Maximum Age Limit for Voting ?

A question posed at Quora: Should there be a ‘Maximum Age Limit’ for voting in elections?





Oh dear! A quote: “Discrimination on the basis of age is as unacceptable as discrimination on the basis of any other aspect of ourselves that we cannot change.”
― Ashton Applewhite, This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism.

Elections, in the UK, USA and in most other countries are an opportunity to vote for representatives in government (local and national) for a limited period - 4 years, 5, 6 and with the opportunity, in future elections, to extend, within limits, those periods. Older voters most certainly have a stake in how their city, town, county, state or country will be governed during the next few years. To argue otherwise has no basis in fact.


A few snips from Quora answers:

At what point do you feel a Senior Citizen’s opinion has become so worthless that his/her Constitutional right should be revoked? As I see it: understanding, knowledge, experience, preferences, and opinions do not come with a shelf life like a carton of milk. (from Al Nolf's answer)


But just to be devil’s advocate, the best reason to limit the voting right of the very aged (say 85+) is that they are not going to have to live with the long-term consequences of their vote and so their votes should not have as much sway. My own parents actively decided not to vote once they got to be in their mid-late 80’s for just this reason. They felt the world belonged to the younger folks and they should be the ones to decide how it went forward.
(From Ellen Garbarino's answer.)


Yes, there should be a maximum age limit for voting. It’s better known as death. Up to that point — but hopefully not beyond — we need the input from people who have actually been around the block a few times.
(From Susan C Weber's answer)

Absolutely not. Only someone young and inexperienced who has not experienced the process of aging, who has not looked back on their lives with regret in regards to the assumptions they were so sure about would propose such a ridiculous idea. (Ridge Green's answer)


Mark Hartman wrote (with the added disclaimer "/sarcasm"):
I am all in favor of imposing a maximum age limit, and raising the minimum age limit.
No person below the age of 30 should be permitted to vote.
No person above the age of 150 should be permitted to vote.



And Al Eisenmenger wrote:
If it were not for the Senior Citizens that fought for your right to vote you wouldn’t have a Country to vote in….

Voting Conservative/Republican

I've pondered before on the question of why some people's political preferences are as they are. Three of my archived posts, with interesting commentary beneath, from 2011, 2012 and 2014:

Political Preference - Brain Differences? Astrology in there anywhere?

LEFT-RIGHT

All in the Mind

Astrology apart, I can understand why the wealthy, and better-off land-owners, farmers, ranchers, lesser aristocracy (in the UK), or well-heeled professionals etc would vote conservative/Republican. I have never understood why everyday people of modest means at best, ranging to those in virtual poverty, would even consider voting conservative/Republican. They do. They vote conservative/Republican in droves.

I lived in various locations in the UK for more than 60 years, and in south-west Oklahoma for the past 11 years. Same thing happens in both countries, though I do believe it's more obvious here in the USA where, in certain areas, there exists more severe poverty.

Googling around the net, realising that many others must have puzzled over this same question, I found a few suggestions, which boil down, in a few words to:

Pursuit of aspirations, a bit of mild social climbing - mistakenly assuming conservatives will help lift them "up" to join, if not the golden ones, at least the rhinestone crowd.

The "I'm alright, Jack!" syndrome (well-known in the UK) prevalent in those who have secured a decent job and could not care less about other unfortunates, so vote conservative to ensure their taxes remain at lowest possible level.

Propaganda from radio, newspapers and TV (I'd add churches too, for the USA). Misguiding gullible, trusting folk whose knowledge of politics is skimpy, if any at all, and they lack or energy time to pursue more information, being hard pressed to work enough hours to feed their families.

A feeling that "liberals", who are often seen as "the elite" in the USA, look down on the less well-off and the poor, who then group together and vote "the other way", not realising that voting conservative/Republican is not going to change a darn thing - only make it worse!

Personally, I could never ever, ever, ever vote conservative/Republican - nor for any Democrat who is not truly of the left-wing (most of 'em here in the USA are really not of the left). Whether this is due to something in my astrology, or in my ancestral DNA of generations of serfs in feudal England, I know not.

