VOTING, KNOWLEDGE AND EXCLUSION

Chris Lawrence comes at Jonah Goldberg's advocacy of literacy tests and poll taxes (yes, you read that right; it's "back to the future" at NRO land as well) from a different angle than I do, here. Lawrence makes a Downsian argument in favor of ordinary citizen inattention to politics (without the Schumpeterian cautions about the dangers of extremist parties exploiting the ignorance or about the need for bureaucratic stability and a good leadership pool; I'd still like to read his dissertation!).

I find it staggering that Goldberg can claim that he sees no "principled" reason against poll taxes and literacy tests at the same time that he is complaining about the political ignorance of ordinary mall-goers. I want to be fair: determining the boundaries of membership in the polity is difficult and "principles" here are elusive. Indeed, perhaps the main principle is that there has to be some exclusion from the enjoyment of citizenship rights, whether it is exclusion of minors or non-resident non-citizens. Still, at least three principles can be advanced against exclusionary voting practices like literacy tests and poll taxes.

First, history is going the other way, toward more inclusion, and this inclusion is the continuation of an historical process of struggles toward inclusion that Americans should be proud of as part of their political heritage. I'll bet that "not being on the wrong side of history" isn't a principle that Mr. Goldberg cares much about, if it is a recognizable principle at all. I doubt that his colleagues in the conservative movement would be happy to inscribe "poll taxes and literacy tests" on their political banner, though. Shifting electoral appeals toward growing voting blocks (such as Latinos) is a smarter approach for growing your base.

Thus, the second and third principles are more important: practices of exclusion invite abuse (power corrupts, after all), and people who are affected by a political decision should have some opportunity to withhold consent to that decision (and voting is one of the central democratic mechanisms for this withholding of consent, as Tom Paine argued).

So, it seems to me that Goldberg is on the wrong side of history, too sanguine about government uses of power, and not concerned enough about the traditional liberal principle of consent of the governed. If you can ignore the paradox for a moment, sounds like he would be a prime candidate for exclusion at the polls, by his own (admittedly sketchy) criteria. And if I got to implement the test, he would be! (P.S.: that last sentence is ironic.)