Political philosophy

someone (Gil?) at the top of the thread said that 18 was "a tad young" to be voting & brought up that in the US an 18-year-old can't even buy alcohol. i do not think 18 is too young to vote (& this has nothing to do with my being 1 - like Shan, i think there should be some kind of test to prove vote-worthiness, if not a political/historical test than an intelligence test. but no test is perfect, & this system will of course have flaws - for example: how many times should one person be allowed to take this test? and should it be retaken every few years, like some states' driver licence tests?

as Gil pointed out, this system is open to prejudice - but so far all systems mentioned here have been. right now, the status-quo "18 & over" vote is ageist (just think: how many under-18 (or 21) Entmooters are intelligent, mentally independant, knowledgeable people? and how many voting American 30-somethings don't know what they're doing?). Gil's plan (no offense intended) excludes people whose religion forbids military service - like Hindus & some Pagans. and this is discrimination based on beliefs. there is no perfect system - the plan i mentioned above excludes the stupid - & that is discrimination based on intelligence. some, like the mentally slow, will be excluded if any intelligence test is used.

if anyone can think of a system free of prejudice of any sort, i salute you.

aryne *

Whoopsie Aryne, double post

And I stand by my idea that a test to get a voting license is the best way to do it.

YES, it's discriminating, since some people won't be able to vote, but these are the ones who don't know or care about politics, so it's good that way.

Maybe you could take the test every 5 years or so...

The Kingdom of Heaven is the only postulated system that does not discriminate in some way.

A divine monarchy serving the people with leadership positions defined and chosen by God, Himself.

But, not everyone believes in or wants this Kingdom.

The question is, what do we do in the meantime?

I think Western Civilization is pretty much agreed that Power in the hands of the People is the best system.

We've chosen a representative Republic as the means of best guarding that power, allowing the opposing interests of society to compete and compromise over the exercise of Power in a limited government.

The question juntel raises should be the first question. Namely, who gets to decide who weilds the power?

That is not easily answered, as we see. No mortal system works perfectly. Our Founders thought there might have to be a Revolution almost in every generation to maintain Liberty.

Clearly, allowing everyone the vote means allowing idiots to vote. (I don't care how you define idiot.) This is bad.

By setting standards for people to vote, you automatically discriminate.

Let's take age. Hobbits do not come of age until 33. Folks my age understand why. Most folk are not very mature until their eyes open right about that age. Most folk. (Don't make me prove this as I did with gender differences.)

But what about bright young kids in their teens who are inducted into military service before they can vote. If they are old enough to die for us, they are surely old enough to vote with us.

Let's take the intelligence test.


...Whoops no time! Gotta go!

How do you define intelligence test?

IQ tests are not so good, and one can be intelligent but still be an idiot.

I thought that 18 was the age to vote and the age to join the military. They do not even draft younger than that do they??

I believe that there are young teens out there that do have their heads screwed on tight that would be capable of casting a well thought out and informed vote....just as I think that there are people over 18 that aren't capable. For the most part though, most people under 18 are content to wait until they reach voting age. I do think that as adults we underestimate minors.....maybe it is because it has been so long since we were there ourselves or maybe it is because we remember that age too well.

Anduin, inducted was the wrong word. But they will take 'em younger!

And I should have said "let's consider the intelligence test!"

Barliman Butterbur, as Gandalf said, was wise enough on his own grounds, and could see through a brick wall in time.

He might actually fail a standard test if he got flustered and couldn't remember anything!

But give him time to think it through and he would slowly grind out the right answer (or the right vote!).

To avoid a test that would unfairly discriminate (because the purpose is to fairly discriminate), we have set some arbitrary standards. 18 years of age, for instance. Native-born or naturalized citizenship for another. Mental competence as a corrolary to denying the insane a vote. Convictions of felonies is another restiction.

A History and Civics test for the native-born, scrupulously administered, with no time limit, and multiple retests, of the sort naturalized citizens take, would be fairer than an Intelligence test. As an inner city teacher told me of her struggling classroom, no child is stupid and can't learn, but some are just slower and they take longer.

It would be cruel and unjust to deny such folk the vote, if given the opportunity they could demonstrate that they do understand their responsibilities in sharing the exercise of Power.

