The homeless should be allowed to vote.

A housewife should not be allowed to vote because she is too busy looking after children and doing household work. College students should not be allowed to vote because they are too busy with course-work. Just because the homeless are pre-occupied with a task, does not mean they shouldn't be allowed to vote. It is an argument that under the same logic, would include anyone else pre-occupied with a task which means their survival, which includes people's jobs for their income 'lack the education/means to make a worthy, well informed decision. ' 1. Since when is education the scale of allowing people to vote? Someone who dropped out of school early still has their right to vote because they are a citizen. Everyone born in a country is regarded as a citizen. A citizen's basic right is that to vote. It is blatantly discriminatory to exclude someone the right to vote simply because they don't have a certain IQ level. This would also be excluding people who dropped out of school early, people with mental disabilities, the elderly with alzheimer's, and various other groups of citizen. 2. The generalisation that a homeless person is uneducated is a flawed one. You may think a homeless person has a thick beard, fingerless gloves and sits at the side of the street, but homeless means someone without a permanent residence. This could be anyone, and in the midst of our current economic climate, many more people. They could be a computer technician, a teacher, anyone. 'They are busy enough determining the location of their next meal, how can they make an accurate political choice? ' If you didn't notice, during the U. S. presidential elections, there were posters for either candidate everywhere. If a homeless person felt they hit hard times during the Bush regime, and saw an election picture for Obama that read 'Change', surely this would give them a political choice. Again, you are assuming the homeless are uneducated peasants. The homeless can be anyone, and in most cases would be able to distinguish what a republican and what a Democrat thinks. 'They do nothing to benefit society, in fact, why should they even be considered a citizen? ' This is blatant discrimination. On the same scale, the unemployed do not benefit society. Should they be denied the right to vote, merely because they cannot find a job? A high percentage are unemployed at the present time, and denying them the right to vote on the basis that they don't benefit society is discrimination, and would not be stood for. And what about the elderly? They do not work, and in most cases, do not contribute to society alot. There are way in which the homeless benefit society: 1. They are more concerned with buying food, and thus give profit to stores they buy from. 2. They are an example to people to work hard and keep their jobs. I would ask my opponent to define what he sees as beneficial to society. 'The way I view it is you are only a member of society if you contribute to it's existence. ' There are many ways in which citizens contribute to society. Some are obvious (e. g. Teachers, Doctors, Policemen) but some not so obvious. A homeless person may not have much to contribute to society, but he none the less can contribute. Let's take for example, inspiration. There are cases of homeless people becoming successful. The stories of ruins to riches. These are a great inspiration to people, and can give them a goal to achieve. Not to mention the story he would teach of how he got into poverty. This story could benefit society by making them wary of the decisions he chose. Again, I would like my opponent to sate what he sees as beneficial to society. 'They do not pay dues, or work, and lack a peaceful place/time to sit and think about something thoroughly. ' It would seem to me that the homeless sit on the side of a street day in, day out. They have nothing to do but think, and therefore have alot of time to think something through thoroughly. I will agree, they do not work or pay dues, but it's ignorant to say they don't want to. 'I simply do not want our democracy to be run by a "ship of fools". ' This is presuming that the homeless are uneducated, which is mostly untrue. A democracy may be better if a different minority had a say in it's running. Pulling the homeless out of unemployment would increase tax paid and reduce any welfare spent. Charities would be less existent, and that money would be pumped elsewhere. I will end with saying this. My opponent has merely assumed the homeless are lazy and worthless people, unable and unwilling to contribute to society. I have proven this to be untrue. I would like to remind my