely, if the state won't especially care for you and yours then you don't need to care for the state.
Let's break this down because I am a little confused as to why you and the other poster brought up the inverse of the original argument.
Original Claim: Because I pay taxes I should have a say in how that money is used.
Restatement: If I pay taxes, then I should have a say in how that money is used.
If P then M.
You suggested that the OP is making a mistake because he is rejecting the inverse of his statement and that somehow his original claim is weakened as a result.
You say that OP is wrong to reject "If Not P, then Not M", however the inverse of a conditional statement is NOT logically equivalent to the original statement and as such it's rejection has nothing to do with the validity of the original claim.
The inverse of a conditional does not follow from the original conditional. What follows from the original conditional statement "If I pay taxes, then I should have a say in how that money is used" is the contrapositive: "If I do not have a say in how the [tax] money is used, then I do not pay taxes". That is all, nothing more. You cannot infer anything beyond that from a simple conditional.
Say P is "Pay taxes" and M is "deserve to vote". The original claim is: If P then M. What I am pointing out is that the original poster thinks M without P. In other words, the original poster thinks that you can deserve to vote even without paying taxes. If that's true, then "I pay taxes therefore I deserve to vote" isn't meaningful because you apparently deserve to vote whether or not you pay taxes.
Another way of looking at it is, suppose the original comment said "I am tall, therefore I deserve to vote." If someone replied "Do you think short people deserve to vote?" What this line of questioning is trying to pin down is, what is it, exactly, that entitles people to vote. If short or tall people can vote then it seems that height is not really related to the right to vote. Analogously, if tax payers and non-payers alike can vote, then it seems you think paying taxes is unrelated to the right to vote.
To return to symbolic logic - "If P then M" and "If not P then M" means that P isn't really related to M. P says nothing about whether or not M. That's the point I was trying to make by asking about the inverse.
it is sad that people believe that is function of government.... Wealth Redistribution. Government sole and only purpose should be protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign. Not to redistribute wealth based on the whims of the majority
I am also intrigued to know if you would accept removing representation from those that are not tax payers, that receive more in government subsidies and benefits than are paid in taxes
After all if there is no taxation with out representation, should it not follow there should be no representation with out taxation?
No, I already explained above. I never mentioned wealth distribution. Protection of persons, liberties, all of the above -- how do you get that? How do you pay for it? Taxes. But that's not all, what about all the public infrastructure like roads, without which you cannot have a functioning society? But wait, it's not even only that -- who decides on what is more important, the police or the fire department? So why shouldn't a foreigner get to decide if the government should be composed of people who want to prioritize the fire department instead of the police? People vote with their own interest of any kind in mind, that's how majorities are formed that decide how things should work. If you remove a part of society from the equation, that part gets to foot the bill for what somebody else wants. If they are good enough to be members of the society and have responsibilities (e.g. taxes), they are good enough to have privileges (deciding on how the taxes are spent).
>>how do you get that? How do you pay for it? Taxes.
There are any number of Public Finance theories that do not require individuals to pay taxes, when talking about taxes most infer income based taxation, there are many ways to fund a limited "night watchmen" state that do not involve income based taxation, and some that do not even involve taxation at all.
>>But that's not all, what about all the public infrastructure like roads, without which you cannot have a functioning society?
ahh the who will build the roads meme... I can assure you a functioning society with roads is possible with out the government funding said roads. Infact based on the condition of most roads I would much rather someone else take that over. Roads are often given the LEAST resources by government because it is the lever government always pull to justify more taxes, thus they will NEVER actual fully maintain the roads because then they would lose their on going coercion to extract every growing amounts of money from the public.
I would encourage you to really look at where the money in your local government goes, see what percent is taken up by road maintenance. I think the results of your inquiry would be illuminating
>who decides on what is more important, the police or the fire department?
I would prefer those services be billed monthly via user fees just like my water, sewer, trash, and even storm drainage is by the local government.