Many idiots (now I define this as the people who just don't care, whatever their "intelligence") would disenfranchise themselves as they do in a de facto manner today by simply not bothering to vote. Many who lack enough diligence and reasoning facility to pass a relatively simple (but thorough!) test of this sort would also be disenfranchised.

Would this introduce enough change to correct matters?


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My Gaffer thinks that anyone who even works for the Government should be disenfranchised for conflict of interest!

So the test thingy would be a good idea? I have good ideas!!! sometimes

Well, that makes sense, to a certain degree. Perhaps if we were in a direct democracy (no representative garbage), we could implement such a system - disqualifying anyone who's directly affected. Politicians couldn't vote themselves raises, the Supreme Court couldn't rule themselves a loophole to the handgun-ban laws, etc., etc...

Here is an article, with a link to more information from this author. I promised long ago in a thread far away to start a discussion on this. --GILTHALION
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The Old Totalitarianism vs. the New, Deceitful Kind
Diane Alden
Oct. 20, 2000

Gus Hall, Arvo Kusta Halberg, was born in Virginia, Minnesota, in 1910, one of 10 children of Finnish immigrants. His father was a union organizer who headed the local chapter of the Communist Party.
Minnesota's Mesaba Iron Range has plenty of good things including water, trees, wolves, birds, eagles, moose, and iron ore. Composed of hard-working ethnics, the "range" is still home to some of the most socialist and liberal politics in the United States. At the moment, however, they call themselves "progressive Democrats." But the progressives aren't what concern me. At least we know where they are coming from; just like Gus Hall, they wear their politics on their sleeve and can be readily identified.

In his day Gus Hall worked as a lumberjack and a steelworker and joined the Communist Party at 16 by organizing worker protests all over the upper Midwest. The CP sent him to the Lenin Institute in Moscow, where he studied from 1931-1933. When World War II broke out, Hall served in the U.S. Navy in the Pacific from 1942 to 1946.

In 1949 he was convicted of conspiring to teach the violent overthrow of the federal government. After his arrest he jumped bail and went to Mexico, where he was arrested and sent back; he spent the next 8 ½ years in prison. He was elected Communist Party chairman after his release from prison and received the Order of Lenin, the USSR's highest honor. At its height the American Communist Party had about 100,000 members; today it is down to around 15,000.

Before the Soviet Union imploded, Hall traveled to Moscow and gave talks on behalf of America's poor and disenfranchised. According to an article in the Washington Post, in 1987 Hall received $2 million from the Soviets for Party expenses. Of course, after the fall of the USSR the payments stopped. Hall called former Soviet Chief Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin "a wrecking crew."

After Hall's death from a heart attack on October 13, the current chairman of the Communist Party, Sam Webb, said, "Gus Hall will be greatly missed by the progressive movements and our party. … Hall helped our party to maintain a clear and stable focus in the working class, and the people's movements, for peace, social justice and socialism."

Unlike communism's other "radical son," David Horowitz, Gus Hall never had a conversion experience. To him capitalism, Christianity, democratic values as followed in the United States were an abomination for poor people, the worker, and any discontented or aggrieved minority.

He never could see or understand the results of the free market in creating rising living standards for everyone including the working people. But he was blind to the fact that in communism, "some pigs are more equal than others." That is the heart and soul of Marxism.

For Gus Hall, all people should have the same approximate living standards regardless of their abilities or hard work. The only way to accomplish this circumstance was by bringing down Western-style democracy and capitalism.

Since communism, socialism, nazism, fascism and most isms are born in the house of atheism and materialism, they rarely create the workers' paradise that they promise. Marxism overlooks important aspects of human nature, like the tendency of people to break outside the bonds of whatever constrains them.

At their core, Marxism and socialism are totalitarian, anti-human and anti-intellectual. Throw in barbaric in the case of Russian and Chinese Marxism. Nonetheless, Gus Hall was one of its true believers. Like most of the American left during the rise of communism in Russia, he excused the excesses of Stalin and communism because it was part of the process of the "glorious revolution."

Hall was no different from those today who have never given up on the 19th century Prussian thinkers from which most of today's most despotic philosophies have evolved. This philosophy decries government, although it uses government against individuals, and is desirous of creating some kind of state where everyone is equal and all things fair. The problem is that this is NOT humanly possible. Egalitarianism has never led to the brotherhood of all men. Most of the time it has led to a tyranny of the state as it destroys human beings and any effective forms of governance that seek to enhance individual liberty.

