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May 23, 2019 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
11:47
Who Should Vote and Who Should Joke
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What's your name please?
Steve.
Nice to meet you, Steve.
Pleasure.
What would you like to say?
Firstly, would you prefer me to call me Carl Sargon or free speech extremist?
Free speech extremists is pretty good, but it's a bit of a mouthful, so Carl's fine.
Okay, brilliant.
I watched your Nottingham Q ⁇ A where you mentioned that you thought the voting age should be hired.
Yes.
But if you can serve in the military for 16, and if it gets hired to, say, 21, and you're serving five years in the military, and what shall we say, motivation does someone have when they just turned 18 and are searched for landmines in, let's say, Afghanistan or whatever, where they still don't have a vote for three more years on what they're fighting for?
That's a very good question.
And I actually had my mind changed on this in Plymouth.
I think it was Plymouth.
When a young lad who was, I think it was 17, he was saying, look, I can't vote, but I do pay taxes.
Is this fair?
And I was just sat there going, well, the Republican part of me is hearing the no taxation without representation and thinking, well, he's got a point, hasn't he?
And so maybe it should be based on tax paying ability.
Who knows?
Maybe there are other options, you know, because I mean, it's an arbitrary age that was chosen for when you can and can't vote.
It's just when do we think is appropriate?
I mean, there are probably 16 year olds that know a hell of a lot more than me, but there are 40 year olds that know a hell of a lot less.
I don't know.
Well, 16 year olds know more than you.
Honestly, you don't know that.
I used to work with youth charities where there were some really switched on people that were young parents.
So they're really switched on and they knew where they're coming from.
I don't know if it's broken by some that weren't so switched on, shall we say?
But they.
But when they got given a chance, even the hardest, like the ones that most seemed without hope, had really raised to be some of the best youth workers I ever saw working.
So I think it's partly down to what opportunities they're given and what opportunities they can take because I think most people fall into despair, especially at a young age, when they see that there's no opportunity for them or they don't recognise an opportunity to take it when they see it.
If you kind of get what I'm kind of saying.
I completely understand where you're coming from.
And I think questions about earning the franchise are very interesting, but I don't think they're politically palatable.
I think people would object in principle.
Yeah, well, it's a very simple thing to do to fix democracy, which is roll back women's suffrage.
We're not doing that.
Because women pay taxes.
I know it's not in the UKIP manifesto, but...
Well, no, there's...
But I want it to be.
But I wish it was.
My support for you would be slightly less conditional if it was.
Oh, right.
No, I mean, you know, I'm kidding, sort of, but I don't understand why we're equating voting with being in the army.
Because if someone can't vote with what they're fighting for, why should they be fighting for it?
Well, we make kids obey the law who don't have rights yet.
People develop physically before they develop mentally.
It doesn't take a mind that can understand taxation to point a gun.
And we quite often ask young people to do things that they, you know, that we quite often hold young people to standards and they don't get the reciprocal benefits from them until they come of age.
It just seems to me like it's one of those sort of talking points people nod along to without actually really thinking about.
Why should there be any connection to any of these ages?
Well, that's exactly.
Why should there be a connection between the age of sexual consent, of voting, alcohol, and serving in the armed forces?
They have nothing to do with all that.
Well, I agree, but if you say like something tangible, like paying taxes, then that is actually something tangible.
So if a 16-year-old is paying taxes and working hard, then maybe they should be able to vote.
I think perhaps under that's that's one of the exceptions to the rule I'd be willing to consider.
Which is the thing here.
If somebody decides not to go to university and instead wants to be trained as a plumber or a bricklayer or whatever, and they're working at 17 and they are earning an income, they're probably already perhaps even thinking about a family already.
They're probably a conservative.
Well, yes.
So we should have somebody's 17 and they're not going to university, they're paying taxes, then I can see an argument for letting them vote, for sure.
But at that point, you're putting distinctions on something where you put an age rating, and like you said in one of your other speeches that were taken out of context, like some people are more mature than others, but you put an age range over a safety.
Yeah, that's a safety point.
But when you start differentiating between one 16-year-old who's working and one 16-year-old that's in university, then you start getting into the murky realm of possible that could be viewed as discrimination.
Well, of course there's discrimination.
I mean, we discriminate in every way in everyday life.
If you're discriminating, it just means you're thinking.
Yeah.
No, absolutely.
Because you have to be able to draw lines between concepts and categories and objects and ideas to be able to manipulate them.
No, no, no.
Having at least Lem Finishes points.
I get where you're coming with this.
But you did just talk me out of the exception.
But I think that is a good exception there.
But sorry, carry on.
No, I agree with your exception.
But the problem is when you start putting distinctions between those exceptions, then it can become very arbitrary distinctions.
Like, for example, someone's university but is still working a part-time job to pay for their university, they pay taxes.
So if you just put it from a university and working standpoint, that won't work.
Why not just, I mean, if they're paying taxes, then what's the problem?
People are doing a part-time.
I can't pay that much tax.