>>If they are good enough to be members of the society
I never said they should not have the right to vote in local elections, you made that assumption based on me challenging your position on using taxation as rational for who has or does not have the right to vote.
> a functioning society with roads is possible with out the government funding said roads
Do you have any real world examples of functioning societies where none of the roads are funded by the government (or similar quasi-government collective)?
So... You do realize that this is all related to NY allowing residents to vote in LOCAL elections and that my comment is about that? With a specific comparison to the EU that does the same (but only partially sadly)? Why does it matter what is theoretically possible? It is currently the case that it gets funded from taxes I guess pretty much everywhere. Thus despite not having a citizenship, foreigners have an additional claim why they should decide how the pie is sliced -- namely, that they pay for the pie. I never wrote anywhere that taxation should be the only factor in who gets to vote, and if there was any confusion about this, I wrote so explicitly in another post. So I would encourage you to start reading what other people specifically say, the context behind it and not have knee jerk reactions.
Absolutely not. I am not the one making the claim that voting rights should be tied to taxation. I am not necessarily opposed to the NYC law either, I just disagree with the premise that we should evaluate things based on taxation as the comment I replied to suggested. That it was acceptable to give them voting rights because they paid taxes.
For federal elections I think citizenship is the proper test, or local elections I believe establishment of residency for a defined time would be more applicable qualification, tax payer status not withstanding. I do believe that residency should be a number of years greater than 1 and should apply to both citizens and non-citizens (i.e if you move from California to Florida you can not just start voting in the next local elections immediately even if you are a citizen as you have not established residency in the community)
Personally I'd rather we make citizenship easier to attain but NYC doesn't have power over that and I doubt Congress will ever fix our broken system.
Ultimately there's nothing wrong with self determination. I don't live in NYC but I'm glad they're making their own decision to become more Democratic.
Say what you want about this, the end result will always be a political tipping towards whichever party favors immigration. A voting law like this done nationally can permanently change American politics
I'm fine with this effort, but curious how they came up with the 800K number? Is that a capped number? Is that a real estimate of number of non-citizens?
The way our federal government originally worked, with a weak central government, I imagine each state could run it's own affairs in regards to voting.
Only folks who make at least 6 million a year can vote, under the original constitution a State can make this rule. Of course various Supreme Court rulings disallow this today.
I'm not okay with this though, since once you have different standards for who can vote depending on where you live , you open up an argument to have your electoral college votes voided.
Even if you claim non citizens can only vote in X,Y,Z elections, what are you doing to ensure these same people aren't ' accidentally' voting in national elections.
I'll note that in the UK eligibility to vote in local, national (and formerly EU) elections were different from each other. I assume the electoral register kept track of which criteria you met, and only sent you a polling card for the relevant elections.
Glad to see this, tying up voting rights with citizenship is a weird hang up, specially in local elections. I'm sating this from a south american country that gets a lot of immigrants, the only people not ok with this here are race nationalists.
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[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 135 ms ] threadYour opinion seems to be that people always votes selfishly? That everything is zero sum? If that’s the case then why did the people with power in NYC choose to give up power to those without a voice? Democracy is a force for good when done right.
> Those who are here illegally and will vote for more free stuff and those who are incredibly wealthy and will vote for more tax breaks for themselves and their properties.
The wealthy are already doing a fine job on tax evasion, I’m deeply skeptical that there are a game-changing number of wealthy non-citizens in that group. As for the “free stuff” argument – even liberal U.S. cities rarely give things away without many strings and historically this has always been a net economic win because people who aren’t in poverty participate more in the economy. I’d be shocked if it cost the city even half of what, say, the hundreds of millions of dollars spent annually due to lawless behavior by the NYPD.
The article explicitly states that only certain legal residents will be allowed to vote.
Also, green card holders and immigrants with other statuses in NYC have significantly less income than both naturalized and U.S. born citizens(see figure 8 in [0]).
I’m currently living in a jurisdiction that allows most immigrants to vote. All resident EU citizens can vote in local elections in the UK, and all resident Commonwealth citizens can vote in all elections. I don’t think members of these groups vote overwhelmingly for free stuff or for tax breaks.