But Gus Hall only saw communism as an effective way to help the "working man" and whatever aggrieved minority who would buy into the philosophy of Prussian relativism.

Like most true believers, Gus Hall had tunnel vision. Even when the American worker succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams, it was not good enough. Ideology took precedence over common sense. He died believing to the very end that the way for all mankind was through Communism or some form of it. He wrote several books, and some of the titles should resonate with most Americans or anyone who is aware of the direction this country has taken for the last 35 years: "Fighting Racism" and "Ecology: Can We Survive Capitalism?"

Do these titles sound familiar? What current ideology does this suggest? If you guess the Political Correctness dogma, you win the prize.

The New Totalitarianism

Today the intellectual class and the left don't talk about socialism or communism because it would send people screaming out of the room. Besides, their various causes would no longer be able to accumulate funds in the billions of dollars. The New Left doesn't call itself by its real name; it has become very clever and by doing so has succeeded in achieving its goals far more than any open and honest guy like Gus Hall. Gus Hall may have been a Communist, but there is more to admire in his activities than with the current crop of totalitarians.

Who are the new totalitarians? By what name do they call themselves, and what is their dogma and creed? Nowadays they call themselves radical feminists, environmentalists, multiculturalists and radical homosexuals. They are anti-Christian and anti-Orthodox Judaism, they are against ageism, sexism, racism, homophobia, species-ism, and any number of causes and conditions.

PC is the new American religion, and it is more fanatical than any fundamentalist religion ever thought of being. It is more dangerous than any fundamentalist religion because it now has control of the court system, the trial lawyers, the media, and one of the major parties. PC-ism is dangerous because it demands equal conditions and, more importantly, equal outcomes. It does so by taking money and tribute from one group and handing it to the government or to some aggrieved PC entity. When an individual rises to prominence or wealth, the PC philosophy says it is because of some unfair condition in society.

PC has succeeded for the most part because it got control of the language, revised history, created division, destroyed the Bill of Rights, made traditional or Christian Western culture and values the repository of all evils.

The soldiers of modern PC have successfully put the establishment of Western tradition on the defensive. Meanwhile, they have effectively killed free speech at the universities, in discussion, in the mainstream media, among various groups of Americans, and stunted the growth of creativity and art, as well as political discussion. The result is the balkanization of America and the growing radicalization of various groups of Americans fed up with the fact that their free speech and their belief in constitutional government and the Bill of Rights are being destroyed.

PC is more dangerous than communism because it has taken the moral high ground through manipulation of the facts and denial of the truth.

Grounded in egalitarianism, PC is of the same milieu as that of the French Revolution. Maximilien Robespierre, the French lawyer and chief butcher of that revolution, was probably the first adherent of PC.

The bloody terror of that time was not nearly as cruel and bloody toward the rich and the noble in Paris as it was toward the people in the countryside of France. The blood of ordinary French people who dared speak against the "terror" ran freely in the streets of every province and town in France; ordinary people were massacred by the thousands.

To the first soldiers of PC "liberty and fraternity" were concepts applied to citizens who went along with its excesses and supported completely the leaders of the massive bloodletting. Even those who followed the new regime in sheep-like fashion were not spared. They died like everyone else, rich or poor, screaming their allegiance to the Revolution and to the leadership of the Revolution.

Whether it is the PC mind-set of today or that of the French Revolution, free speech is only free when it follows PC notions of what is or is not allowed, and even then you might not be safe.

Today PC culture and philosophy are doing a much better job of creating the New Age totalitarian state than communism or the French Revolution were able to do. It is succeeding because it uses the language and the innate sense of decency of most Americans and of the Western tradition, which they have absorbed through their culture, religion, and the tenets contained in the Founding documents. The sensible and fair American understands that the country has never been perfect. Most Americans know that various groups of people have been abused and treated unfairly, but America has also turned itself inside out trying to address those injustices and grievances. However, the truth is that addressing those grievances is not what PC is about. PC is about destruction and tyranny.

The leaders and followers of PC want complete and total capitulation. They want Western culture and tradition to go away. Yet none of them are quite sure what will replace it except some ephemeral PC platitudes.

This phantom utopian state considers all humankind to be perfectible – if only there are enough rules, regulations, and readjustment to new notions of right and wrong. The problem arises when the standard utopia varies from person to person, just as it did during the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution. The American Founders gave us incredible concepts, in the basic documents of the Republic, that allow for anyone to believe what he will and for that belief to be allowed free expression. In the world of PC, communism and fascism, the only "freedom" left is submission to the tyrannical state or to death.

