Now that he's opened this box....

Dumb Idea of the Day Courtesy of Ezra Klein

Ezra Klein, the founder of journolist, proves yet again why whatever the Washington Post is paying him is much too much:

Here’s your out-of-the-box policy idea for the day:

America should implement weighted voting to make voting more objective and fair, and give the young more power, because the consequences of political decisions will affect them the longest. Weighted voting would restore power to twenty and thirty year olds, where it resided before the advent of medical science. With the aid of computers, it would be easy to give everyone a Voting Score, just like we all have a credit score.

Go here to read the rest. Klein contends that he was attempting to make a Swiftian point against the Electoral College and the Senate. Alas, Swiftian observations such as this should normally be left to Jonathan Swift. Treating states as equal entities in the Senate, or the Electoral College electing presidents, whatever their merits or demerits, have little to do with a proposal to make some citizens “more equal than others” in all elections. That smacks of George Orwell much more than Mr. Swift.

Is it time to do as one of the commenters posted:

Criteria for voting:

Your govt loans are paid off.
You’re not on govt assistance (e.g., welfare)
You’re a tax payer.
You have served your country (Military, Police, Fire Figher, Peace Corps, etc.)

Perhaps those criteria are too harsh. But implementing them would eliminate the rise of a whole class of people enslaved to the teat of the public treasury who then vote for the continuation of bread and circuses.