The bells, the bells....

This little story came to contributor johndamos at The Smirking Chimp in an E-Mail. He knows not where it originated nor who wrote it, but my thanks to him and to them, whoever they are.

The Story Of Butch the Rooster

Sarah was in the fertilized egg business. She had several hundred young pullets (young female chickens) and ten roosters to fertilize the eggs.

She kept records and any rooster not performing went into the soup pot and was replaced.

This took a lot of time, so she bought some tiny bells and attached them to her roosters. Each bell had a different tone, so she could tell from a distance which rooster was performing. Now, she could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report by just listening to the bells.

Sarah's favorite rooster, old Butch, was a very fine specimen but, this morning she noticed old Butch's bell hadn't rung at all! When she went to investigate, she saw the other roosters were busy chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing, but the pullets hearing the roosters coming, would run for cover.

To Sarah's amazement, old Butch had his bell in his beak, so it couldn't ring. He'd sneak up on a pullet, do his job, and walk on to the next one.

Sarah was so proud of old Butch, she entered him in a Show and he became an overnight sensation among the judges.

The result was the judges not only awarded old Butch the "No Bell Piece Prize" they also awarded him the "Pulletsurprise" as well.

Clearly old Butch was a politician in the making. Who else but a politician could figure out how to win two of the most coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the unsuspecting populace and screwing them when they weren't paying attention?

Vote carefully in the next election. You can't always hear the bells.

(If you don¹t send this on, you're chicken …… no yoke! )

A Standing Ovation - A Slow Handclap - and A WHERE ARE THEY? ( Extra-terrestrials) and A Little Astrology.

Standing ovation and 3 cheers for Texas state senator Wendy Davis (Democrat), who last night spoke for more than 10 hours, a filibuster attempt in a bid to run out the voting window on a bill which would have banned abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and required all clinics to be graded as surgical centers, with all doctors required to have admitting privileges at hospitals, due to which most of the state's clinics wouldn't have been able to meet the new standards. Her attempt stalled about two hours ahead of the deadline over a complaint that she had violated rules. The Republican-controlled Senate then began voting on the bill, amid protests from spectators. Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst (Republican), after meeting with lawmakers, said some of their votes came in after midnight local time (0500 GMT), the effective end of the 30-day special session. He blamed the "unruly mob" at the capitol, according to the Dallas Morning News. (Three cheers for the "unruly mob" too!) Governor Rick "Oops" Perry could still revive the proposal by calling the legislature into a new special session. HERE.

BUT

Sarcastic slow hand clap for SCOTUS and especially for Chief Justice Roberts (Sun Aquarius, 27 Jan. like me) who should know better, for invalidating part of the Voting Rights Act, thus allowing several pieces of legislation in the states, designed to make voting more difficult for minorities, stalled by Section 4 of the Act 'til now, to go through unhindered - until Congress writes a new Section 4 (could be never!)HERE.


Oh my! So, let's talk of other things...."shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings", and extra-terrestrials:

I can't now remember which online article set me on a search - a wild goose chase for information on Fermi's Paradox (aka "Where are They?"). Whatever I'd been reading must have been about the likelihood of contact from extra-terrestrial civilisations.
(Illustration: h/t to William M. Briggs )



Wikipedia's page details numerous ideas on the possible reasons for extra-terrestrial non-communication to date.

In a nutshell Fermi's Paradox is explained HERE thus:

The story goes that, one day back on the 1940's, a group of atomic scientists, including the famous Enrico Fermi, were sitting around talking, when the subject turned to extraterrestrial life. Fermi is supposed to have then asked, "So? Where is everybody?" What he meant was: If there are all these billions of planets in the universe that are capable of supporting life, and millions of intelligent species out there, then how come none has visited earth?

For anyone who holds the belief that "there is something" in astrology, in its most basic premise anyway, a whole different set of questions arises in addition to "where are they?" Fermi's Paradox really proves the height of human hubris: based on the assumption that alien life forms will be similar to us in desires, aims, broad personality traits, similar technological advances, and ability, or wish, to be communicative, and communicative in some way we'd appreciate and associate with what we know as communication.

