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suffrage

9 paragraphs · about 3 minutes

Every paragraph the index cites under suffrage, once, in the order of the book. Beside each stand the entries that cite it.

Paper 45 · The Local System Administration

7. The Melchizedek Schools

45:7.6Suf­frage is uni­ver­sal on Je­ru­sem among these three groups of cit­i­zen­ship, but the vote is dif­fer­en­tially cast in ac­cor­dance with the rec­og­nized and duly reg­is­tered per­sonal pos­ses­sion of mota—mor­ontia wis­dom. The vote cast at a Je­ru­sem elec­tion by any one per­son­al­ity has a value rang­ing from one up to one thou­sand. Je­ru­sem cit­i­zens are thus clas­si­fied in ac­cor­dance with their mota achieve­ment.

Paper 71 · Development of the State

2. The Evolution of Representative Government

71:2.54. Dan­ger of uni­ver­sal suf­frage in the hands of un­e­d­u­cated and in­do­lent ma­jori­ties.

71:2.6–7 · two paragraphs not cited here ·

71:2.65. Slav­ery to pub­lic opin­ion; the ma­jor­ity is not al­ways right.

71:2.7Pub­lic opin­ion, com­mon opin­ion, has al­ways de­layed so­ci­ety; nev­er­the­less, it is valu­able, for, while re­tard­ing so­cial evo­lu­tion, it does pre­serve civ­i­liza­tion. Ed­u­ca­tion of pub­lic opin­ion is the only safe and true method of ac­cel­er­at­ing civ­i­liza­tion; force is only a tem­po­rary ex­pe­di­ent, and cul­tural growth will in­creas­ingly ac­cel­er­ate as bul­lets give way to bal­lots. Pub­lic opin­ion, the mores, is the ba­sic and el­e­men­tal en­ergy in so­cial evo­lu­tion and state de­vel­op­ment, but to be of state value it must be non­vi­o­lent in ex­pres­sion.

71:2.8The mea­sure of the ad­vance of so­ci­ety is di­rectly de­ter­mined by the de­gree to which pub­lic opin­ion can con­trol per­sonal be­hav­ior and state reg­u­la­tion through non­vi­o­lent ex­pres­sion. The re­ally civ­i­lized gov­ern­ment had ar­rived when pub­lic opin­ion was clothed with the pow­ers of per­sonal fran­chise. Pop­u­lar elec­tions may not al­ways de­cide things rightly, but they rep­re­sent the right way even to do a wrong thing. Evo­lu­tion does not at once pro­duce su­perla­tive per­fec­tion but rather com­par­a­tive and ad­vanc­ing prac­ti­cal ad­just­ment.

71:2.9–16 · eight paragraphs not cited here ·

71:2.9There are ten steps, or stages, to the evo­lu­tion of a prac­ti­cal and ef­fi­cient form of rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment, and these are:

71:2.101. Free­dom of the per­son. Slav­ery, serf­dom, and all forms of hu­man bond­age must dis­ap­pear.

71:2.112. Free­dom of the mind. Un­less a free peo­ple are ed­u­cated—taught to think in­tel­li­gently and plan wisely—free­dom usu­ally does more harm than good.

71:2.123. The reign of law. Lib­erty can be en­joyed only when the will and whims of hu­man rulers are re­placed by leg­isla­tive en­act­ments in ac­cor­dance with ac­cepted fun­da­men­tal law.

71:2.134. Free­dom of speech. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment is un­think­able with­out free­dom of all forms of ex­pres­sion for hu­man as­pi­ra­tions and opin­ions.

71:2.145. Se­cu­rity of prop­erty. No gov­ern­ment can long en­dure if it fails to pro­vide for the right to en­joy per­sonal prop­erty in some form. Man craves the right to use, con­trol, be­stow, sell, lease, and be­queath his per­sonal prop­erty.

71:2.156. The right of pe­ti­tion. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment as­sumes the right of cit­i­zens to be heard. The priv­i­lege of pe­ti­tion is in­her­ent in free cit­i­zen­ship.

71:2.167. The right to rule. It is not enough to be heard; the power of pe­ti­tion must pro­gress to the ac­tual man­age­ment of the gov­ern­ment.

71:2.178. Uni­ver­sal suf­frage. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment pre­sup­poses an in­tel­li­gent, ef­fi­cient, and uni­ver­sal elec­torate. The char­ac­ter of such a gov­ern­ment will ever be de­ter­mined by the char­ac­ter and cal­iber of those who com­pose it. As civ­i­liza­tion pro­gresses, suf­frage, while re­main­ing uni­ver­sal for both sexes, will be ef­fec­tively mod­i­fied, re­grouped, and oth­er­wise dif­fer­en­ti­ated.