The great jurist Robert Bork defined what is happening in America very well: "… our culture is now politicized … our politics [are] culturized … the idea that everything is ultimately political has taken hold. … It is [about] the oppression of women, Western imperialism, colonialism, and racism. Political correctness now assaults one's opponent as not merely wrong but morally evil."

PC is rampant even in the high culture of America. The Smithsonian Institution is not immune. At an exhibit in the 1990s that featured the American Frontier from 1820-1920, the Smithsonian's historians mutilated historical interpretation so badly that historian and former librarian of Congress Daniel J. Boorstin wrote: "A perverse, historically inaccurate, destructive exhibit. No credit to the Smithsonian."

Political correctness is neither objective, inclusive or fair. It condemns the brilliant and too often lauds the mediocre, inane and barbaric. Political correctness in its demonization and vilification of traditional Western culture and philosophy creates the eventual conditions for its own demise. Yet it does not recognize this as it glorifies the cultures and conditions which are not Western while totally ignoring the barbarisms.

The problem with PC is that what it seeks to replace Western traditional or classic culture with will not be egalitarian, fair or inclusive. What will fill the vacuum is a chaotic blend of banality, half-truths and political philosophy, based on primitive notions of good and evil, fair and unfair, justice and truth.

PC is more tribal and separatist than anything currently going on in the Aryan Nation, militia groups, skinhead cults and odd but still free associations of people in the United States or the world today. It will continue to do vast harm to the United States, which has been by far the most fair and inclusive civilization in the history of mankind.

If PC achieves final victory, American social, intellectual, spiritual and political life will become more tyrannical and diabolical than any yet invented by the dark side of human nature.

Words Matter

It wasn't that long ago that the language of communism sounded pretty ridiculous. Remember laughing at such phrases as "running-dog capitalists" and "exploiters of the poor and downtrodden"? These and other inanities were easy to laugh off.

It is another circumstance, however, to laugh off phrases like "despoilers of the environment," racist, bigoted, homophobes, sexist, chauvinist. It is much more difficult to laugh off such terms as "extreme right wing" or "white supremacist" or "patriarchal oppressors of women and minorities." However, such use of language is absolutely no different from what communists did from the 1920s to the 1990s. Inherent in accusatory language is a value judgment based on nothing but hatred for traditional values. These days it is a safe bet to target Western traditional culture and values and those rights as defined in the American Bill of Rights and the Constitution.

Those who honestly believe in the Bill of Rights would not for a second try to curtail the free speech rights of the proponents and followers of PC. I repeat, for the hardheaded PC types, those who honestly believe in the Bill of Rights would not for a second try to curtail the free speech rights of the proponents and followers of PC. If such had been the case, Gloria Steinem, Tom Hayden, Jane Fonda, the Sierra Club, the Green Party, PETA, the National Council of Churches, members of the U.N. and all the other PC groups would be serving heavy-duty time in the slammer.

However, those of PC faith in turn do not tolerate ideas or those who follow Western tradition, Christianity or Orthodox Judaism. Intolerance is part and parcel of all dictatorial creeds, and PC is merely the most recent manifestation of that tendency of mankind to seek control over others through any means possible. Attacks by the PC crowd on targets from Dr. Laura to the Boy Scouts, from capitalism to farmers, from pro-life to Christmas displays, from guns to tobacco, from home schooling to parochial schools continues and their tyranny over these groups through legislation and the courts has been very successful.

The root of all stupidity, through all times, is pride, arrogance, disrespect, intolerance; add a lack of forgiveness, envy, bitterness and self-pity, and PC is currently the ultimate in a pathetic religion of victimology and moral one-up-manship. It manipulates the facts and distorts the truth. Western society has seen this before and each and every time it has led to bloodletting and tyranny.

If Gus Hall had been a born today, he might have become a modern totalitarian. He probably would have been a disciple of PC or one of its subsets. PC is the most dangerous mind-set of our times because it is the modern replacement for communism and fascism. It has nearly won the cultural battle for the soul of America.

Gus Hall, however, was more admirable than today's advocates and disciples of PC. The things he stood for were plain, clear and understandable. We knew who the opposition was.