From Wikipedia's page on Fermi's Paradox this explanation for the non-communication, so far, came the closest to my own feelings:

They are too alien

Another possibility is that human theoreticians have underestimated how much alien life might differ from that on Earth. Aliens may be psychologically unwilling to attempt to communicate with human beings. Perhaps human mathematics is parochial to Earth and not shared by other life, though others argue this can only apply to abstract math since the math associated with physics must be similar (in results, if not in methods.)

Physiology might also cause a communication barrier. In Contact, Carl Sagan briefly speculated that an alien species might have a thought process orders of magnitude slower (or faster) than humans. Such a species could conceivably speak so slowly that it requires years to say even a simple phrase like "Hello". A message broadcast by that species might well seem like random background noise to humans, and therefore go undetected.

Scientists routinely ignore astrology, of course. The vast majority of 'em look on astrology as absolute rubbish or ignorant superstition. I don't accept, wholesale, what astrology textbooks set out either, I believe there is some rubbish to be found there, a fact which has done the reputation of astrology no good at all. But I believe that there is something in astrology's basic premise.

At one of my favourite websites on the net The Library of Halexandria Dr. Dan Sewell Ward quotes Arthur M. Young on Astrology, and mainstream science’s inability to come to grips with it. the whole extract is great stuff, here's the part I want to highlight:

“..........So I must take the gods and their correlation with the planets on faith. Let us see what this faith entails.

“I . That the solar system is an organon.

“II. That the organon is ‘a process machine’ having a number of distinct periodicities or rhythms.

“III. That said rhythms are indicated by the planets.

“IV. That the direction in which planets ‘point’ at any given time indicates, or creates, the zeitgeist of that time.

“V. That the pointing of the planets produces such zeitgeist because the directions are themselves different in quality.

“VI. That the planets, because of their difference of period, contribute to the different powers of persons.

“VII. That a person’s birth is an introduction into this organon. A birth is an enrollment, as it were, to ‘take a course in the universe.’ The birth establishes the central stance. The motion of the planets thereafter" establishes the scenario.”

For the sake of argument, even if a passing reader be a devout non-believer in astrology, just assume for a moment that there is some validity in the ancient doctrine's basic premise. If life has arisen on another planet, either in our own Milky Way galaxy, or in another galaxy far, far away, planetary components, in relation to position of the Sun (or a star in place of our Sun in another galaxy) will be very different from what we experience on Earth. Life forms, even if vaguely comparable to humans physically, would be psychologically different, in ways we cannot even begin to contemplate, because our Earth-bound minds are just that: "bound" - unable to stretch.

I looked around the net to discover whether any brave astrologer had tackled this topic head-on. The only examples touching on this, even obliquely, I was able to find were:
HERE

"• First you have to deal with a larger question: What happens to astrology if humans colonize space?
• And, of course, does astrology even make sense for fictional characters and stories?
• Another consideration is whether or not our science fiction tales reflect an astrological zeitgeist?"

And Extraterrestrial Astrology by Luciano Drusetta HERE.

Our Earth-bound minds are shackled to narrow perceptions, on every issue.

The more I think about this, the more I believe that expecting communication from extra-terrestrial living beings has to be a lost cause. A passing reader might consider it strange that I chose that particular photograph as my overall blog header: The Very Large Array in New Mexico. It's a daily reminder of an exciting trip there, and it proves one thing about Earthlings, myself included of course: we live in hope.

TIME TO VOTE

Voting day, November 2008 was my first ever chance to vote as a US citizen. I then felt buoyed up with anticipation and hope. Today, 4 years later, I feel only apprehension bordering on despair. In tune with my own feelings, a couple of pieces by writers who also appear to find themselves near to deep despair:

The S & M Election by Chris Hedges

Against Voting: "As long as we live we shall have to live together with ourselves" by Arthur Silber at Once Upon A Time
(4 November 2012)

So.... off to the voting station soon, in my head an old but still relevant song by Leonard Cohen:



Know what I'm going to be wearing ?