Paper 72 · Government on a Neighboring Planet

3. The Home Life

72:3.7Chil­dren re­main legally sub­ject to their par­ents un­til they are fif­teen, when the first ini­ti­a­tion into civic re­spon­si­bil­ity is held. There­after, ev­ery five years for five suc­ces­sive pe­ri­ods sim­i­lar pub­lic ex­er­cises are held for such age groups at which their obli­ga­tions to par­ents are less­ened, while new civic and so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ties to the state are as­sumed. Suf­frage is con­ferred at twenty, the right to marry with­out pa­ren­tal con­sent is not be­stowed un­til twenty-five, and chil­dren must leave home on reach­ing the age of thirty.

Paper 72 · Government on a Neighboring Planet

9. The Plan of Universal Suffrage

72:9.32. Upon nom­i­na­tion by the state gov­er­nors or by the re­gional ex­ec­u­tives and by the man­date of the re­gional su­preme coun­cils, in­di­vid­u­als who have ren­dered great ser­vice to so­ci­ety, or who have demon­strated ex­traor­di­nary wis­dom in gov­ern­ment ser­vice, may have ad­di­tional votes con­ferred upon them not of­tener than ev­ery five years and not to ex­ceed nine such super­fran­chises. The max­i­mum suf­frage of any mul­ti­ple voter is ten. Sci­en­tists, in­ven­tors, teach­ers, philoso­phers, and spir­i­tual lead­ers are also thus rec­og­nized and hon­ored with aug­mented po­lit­i­cal power. These ad­vanced civic priv­i­leges are con­ferred by the state and re­gional su­preme coun­cils much as de­grees are be­stowed by the spe­cial col­leges, and the re­cip­i­ents are proud to at­tach the sym­bols of such civic rec­og­ni­tion, along with their other de­grees, to their lists of per­sonal achieve­ments.

72:9.43. All in­di­vid­u­als sen­tenced to com­pul­sory la­bor in the mines and all gov­ern­men­tal ser­vants sup­ported by tax funds are, for the pe­ri­ods of such ser­vices, dis­en­fran­chised. This does not ap­ply to aged per­sons who may be re­tired on pen­sions at sixty-five.

72:9.5–6 · two paragraphs not cited here ·

72:9.54. There are five brack­ets of suf­frage re­flect­ing the av­er­age yearly taxes paid for each half-decade pe­riod. Heavy tax­pay­ers are per­mit­ted ex­tra votes up to five. This grant is in­de­pen­dent of all other rec­og­ni­tion, but in no case can any per­son cast over ten bal­lots.

72:9.65. At the time this fran­chise plan was adopted, the ter­ri­to­rial method of vot­ing was aban­doned in fa­vor of the eco­nomic or func­tional sys­tem. All cit­i­zens now vote as mem­bers of in­dus­trial, so­cial, or pro­fes­sional groups, re­gard­less of their res­i­dence. Thus the elec­torate con­sists of so­lid­i­fied, uni­fied, and in­tel­li­gent groups who elect only their best mem­bers to po­si­tions of gov­ern­men­tal trust and re­spon­si­bil­ity. There is one ex­cep­tion to this scheme of func­tional or group suf­frage: The elec­tion of a fed­eral chief ex­ec­u­tive ev­ery six years is by na­tion-wide bal­lot, and no cit­i­zen casts over one vote.

72:9.7Thus, ex­cept in the elec­tion of the chief ex­ec­u­tive, suf­frage is ex­er­cised by eco­nomic, pro­fes­sional, in­tel­lec­tual, and so­cial group­ings of the cit­i­zenry. The ideal state is or­ganic, and ev­ery free and in­tel­li­gent group of cit­i­zens rep­re­sents a vi­tal and func­tion­ing or­gan within the larger gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­ism.

72:9.8The schools of states­man­ship have power to start pro­ceed­ings in the state courts look­ing to­ward the dis­en­fran­chise­ment of any de­fec­tive, idle, in­dif­fer­ent, or crim­i­nal in­di­vid­ual. These peo­ple rec­og­nize that, when fifty per cent of a na­tion is in­fe­rior or de­fec­tive and pos­sesses the bal­lot, such a na­tion is doomed. They be­lieve the dom­i­nance of medi­ocrity spells the down­fall of any na­tion. Vot­ing is com­pul­sory, heavy fines be­ing as­sessed against all who fail to cast their bal­lots.

Onward

Cited alongside: government