Once upon a time in a different America, we all knew that communism was a despicable philosophy that was used to condemn billions to slavery, poverty and oppression. It was clearly the enemy of Western tradition, particularly Christianity and Judaism, as well as all the great world religions. The enemy was definable and therefore the plan of action against it possible.

Currently, the followers of the Western tradition have no such luck. PC is winning the minds of kids in schools and perverting the understanding of recent immigrants to the United States. It destroys the intent of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. It takes our liberty and replaces it with the new totalitarianism couched in religious terms. It gives back a black hole that will suck up the best and brightest and destroy everything it touches.

The problem with PC is that it is the New World Order religion.

(Next time I go into the origins of PC and why it is the most destructive cultural, spiritual and political phenomenon we face in the U.S. today. Also, why Al Gore is a sycophant of PC and how that has destroyed the once-honorable Democratic Party.)

(Please check out my Web site at <a href="http://www.aldenchronicles.com">www.aldenchronicles.com[/LINK. Read Georgia Craig's article on the educrats labeling conservative Christian children as learning disabled.)


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Diane Alden is a research analyst with a background in political science and economics. Her work has appeared in the Washington Times as well as NewsMax.com, Etherzone, Enterstageright, American Partisan and many other online publications. She also does occasional radio commentaries for Georgia Radio Inc. Her e-mail address is wulfric8@yahoo.com. <br</a>

Oooh...ammunition!

This is pretty cool. I'm actually taking a political philosophy course right now. In a class of maybe 14 students (I'm making that up), I sometimes think I'm the whole one who is wholeheartedly defending democracy. It's sometimes sad to see what my peers will blindly accept (and also what they will blindly deny). There's a tendancy to assume that capitalism is somehow inherently wrong. Why is that? I really don't understand it. I've given the matter some serious thought and decided that even though I may not like all the things that happen in the U.S., capitalism and representative democracy are the way to go.

(Must...not...quote...Locke... )

There are way too many things I want to say here, and there is no way I can get them all straight. So here are a few comments:

1) In a system that has any pretense of being any kind of democracy, there cannot be any kind of arbitrary voting test. A test defeats the purpose. And it certainly isn't direct democracy if there is a test! But, wait, you say, who says these tests would be arbitray? Because they certainly can't be reasonable. A person or group of people who have to write them, and the entire nation would be at their mercy. If they made it unfair and disenfranchised people, we wouldn't be able to do anything about it, unless we were really made and wanted to have a revolution.

I could talk more on this, and I probably will later, but that is enough for now, I think.

2) If 18 is a bad voting age, what would be better? Okay, you can drink at 21, but why is that age so perfect?

3) I don't understand why so many people seem to like the military service idea. It seems to say "let's all get taken over by the military" all over it. And it would be very unfair to women. Sure, we can join up like everyone else, but the day hasn't arrived at when we are treated equally. So, in order to vote, women must endure this? The result would be fewer women voters, and that would only make the problem worse. (And no, I am not one of those ardent feminists,you can relax. But this does seem to be a relevant concern.)

4) Finally, how can we, in the U.S. really justify disenfranchising any citizen, (unless they are in jail?) in light of the Declaration of Independence?

All leave this one alone or now. I'm sure I've already mixed up my arguments enough for one day.

My apologies if I am repeating anything or have skipped things - there's a lot here to read, and I glossed over most of it.

Aristocracy - the word "aristocracy" comes from the Greek root "aristos", meaning "the best". So technically, "aristocracy" means "rule by the best" or "rule by the elite". Exactly what group is elite depends on the society, and is not necessarily determined by wealth. The United States is actually tending in the direction of aristocracy, where the elite rulers are not (necessarily) rich, but are rather that group of people which is "in the business" of governing. The bureaucrats form an elite almost akin to the British royalty and peerage (like the Kennedy family, for example), and people who have not governed before or who's family has not governed before are essentially "grandfathered out" of the government in most cases. This is in fact one argument Al Gore is trying to make against George W. Bush - that Gore's father was a senator, and that Gore is Vice President, and that Gore has lived in Washington DC for most of his life, and so "knows the ropes" better than George Bush (never mind, of course, the fact that Bush's father was President). But even in lesser governments, the era is over in which an ordinary guy could successfully run for office.

Hmm...I think I had more to say about something else, but I forgot for now. More to come.

