There is a minor-grade push right now to have felons be able to vote in places where they currently are legally disenfranchised by (insert your government name here).
Sure, they did their time. They’ve paid their debt to society. Right, good, fine. Except not so much. The headline news when someone gets convicted of a felony is that they get sent to jail. That’s only one part of the punishment. The other part of the punishment is the loss of some rights of citizenship. That is part of the punishment for their crime. They haven’t fulfilled their entire sentence yet because they’re still alive. As long as that’s going on, in some places felons have no right to vote. Some States have said, once you do (insert felony crime here) you are forever less-worthy than full citizens, and you forever lose your right to vote.
Child molesters also have to register as Sex Offenders for life. Do you want them to not register as sex offenders? Consider that the recidivism rate of babyrapers is very high, and then consider having one of them move next door to you and he looks like your favorite uncle. Do you really want to not be able to find out this person is a babyraper before you leave the kids with him? No, you don’t. So we have Sex Offender Registries. It is part of the punishment for the crime.
So, you say it’s unfair we take their tax dollars and don’t let them vote? Unless you also think people should not be allowed to vote when they are net consumers of tax dollars, you are a person with logically inconsistent reasoning and should not be listened-to.
Hold on there.
There are some people who pay very little in the form of taxes taken out of their paychecks. Then they turn around at the end of the year and get “refundable tax credits” that give them back all the taxes they paid. Then they also get “refunds” of taxes they did not pay, as part of, e.g. the Earned Income Tax Credit. The EITC is a refundable credit, meaning after the tax refund is complete and the net tax bill is $0 for a year, you get a refund of your “earned” income and another few THOUSAND dollars are sent to you because you are broke and have a bunch of children. These people are allowed to vote AND they are getting literally free money from the wallet of the taxpayer.
If you think a net tax PAYER should have the right to vote, regardless of their status as a felon
then
You should also think a net tax RECEIVER should not have the right to vote.
or
You suck at this whole thinkin’ business.
Here’s one step farther, and it may be a road I can go with you for a ways: People (individuals, and *arguably* corporations) who pay more taxes should have more of a voice than people who pay less taxes. Disgusting evil filthy rich people who pay 10 times more in taxes than you make in income each year, should have ten times the number of votes as you.
No? It’s not fair, you say? Is it not unfair that someone can vote for the politician who will give them the most free money?
Some people shouldn’t have the right to say what happens to our society. SOME felons ARGUABLY fall into that category.
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Or would you rather allow felons to live without voting if they pay no more taxes?
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Would you rather people had the option to not pay taxes, if they gave up the right to vote? Did you know the supreme Court has an opinion about that sort of thing, as does the Constitution?