[0]. https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/opportunity/pdf/immigrant-povert...
no longer the case from Jan 1 2021 (except for those grandfathered in)
it's now dependent on bilaterals with individual countries (e.g. Spain, Poland and others have mutual arrangements with with the UK)
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/local-voting-righ...
gasp - people living in and contributing to a country getting to voice their democratic opinions on how things are run? what an absolutely terrible idea! they will just vote for more free stuff, everyone knows this! the party that doesn't get their vote told me so.
that's not exactly contradictory with "conspiracy theory from the other side".
Seems about the same as US states allowing people from other US states to vote.
That's not a correct analogy. The EU is a voluntary economic coalition of multiple sovereign nations while US States are administrative districts of a single sovereign nation. EU nations allow residency status to citizens of other EU nations, but it's definitely still "moving abroad" not like "moving from California to Texas"
But most EU countries won't yet allow EU citizens from other countries to vote for, e.g. president of that country, to my knowledge.
this is false. under a unitary government system that would be true but the US runs under a federalist system. states and the federal government are considered sovereign---at least as far as domestic issues go---and maintain a clear separation of powers. federal government is involved with national and intra-state issues while the states are involved with police and making regulations for their citizens. the federal government, can't, for example dissolve a state government like China could dissolve a province's government.
I recommend keeping an eye out for it whenever you're baffled by political discourse around a given topic. It's pretty fascinating how often it pops up and explains how two sides of a conversation can be speaking completely different languages.
Not exactly, but we're arguing semantics. Nothing I said contradicts what you wrote.
Still, Federal Law supercedes State Law, and no State Constitution can contradict the US Constitution.
Your Federalist idea was probably more true before the Civil War, but these days not so much. No, in practice, States are administrative regions, not sovereign powers. Whenever governors or state legislatures start behaving as if they are, they get slapped down by the Feds. qv the Rhode Island governor trying to prevent New Yorkers from entering; California legalizing Marijuana; Arkansas cops raiding Indian reservations selling cigarettes.
I mean, unless you want to define "administrative region" as "able to be dissolved by Presidential fiat" then, sure. Ok. Otherwise it's a distinction without a difference.
> Not exactly
Yes, exactly.
> Federal Law supercedes State Law
Not on state issues. The federal government has to stay in its lane.
> no State Constitution can contradict the US Constitution
Yes, they can, unless explicitly overridden. For example, most states do not have grand juries, even though the U.S. Constitution requires one before charging someone with a felony.
>>> this is false
>> Not exactly
> Yes, exactly
There's a legal definition of "administrative district" I was unaware of that necessarily excludes States? If so, this could be one of the most interesting conversations I've yet had on HN. If not, this is the silliest conversation I've yet had on HN.
It's even more silly when those same people deliberately truncate statements. What you claimed was "States are administrative districts of a single sovereign nation"
Argue whatever semantics you want about the definition of "administrative district." Sovereignty has a well-developed legal definition, and it emphatically applies to each of the fifty states.
The Supreme Court has ruled on this issue countless times, from Chisholm v. Georgia (1793) ("I acknowledge, and shall always contend, that the States are sovereignties") to Gamble v. United States (2019) (reaffirming the dual sovereignty doctrine).
States having sovereignty is a distracting non-sequitur. It's not relevant.
The original comparison was States to EU members. If you want to argue they all have 'sovereignty', fine. They all have a thing called 'sovereignty'. But Italy doesn't care about Oregon's sovereignty. Italy doesn't deal with Oregon as a nation. Oregon can't declare war on Italy nor negotiate peace. Italy doesn't recognize Oregon's governor as a Head of State. For all intents and purposes, to Italy and the EU, Oregon is an administrative district not a "sovereignty".
A Greek citizen cannot move to Sweden and vote in national elections as easily as a Texan can move to Massachusetts and vote in state elections. There are a lot of reasons for that which have zero to do with State "sovereignty".