Two quick things. First, was there ever really an "era... in which an ordinary guy could successfully run for office"? Second, our government is supposed to have a big dose of aristocracy in it.

I think probably everyone would agree that having the very best people for the job in charge of government would be best. By definition, that would be an aristocracy. The catch lies in determining who is best. And best in what way? And is it fair for the best people to hog all the honor and fame that come from working with the government?

Just wanted to add this: I H-A-T-E today's democraty We don't have any choice now... Xivigg, If you wanna explain the fusion we'll have here that would be good (I don't want / don't have time to explain it myself now, exam tomorrow 9AM)

"In a system that has any pretense of being any kind of democracy, there cannot be any kind of arbitrary voting test."

Please support this with some sort of logic... any sort of logic. Please. I'm begging you here.

"A test defeats the purpose."

You're suggesting that a "democracy" isn't a democracy without the incompetent?

"And it certainly isn't direct democracy if there is a test!"

Incorrect. The presence or lack thereof has nothing to do with the definition of direct democracy. Direct democracy, as opposed to representative "democracy", is a "town hall" situation where those eligible to vote make their decisions on an issue-by-issue basis.

"If they made it unfair and disenfranchised people"

I don't follow how disenfranchisement makes a system unfair. For example, those under the age of 18 are already disenfranchised from the "universal" suffrage of both America and Canada...

As I've said before, and I'll say again, I don't know of ANY country that has EVER had universal suffrage. The governments have ALWAYS selected a specific group of people to choose the course of the country. In Athens, this took the form of male landowners within walking/riding distance of the 'town hall'. In early America, the vote was restricted to _white_ male landowners. In current Canada, the vote is restricted to adult, tax-registered, non-incarcerated citizens/permanent residents.

Universal suffrage? Give me a break.

I don't have time now, but boy will I respond later! (You want to help me a little, Sarah?)

I believe what she was suggesting is that there is no way to implement a truly fair "voting test". There is too much potential for abuse.

Some people don't test well. Some have learning disabilities. Some are culturally unprepared to take a standardized test. (I used to scoff at that one but my mother teaches second graders and this is a real problem for them because their experiences are so different from what the test writers consider "standard".)

If you can come up with a fair method for implementating a voting test, please let me know. (And inform the US government while you're at it.) But remember, your method must be corruption-proof: it needs to work even if the people administering it are corrupt.

The closest we have to a "voting test" in the United States is the law that one must be 18 to vote. This law exists because a child would almost certainly vote for the people his/her parents said to vote for. (Trust me, I did Kid's Voting---we do not want children voting in important elections! They'll vote for the guy who looks better! I swear! I saw it happen!) 18 may even be too early (I know quite a few 18-year-olds who could stand to go back to Kindergarten and learn some social skills), but we have to let 18-year-olds vote if we're going to draft them. (Yes, I know, we have no draft right now, but it's generally assumed that if there were another major war, Selective Service would change names rather quickly.)

M-TV released a poll yesterday indicating that 25% of viewers between the ages of 18 and 25 could not name the Republican and Democratic candidates for the Presidency.

Duh.

These folk have a right to vote?



BTW, I don't recall that our Constitution ever said adult white male property owners. I don't believe that racial stipulation was codified, though it may have been practiced. I've never looked to see if there is a record of a black colonial voter that disproves a universal practice of colonial jim crowism.

"I don't recall that our Constitution ever said adult white male property owners."

Gilthalion, you may be correct on that count. Do get back to me on that, I'm curious.

"I don't have time now, but boy will I respond later!"

I await your response.

"a child would almost certainly vote for the people his/her parents said to vote for."

"almost certainly"? Not in my experience. I was (and still am) a Reform supporter from a very early age, whereas my parents were Liberal supporters (and still are, to my knowledge).

"I believe what she was suggesting is that there is no way to implement a truly fair "voting test". There is too much potential for abuse."

That may have been what she was suggesting, or it may not... In the interest of keeping this discussion civil, I'll await her clarification/elaboration on her remarks before going anywhere further with my rebuttal.

"it needs to work even if the people administering it are corrupt."

Nothing is corruption-proof. The current system is not corruption-proof. People are not corruption-proof, and the creations of people are not corruption-proof.

The current voting system is not corruption-proof. The current governmental system is not corruption-proof.

So, in light of all this, why must a testing system be corruption-proof, if the system it would serve is not?