NRO's Derbyshire: Public employees should not be allowed to vote

Written by Chelsea Rudman

Published

No, you didn't misread that. John Derbyshire, National Review Online contributor, today rehashed his 2003 argument that nonmilitary government employees shouldn't be allowed to vote. Here's today's post, written in response to fellow contributor Pat Sajak's article about how public employees have a “conflict of interest” when voting:

Pat Sajak: “I'm not suggesting that public employees should be denied the right to vote ...”

Go ahead, Pat: say it. I did, back in 2003.

[Quoting 2003 article:] “If you let public employees vote, what do you think they are going to vote for? For more public spending, more government jobs, higher government wages. Can you vote yourself a pay raise? No, and neither can I. Bill Bureaucrat and Pam Paperpusher can, though, and they do. Bill and Pam have no problem at all with ever-swelling public budgets, with ever-expanding public services, with the creeping socialism that is slowly throttling our liberties out of existence.”

It's an idea whose time will soon come.

Other conservative commentators, like WorldNetDaily's Robert Ringer, have also advocated taking away public employees' voting rights. Using Derbyshire and Ringer's logic, I guess anyone who uses public services -- like the post office, roads, schools, libraries, police, firefighters -- probably has a “conflict of interest” when voting. So does anyone who pays taxes.

Elsewhere in the 2003 article, Derbyshire writes that public servants should be content with the “privilege” of working for the government: “Working for the State, or the nation, is a great privilege and an honor. It brings with it great security, since States and Nations very, very rarely go out of business. Let privilege, honor and security be rewards enough; let's not gild the lily with fripperies like voting rights.”

Lest you think he's kidding, note that public employees are hardly the only group Derbyshire thinks unworthy of such “fripperies.” In a 2009 interview with Alan Colmes, he also suggested we'd “probably” be a better country if women didn't vote.

Basically, he's saying our country would be a better place if people who don't agree with him couldn't vote. Who's “throttling our liberties out of existence,” again?