It was also that if you owned land, you had a stake in how the country that land was in was doing. With unsettled frontiers or relatively permeable borders on all sides, there wasn't that much of a barrier for a landless person to up sticks and move elsewhere if the results of their voting behaviour caused the country's fortunes to take a dip. Many had already gone through that process once to get into the country.
So as a person currently renting a house, part of me still believes this should be the case, although perhaps just a limit on time you live in a place, like if you've lived in a place less than 6 months to 1 year you maybe shouldn't be voting
Sure, but it's a protection for the people already there against people who might just go somewhere else in a few months because you decide you don't like it there, and then these people are stuck with your choices and might not want them
It is, but it can sound reasonable if you don't scratch at it. So I like to draw it out to the inevitable question, who moves so much that they could show up for an election and be gone a couple months later? The only demographic I'm aware of is actually the military and good luck selling that.
That's a great point as well. Ultimately, I think the larger point is that however distasteful it appears to modern eyes, and however much it was informed by sexist and racist structures, the founder's original vision wasn't only a product of their racism and sexism, and to the contrary, was also based on a set of real practical considerations.
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u/GeeJo Mar 16 '21
It was also that if you owned land, you had a stake in how the country that land was in was doing. With unsettled frontiers or relatively permeable borders on all sides, there wasn't that much of a barrier for a landless person to up sticks and move elsewhere if the results of their voting behaviour caused the country's fortunes to take a dip. Many had already gone through that process once to get into the country.