.....These rose colored glasses, that I'm looking through
Show only the beauty, 'cos they hide all the truth,
And they let me hold on to the good times, the good lines....

VOTING THE ZODIAC

Here's something mildly astrological I concocted for fun during the 2008 election - still works, I think:

If the signs of the zodiac were personified, and were to vote in an election, how would each proceed to make a choice? The following are not intended to relate to a person's Sun sign especially, but if a passing reader can recognise herself/himself in any of the descriptions, or in a combination of them, it could well be an indication of the sign's(s') energies coming through loud and clear in the personality.

ARIES....Likely to choose early and vote early - knows what's what well ahead of time.

TAURUS.... Choice made after taking into consideration which candidate offers most safeguards and likelihood of improvement for savings and material possessions.

GEMINI.... Available choices discussed at length with friends and relatives, likely to change mind at least once in the process.

CANCER....Main consideration: a candidate to whom the family could relate on a personal level, appreciates a candidate with old fashioned family values.

LEO....It takes one to know one - surveys the candidates first and foremost for signs of a true leader and chooses accordingly.

VIRGO......Has carefully researched voting records and history of each candidate before making a choice.

LIBRA....The consummate swing voter - has difficulty in discarding either candidate, can see points in favour of both.

SCORPIO....relies strongly on intuition, once voting direction is chosen, is unlikely to budge.

SAGITTARIUS.... imagines the best, most optimistic future scenario and votes for the candidate with policies which offer a possibility of bringing it to reality.

CAPRICORN....Similar to Taurus, and with an eye on how choice will affect business matters.

AQUARIUS....Choice made based on which candidate is more forward-looking and likely to best serve the needs of ordinary people.

PISCES....Had a dream on the eve of the election and votes accordingly.

SCYLLA or CHARYBDIS ?

Off to the voting booth today, to make a choice between Scylla and Charybdis. Huh? Rock and a hard place! Frying pan and fire. Lesser of two evils, 6 of one half a dozen of t'other. Republican and Democrat. Almost Hobson's choice, but not quite - at least not on paper.

In the astrological chart for today Moon in Virgo sits opposite Uranus/Jupiter in Pisces. If we take the Moon as "the people" (as in horary astrology) symbolically the people are opposing significant change, represented by Jupiter/Uranus. Jupiter/Uranus in Pisces, sign of dreams and illusions, so in reality any chance of change is illusion. Politics itself is illusion in the USA - a show to distract us all while the real powers that be get on with their dirty work.

So....Scylla and Charybdis - thereby hangs a tale.



Scylla was a beautiful water-nymph, but she scorned Neptune's son, Glaucus, and angered the enchantress Circe, who made a mixture of poisonous plants and poured them in the water where Scylla bathed in the area we know as the Straits of Messina, the strip of sea between the toe of Italy's "boot" and the coast of Sicily. When Scylla went in the water up to her waist, she found herself surrounded by a brood of serpents and barking monsters. She tried to escape, but the serpents and monsters became a part of her. She would, forever after devour hapless sailors that came within her grasp. One version of the story tells that she had 6 heads on long necks, with 3 rows of teeth, her lower half made up of barking dogs.




Scylla lived in a cave located opposite to Charybdis, a dangerously strong whirlpool. Three times each day the water rushed into a huge chasm, then thrice was disgorged. Any vessel coming near the whirlpool when the tide was rushing in must inevitably be engulfed and destroyed.




Scylla and Charybdis are encountered in a story from The Odyssey. It concerns the voyage of Odysseus when he arrives with his crew at the Strait of Messina.

Ulysses had been warned by Circe of the two monsters Scylla and Charybdis. On approaching the area, the roar of the waters of Charybdis provided ample warning, but Scylla remained hidden. While Ulysses and his men watched, so to avoid the dreadful whirlpool, they were not equally on their guard from the attack of Scylla. The monster darted forth, caught six of his men, and bore them away, shrieking, to her den. However, he had avoided total destruction of his craft and crew by the whirlpool Charybdis. At a later stage in their journey, though, the rest of Ulysses' crew met their deaths... but that's another story.