That is not accurate. Most of the legal power in the US comes from the individual states, unless specifically enumerated at the federal level.
Perhaps, since US States are closer to sovereign than to administrative districts. In reality, they are neither. But to call them administrative districts is easily falsifiable, so I think that's why you got pushback.
Things like gay marriage up until a few years ago, abortion laws and drug laws today are the most visible examples where states are far from administrative districts. People can open up stores in some states to sell drugs out in the open, despite them being illegal according to the US Government. Yet there is nothing the Federal Government can do to stop it. Even taxation where you see some states have no state income tax (Florida, Tennessee and a few others) while states like California tax almost everything. The Federal government has no power over the states in those areas. None.
Whereas gun laws are probably the best example of the limits on that sovereignty only because the enumerated things in the Constitution (ie 2nd Amendment) put some limitations on the freedom of states to do as they please. But the Constitution is a small document and the limitations contained are few, leaving states with far more power than an administrative district.
Perhaps if we had a common definition of what "administrative district" means, then I would agree. Until then, we're all just making things up inside our heads and arguing about that. Even the lawyer scolding me here for discussing such matters without his permission admitted there is no legal definition for that term.
There is nothing about the plain definitions of "district" nor "administrative" that does not apply to the (US) State, and if anyone argues otherwise they're choosing an unwarrantedly restrictive definition. There is nothing inherent about that term that excludes domestic "sovereignty" nor asserts anything about State relationship to the Feds.
Again, the original contrast is sovereign nation to top-level region inside sovereign nation. I labeled this "administrative district" as a generic term for all of the States/Provinces/Oblasts/Regions/what-have-you in every country of the world, of whatever size, number, method of government. None is like the other, except that they are all districts (using the reasonable, every day, broad definition) that are administered in some way, whether by a governor, king, parliament, minister, whatever.
And now, we are literally arguing semantics.
> closer to sovereign
At the risk of my getting bullied by the lawyer again, you all really have to get off this tip. Internationally, no one cares about state "sovereignty". It has meaning only inside the US. It's like the word "Autonomous" appended to the name of some administrative districts of the USSR. It surely had some legal meaning within their framework, and for them their "Autonomy" was very, very, very important but no one else cares. As far as anyone else cares, how the US chooses to "administer" its "districts", it has nothing to do with international sovereignty. I'm sure if I said the USSR was autonomous like the US is but unlike their respective administrative districts, some pedant would argue about how this or that Oblast is "autonomous", too, completely unlike the US states. That's what's happening here.
Regarding your other point, that "living somewhere should be reason enough" that is really just a restatement of the conclusion. i.e. "Non citizen residents should be allowed to vote because non citizen residents should be allowed to vote." It's tautological.
To me, it doesn't make sense to say that long term residents who have invested in the community, potentially over generations, should have an equal vote to newcomers who are not even citizens.
Where someone lives is the biggest investment they can make. It cannot be collected by rich people, and even poor people invest where they spend their time.
People putting money in to something is often out of self-interest. Those people already have the control afforded to them via money - an inequality that should be reduced, not exacerbated, by voting.
All of these arguments apply to citizenship too, even more strongly. I've lived the majority of a year on three different continents, but have never changed my citizenship. It's also not accurate to say that the rich are less able to take advantage of this: the fact that I was able to try these things out is precisely because I'm rich.
I don't think the newcomer/old-timer distinction mentioned upthread is especially useful, for the reasons you already outlined. But formal citizenship maps almost precisely to being invested in a place: it's a commitment that you identify with this society and its future, (mostly) to the exclusion of any other society.
People who immigrate and become citizens, yes - they are invested. I don't think people who are natural citizens are as invested (except by default). And I definitely don't think people who are non-citizens are not invested -- they aren't allowed to "invest" in the same way.
For local residency, it's a little different since it's relatively easy to switch residency (at least here in the US).
Agreed, this is a significant mitigating factor, which might make the policy make sense in any given situation.
