For an example of the rot, see Florida: 10% of voting-age citizens have had their vote stolen by the local government. [0] A 2019 referendum to abolish felony disenfranchisement passed with huge margins [1], but then the Republicans passed a new "pay to vote" law, saying it wasn't enough to serve time, but people also had to pay significant fines.

[0] https://www.sentencingproject.org/fact-sheet/florida-bans-vo...

[1] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voti...

We’re in agreement here. Just like the bail system. Working as intended if not as designed.

And of course, even if the rich go to prison and lose the ability to actually vote, they have the ability to support/earn favors by donating.

College kids are a prime example. People working remote jobs away from family are another. It is not illegal to own multiple domiciles (as long as your loan papers match primary residence seeing that be weaponized now), and live back and forth between them.

if somebody defects against society very seriously, damaging others, i have no problem with stripping them of legal rights. this is in fact exactly the principle underlying imprisonment. constitutional rights are granted by men, not god, in service of shared prosperity; democracy is good insofar as it produces good results, not because it is the intrinsic source of good. there is no higher construct to appeal to, like this platonic ideal of democracy you're gesturing at

There is no legal principle in the US that couples taxation to the right to vote.

Several issues here:

1. Declaration of Independence versus Constitution. Not the same in terms of legal weight.

2. You're implicitly combining "representation" with "voting." The writers of the Declaration of Independence believed (even if we dislike it today) that those are separate. You can tell because all their wives and daughters were still prohibited from voting for generations.

3. If what you're suggesting applied, then wouldn't that mean everybody who hasn't registered to vote, or noncitizens and those under 18--are all exempt from sales tax and income tax?

Why would they sue to not pay taxes? They make no money that would qualify as taxable, so they would owe no taxes on income not earned. Even people working part time on very low wages can make so little they do not owe. They still have to file though. Never considered if inmates have to file each year or not

That’s not a real legal principle.

I just looked this up earlier, and there are only 2 states that do. Vermont and Maine allow all prisoners to vote. Other states allow some depending on conviction. I was unaware of this. I was aware some states allow felons to vote once released while other states never reinstate that right. That is some heinous shit. No other way to put it

> Should someone convicted of voter fraud be allowed to vote?

Yes. Why shouldn't they?

Fore example, someone with a 10+ year sentence has a compelling interest in local candidates that have different platforms that will affect the parole-rules and phone-call-costs next year.

>Do we have conclusive evidence that causality isn’t actually reversed here in a large percentage of cases? >As in, a certain % of the population is, very unfortunately and not of their own volition, born with innate antisocial traits.

Assuming the certain % is something meaningful and not like 1% then:

Yes, given that America and the world has run the largest ever social experiment, America imprisoning a higher percentage of their population than any other country and most other countries continuing to thrive with lower crime numbers than America (in cases where countries do not thrive obvious external and environmental factors are seen) it follows that America, a nation of immigrants with higher heterogeneity of the population than other nations of the Earth, does not have a population with a greater percentage of the population genetically predisposed to anti-sociability.

America has a population where 1 in 3 adults has a criminal record. If criminality was in any significant way genetically hard-wired in Americans it seems difficult to believe the country would have lasted as long as it has, although I admit my argument here may be slightly weak given the current state of things, but I think one can argue that is not the fault of the anti-social population.

Recent metaanalysis of intervention effectiveness (2025, UK) https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/680101e3da5bb...

In short: humans are not inherently good 'uns or bad 'uns. The social interventions made by friends, families, community, state-run programs, have a discernable effect on reoffending rates.

> born with innate antisocial traits

If this were true, sociability wouldn't be so incredibly overwhelmingly correlated with trauma, and to the extent that trauma & poverty are related, poverty. This is a full and utter complete fact, it is foundational knowledge to social science, psychology and psychiatry.

People. Are. Not. Born. Bad. They're born to traumatized parents raised in a society that squeezes them for all they're worth.

> many said humans will not be re-trainable to be pro-social

The vast, vast majority of people absolutely could be, but they will never receive the resources (time, attention) to be better. It is not that we don't know how to help people, its that its /expensive/ and we /would rather punish them than help them/.

On a related note, we have a bunch of replication failures in education for selection effects reasons. It turns if you have a highly motivated staff and engaged parents - pretty much every flavor of educational approach has a positive impact. When you try the same thing with an overworked and demotivated staff, unengaged parents, and with non-selective student populations that have behavior issues or other concerns ... most methods fall apart. And some of the approaches might even work, presuming similar conditions.

Getting policy right under adversarial conditions is really hard - even harder than the already hard problem of identifying and testing good policy.

Here's one, in Pennsylvania:

https://www.science.org/content/article/how-will-little-scan...

Sounds like Oregon started but hasn't gotten very far:

https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2023/08/425946/how-norway-helping-...

No. Also, if you try, conservative voters will call you evil and/or sinful for being nice to people.

Scandinavian countries have prison populations in the thousands (1000) and the USA has a prison population in the millions (1000000). The USA has an incarceration rate 10 times that of any Scandinavian country. Recidivism rates might be similar, but I'm certain the fact that so many fewer end up in prison means something important about the USA

> Just like Swedish-American homelessness rates are comparable to homelessness rates in Sweden

...are they? (Serious question.)

(Note: "There was no significant difference in rates of lifetime adult homelessness between foreign-born adults and native-born adults (1.0% vs 1.7%). Foreign-born participants were less likely to have various mental and substance-use disorders, less likely to receive welfare, and less likely to have any lifetime incarceration. The number of years foreign-born adults lived in the United States was significantly associated with risk for homelessness" [1])

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00333...

my comment was in relation to the grandparent post's:

> cost the government $65k to imprison someone, but that money isn’t disappearing

which is wrong, because it _is_ disappearing.

Your argument is unrelated - it sure would be good if people didnt commit crimes for which incarceration is required, but it doesn't mean the cost has benefits. It simply has to be done; i would liken it to getting sick, and the healthcare costing money. That money, as far as you are concerned, disappeared, as it brought you no lasting benefit, even tho you must spend it.