Extending the myth of Scylla and Charybdis to the voting booth, which would be the better choice of candidates and responses to state questions, in order to avoid total destruction, while still being prepared to lose something important along the way? The answer might seem obvious to some voters. My preferred answer would be to turn the ship around and find a third route, an escape from illusion. That's not an option in our case though.

"Eeny, meeny, miny moe....... "

THE RIDE'S ALMOST OVER!

It's a long time since I felt so keyed-up! I could weep and jump for joy at the same time. Neither is appropriate - yet! The roller-coaster ride to the US general election is almost at an end. "Roller-coaster" is apt, the ride wasn't nearly graceful enough to be likened to the Carousel or Waltzers. It has been zany enough at times to resemble the Fun House, and scary as the Ghost Train at others. But even more appropriate than the Roller-coaster is the House of Mirrors, astrologically this would be the domain of Neptune.

Neptune features strongly in this election. After a period of apparent backward motion the planet began to move direct on 2 November. Neptune relates to illusion, delusion, imagination, and an aura of fogginess. The planet is prominent in Senator Obama's natal chart, and in Sarah Palin's, both have Sun square Neptune, both have an ability to project to the public the image each person wishes to see. Transiting Neptune stationing close to Obama's ascendant and Palin's Sun (and my re-located ascendant) on election day is likely to intensify this "see what you want to see" effect, all day long and for some long while afterwards. House of Mirrors!

The sky could not be more aptly in tune with what's going on just now - Uranus at 18* Pisces exactly opposite Saturn at 18* Virgo: Change (Uranus) opposes the status quo (Saturn).

Mercury concluded its retrograde period in October, which is good news. There's less potential for technical hitches in the voting process - though many suspect human manipulation might still cause a few of those!



It'll be my first chance to vote in my new country. I'll take great satisfaction in doing so after experiencing, over the last four years, an expensive roller-coaster ride myself, immigration-wise! I'd been in the USA just over a week when George W. Bush was re-elected president in 2004. That was a bitter disappointment. Although my initial status as a legal permanent resident was adequate for most purposes, it didn't allow me to vote. Determined that I'd be able to do so by 2008, I applied for US citizenship immediately I became eligible. That final process took exactly one year, now I get to reap the reward for all the frustration involved.

We might take advantage of early voting at the courthouse today if the lines are not as long as they were on Friday. Otherwise, we'll be at our local precinct voting station bright eyed and bushy-tailed tomorrow morning.

Voting Signs

If the signs of the zodiac were personified, and were to vote in an election, how would each proceed to make choices? The following are not intended to relate to a person's Sun sign especially, but if a passing reader can recognise themself in any of the descriptions, or in a combination of them, it's an indication of the sign's(s') energies coming through loud and clear.

ARIES....Likely to choose early and vote early - knows what's what well ahead of time.

TAURUS.... Choice made after taking into consideration which candidate offers most safeguards and likelihood of improvement for savings and material possessions.

GEMINI.... Available choices discussed at length with friends and relatives, likely to change mind at least once in the process.

CANCER....Main consideration: a candidate to whom the family could relate on a personal level, appreciates a candidate with old fashioned family values.

LEO....It takes one to know one - surveys the candidates first and foremost for signs of a true leader and chooses accordingly.

VIRGO......Has carefully researched voting records and history of each candidate before making a choice.

LIBRA....The consummate swing voter - has difficulty in discarding either candidate, can see points in favour of both.

SCORPIO....relies strongly on intuition, once voting direction is chosen, is unlikely to budge.

SAGITTARIUS.... imagines the best, most optimistic future scenario and votes for the candidate with policies which offer a possibility of bringing it to reality.

CAPRICORN....Similar to Taurus, and with an eye on how choice will affect business matters.

AQUARIUS....Choice made based on which candidate is more forward-looking and likely to best serve the needs of ordinary people.

PISCES....Had a dream on the eve of the election and votes accordingly.

***** ***** ***** *****

And.... a passing reader might wish to take a couple of minutes to watch this brief video. As the friend who passed it on to us remarked, "You don't see something like this every day!" These are not your usual political activist celebrities, though they will probably be familiar faces to most in the United States.

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die