Enfranchising citizens is also a message to citizens that they should care about the long term of their country, state, or city. If the state will care about you and your posterity then you should care about it. Conversely, if the state won't especially care for you and yours then you don't need to care for the state.
Original Claim: Because I pay taxes I should have a say in how that money is used. Restatement: If I pay taxes, then I should have a say in how that money is used.
If P then M.
You suggested that the OP is making a mistake because he is rejecting the inverse of his statement and that somehow his original claim is weakened as a result.
You say that OP is wrong to reject "If Not P, then Not M", however the inverse of a conditional statement is NOT logically equivalent to the original statement and as such it's rejection has nothing to do with the validity of the original claim.
The inverse of a conditional does not follow from the original conditional. What follows from the original conditional statement "If I pay taxes, then I should have a say in how that money is used" is the contrapositive: "If I do not have a say in how the [tax] money is used, then I do not pay taxes". That is all, nothing more. You cannot infer anything beyond that from a simple conditional.
I suspect you have committed the inverse error. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denying_the_antecedent
Another way of looking at it is, suppose the original comment said "I am tall, therefore I deserve to vote." If someone replied "Do you think short people deserve to vote?" What this line of questioning is trying to pin down is, what is it, exactly, that entitles people to vote. If short or tall people can vote then it seems that height is not really related to the right to vote. Analogously, if tax payers and non-payers alike can vote, then it seems you think paying taxes is unrelated to the right to vote.
To return to symbolic logic - "If P then M" and "If not P then M" means that P isn't really related to M. P says nothing about whether or not M. That's the point I was trying to make by asking about the inverse.
I am also intrigued to know if you would accept removing representation from those that are not tax payers, that receive more in government subsidies and benefits than are paid in taxes
After all if there is no taxation with out representation, should it not follow there should be no representation with out taxation?
There are any number of Public Finance theories that do not require individuals to pay taxes, when talking about taxes most infer income based taxation, there are many ways to fund a limited "night watchmen" state that do not involve income based taxation, and some that do not even involve taxation at all.
>>But that's not all, what about all the public infrastructure like roads, without which you cannot have a functioning society?
ahh the who will build the roads meme... I can assure you a functioning society with roads is possible with out the government funding said roads. Infact based on the condition of most roads I would much rather someone else take that over. Roads are often given the LEAST resources by government because it is the lever government always pull to justify more taxes, thus they will NEVER actual fully maintain the roads because then they would lose their on going coercion to extract every growing amounts of money from the public.
I would encourage you to really look at where the money in your local government goes, see what percent is taken up by road maintenance. I think the results of your inquiry would be illuminating
>who decides on what is more important, the police or the fire department?
I would prefer those services be billed monthly via user fees just like my water, sewer, trash, and even storm drainage is by the local government.
>>If they are good enough to be members of the society
I never said they should not have the right to vote in local elections, you made that assumption based on me challenging your position on using taxation as rational for who has or does not have the right to vote.
Do you have any real world examples of functioning societies where none of the roads are funded by the government (or similar quasi-government collective)?
For federal elections I think citizenship is the proper test, or local elections I believe establishment of residency for a defined time would be more applicable qualification, tax payer status not withstanding. I do believe that residency should be a number of years greater than 1 and should apply to both citizens and non-citizens (i.e if you move from California to Florida you can not just start voting in the next local elections immediately even if you are a citizen as you have not established residency in the community)
Ultimately there's nothing wrong with self determination. I don't live in NYC but I'm glad they're making their own decision to become more Democratic.
Should be 'whichever party does not disfranchise a large group of people living within its jurisdiction'.
Only folks who make at least 6 million a year can vote, under the original constitution a State can make this rule. Of course various Supreme Court rulings disallow this today.
I'm not okay with this though, since once you have different standards for who can vote depending on where you live , you open up an argument to have your electoral college votes voided.
Even if you claim non citizens can only vote in X,Y,Z elections, what are you doing to ensure these same people aren't ' accidentally' voting in national elections.