Vote buying is properly illegal and should not be entrenched in the voting system itself. Allowing billionaires to swamp everyone else with their votes is not representative government and has nothing to do with rational selection of government representation.

Heinlein's bizarre theory, stated here as the right to vote must be earned by "service in the military or other duties requiring some degree of personal sacrifice", is irrelevant altruistic sacrifice and collectivism. Arguing whether one can vote during or only after a completion of sacrifice is like the rationalistic, meaningless arguments from false premises of Middle Ages Scholastics.

Errors (not betrayal) in the Constitution do not mean there is no right to vote, nor is it true that "as it was written voting is not a right", nor do rights, including those exercised locally, come from the Federal government at all. Rights in the Constitution were codifications of natural rights in the form of objective acknowledgments of procedures and requirements limiting government power. The Bill of Rights included "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people" and "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people". None of that means that voting is not a right, either natural or civil encoded in law, or that the Constitution says it is not a right.

"So what we have now supposedly represents..." is not a conclusion from what I wrote and changes the subject from the sweeping claim that "strictly speaking there shouldn’t be voting at all". There cannot be a government representing the people without the people being able to select who runs it.

“The right to vote is a consequence, not a primary cause, of a free social system—and its value depends on the constitutional structure implementing and strictly delimiting the voters’ power; unlimited majority rule is an instance of the principle of tyranny.”
-Ayn Rand

It is an idea. See my comments here about THE SECRET OF THE LEAGUE by Ernst Bramah. There, shares in the government were 500 UKP each. Each share was a vote. Buy as many as you want.

Voting is not a right.

Ayn Rand identified or at least suggested that the Constitution was betrayed by its own internal contradictions. And as it was written, voting - which is controlled LOCALLY not by the federal government - is not a right.

So what we have now supposedly represents the people of the USA under a constitution and is run basically by the majority of the people

It certainly makes me uneasy that despite that constitution , this country has become fascist and run by a leftist mob

Just makes me very uneasy that I can’t not support this government when it violates my rughts

What does any of that have to do with what we are talking about? Changing the culture requires rational education over time, not "messaging to public" assuming "willing proletarian masses", whatever that means.

Whatever "messaging" is involved in the short term would have to be principled rational appeals to individualism and what is left of the American sense of life in commentary and in politics (not waiting for the eve of an election) to the extent feasible at this stage of the culture, not manipulative demagoguery pandering to the opposite.

What is a "circle jerk" and what does "like this forum" mean?

Messaging to public, that needs to be turned around. Anyone else (like this forum) is a circle jerk!

Taking a Boy Scout's position that "This is the right way" is L O N G lost.

The proletariat masses are willing, but we need to turn them back, against the messages of the totalitarians , who have already grabbed the wheel. "Eat your spinach" is a dead loser.

Government is not an anarcho-capitalist self-perpetuating corporation that is either 'contracted' with or ignored. It represents the people of the nation under a Constitution. Who runs it is selected by those people.

If the government doesn’t violate my rights, don’t I vote by freely supporting it or not supporting it?

I suppose if you are proposing the government was acting like a corporation where I am a stockholder, I suppose voting for the board of directions would be appropriate.

What messaging to whom? It's a statement here of the essence. What is a "boy scout's position"?

I agree with everything except the messaging and path pack to where we started. Just taking a boyscout's position will fail.

Those who take money from others should be in jail. That's not a matter of voting or forfeiting future voting.

As government makes more and more people dependent on it, taking away the right to vote would be massive and result in dictatorship, but it can't done that way. The welfare state mentality will not allow removing voting rights for receiving government subsidies, but it has other ideas of how to rationalize disenfranchisement.

What "diatribe"? The country got into this state from the spread of false ideas over a period of more than a century. It won't get out of it without changing the ideas widely accepted. Proper basic principles of reason and individualism must be articulated and defended.

Who's the coward who emotionally 'downvoted' this distinction and ran from the discussion.

Well, good luck changing 150 million people's mind with that diatribe.

The problem you have is not accounting for how the people who run the government are selected.

Welfare statism will not be replaced by private charity without reversing the altruist-collectivist mentality. "Compromises" will continue in the same trend to mean increased statism. Their "compromises" always mean taking what they can get and coming back for the rest later.

I think the problem I have is that what exactly would a government do that it needed to collect votes on. If the money coming into it was determined by freely given donations, the lack of donations in itself would determine if it was approved of by the populace.

I agree that I don't pay income tax in Washington state (I'm a state employee), but I do pay Federal income taxes and the Feds don't employee me. I'm not sure I understand how can suggest that I don't pay taxes. Additionally, I am a land owner and it is my understanding that, once upon a time, they were the ONLY people who were allowed to vote (a situation I likely would've agreed with).

I don't know Heinlein's Theory (though I'm a fan of his writing), but since it IS a theory, I will maintain my position and disagree with it. So far as I am aware, my copy of the U.S. Constitution doesn't have any wording that precludes U.S. servicemen from voting, though there may be some interpretation of that document I haven't been led to understand.

I'll have to say, that an appeal to fairness in:
1) Changing Welfare from a charity donation to a get off welfare program
2) Appeal to fairness, which clearly works. We are paying for these people, why are we having them decide our future.
This will work if the government INCREASES welfare funding, with an act to institute a privately run program to take people off it, and then as the welfare roles drop, appeal to fairness.
Getting people to agree welfare is inappropriate will NOT happen as a next step from where we are.

"Turning the ship" requires changing fundamental ideas popularly accepted. Attempting to remove the right to vote by welfare recipients without that is hopeless. It is not a practical "sell" when most people think welfare is a "right". It only plays into the hands of those promoting class warfare and promote the notion that political disputes are class warfare, not differences in principles.

So, you are bailing out?