[extropy-chat] Re: [extropy-chat Digest] Women and Voting - A bit of History

[ben]

Women and Voting - A bit of History

Don't forget that a right is not an obligation.
The important thing is that women have a right, the right to vote, this 
includes the right to choose to vote.

To say that women have an obligation to vote, because of those women who 
suffered to gain the right, is just another form of oppression.

Not voting is exercising your right to choose to vote.

By all means, tell people that you think they should vote, and why you 
think that. But don't insist that they have a *duty* to.

I think there is a parallel with transhumanism here.

We are working towards making many wonderful choices available to people 
in the future, such as longer healthier lives, enhancements of their 
bodies and minds, opportunities to explore places and things that aren't 
available to us now.

I'd hate to think that people in the future might be pressurised into 
taking up these choices, as a matter of obligation to people who made 
the effort to make them available.

Do you want to *make* people live longer lives, if what they want is to 
be left alone to live a 'natural', unenhanced life, and die after a few 
decades? Surely they have the right to make that choice?

Just as people now (women or not) have the right to choose not to vote.

ben