It doesn't matter how much they pay.
No, I mean, do they even earn enough to get into the bottom of the business?
If you go to the shop over there right now and buy a coffee, you're paying taxes.
So at that point, if the tax is the arbitrary point, you're paying taxes on everything you buy.
Yeah, but then you're giving tourists the right to vote because they pay taxes on say hi.
Okay, I'll do that.
I'll take that.
But obviously, you're seeing my point behind it now.
I do, but all voting has to be contingent on citizenship.
Yes, absolutely.
There's no question of it, right?
And everyone born in this country is a citizen of this country.
So that's fine.
That's a question we don't have to argue.
But yeah, I mean, there is a minimum tax threshold before which you don't pay any taxes.
But if you're saying, if I understand you correctly, you're saying that you're skittish about discriminating between people on the basis of choices they've made.
Well, that's what the tax system is, like tax breaks for married couples.
You know, like that's literally how we create incentives in the way people are taxed.
This conversation went a route I didn't plan on.
Okay, no, no, that's all right, because I think that I can take the other side, because I think what you're trying to say is you don't want arbitrary discrimination.
Yeah.
If we're going to discriminate, it should be with good reason.
Yes.
Yes.
And I think that if you're not paying taxes and you are paying taxes, that's a good point of discrimination because that's something that the individual can change.
You can go and get a job.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
But the point I was making, like, as Milo said, I don't want to misrepresent you, but you said if you're going to university, you're not typically paying taxes.
I know university is very expensive in America, but in the UK, it's not much better from my understanding.
Oh, it's still expensive, yeah.
Yeah.
But you're still working the job as much as you're not, you know, as paying for university, at least to live.
But so you're still paying university fees, but if you're already suffering somewhat with the, at least the right-wing mindset is already suffering through the, let's say, creative explaining of the real world through the universities.
That's a very diplomatic way of putting it.
I would get into politics, but I'm way too honest.
But on that mindset, then you might be creating the divide even further.
There's already a left and right divide, which I was talking to my friends earlier over there, where they said that's a very out-of-touch way of putting it, but I had no better way to put it.
Like, progressive, regressive, that doesn't make sense anymore.
But then you're adding another line of division in the universities, which well, I think that there's no point worrying about how people self-divide in groups and how we identify people.
It's always changing, and it's completely malleable, and people can move from one group to another at will.
So I don't think we need to worry about that so much.
I think that worrying about justifiable boundaries that we put in place, and this is what I was trying to say about Peterpin.
Any kind of boundaries have to be justifiable if we're going to impose them on people.
And I think that saying, okay, you can only vote until you're X age or if you're earning money, if you're paying taxes.
I think that's totally justifiable.
This is, I mean, the problem is that tax policy doesn't proceed from this basis.
It doesn't work out what a set of principles are and figure out then how much money we have to spend on things.
Free spends all the money and then figures out how to wring it out of people.
I agree that it's terribly young in this country.
No, I mean, it's like, you know, well, we decided we're going to spend 300 million on this piece of crap.
So we're going to need to nudge this up.
It proceeds from it.
It's like a maxed out credit card basis of, you know, like, what's the minimum amount that we can ring people for without taking the country bankrupt?
And as soon as you get below a certain amount, we're going to spend more and ask for credit limit increases and all the rest of it.
So this is a nice conversation, but it's not basis on which tax policy is decided.
At the same time, when it comes to tax policy, everyone has this idea of economic migrants only being the people that come from poor areas to here.
And that's not necessarily always the case because there are very wealthy people that go to, let's say, farming sake, the Caymans, who go there and they'll pay, I don't know, let's say 20 grand to get in and they can give you the money.
This is actually a good example of this.
You get a lot of wealthy economic migrants going to do also because it's lovely weather and English speaking.
It's just like so many people rely on their news from Twitter, like, or let's say Twitter, because I know you're so welcome on Twitter right now.
Well, who isn't welcome on Twitter?
I've just opened up a Twitter for, like, I mentioned earlier, I was doing a streaming, I just opened up for that, and I'm just like, what madness I got myself into on this.
It's awful.
It's turning people crazy as well.
Tim Paul's doing really good work on this.
Oh, I love Tim Paul.
I'm a big fan.
I tried watching leftist sources and right sources.
And weirdly, you came up on right, but I don't believe that's where you stand.
Anything that's not leftist is right.
Hey, I'm right with Stalin.
I'm a Nazi, man.
Right, well, so is there anything else or coming up?
One thing.
I know you've made a few controversial jokes in your time.
Yes.
As have I.
I got to the point of where I got a final warning at the job I was working.
Right.
Because I had a bike accident when I was 17.
It gave me brain damage, a few things, and it gave me epilepsy.
And as I was explaining it to people, I will tell the joke.
I hope if you feel it, it will get you demonetized.
It's not too bad.
Coming from an epileptic, it didn't offend me.
Right.
Well, it's not me saying the joke.
I will say the joke.
But BuzzFeed, I disavow this joke.
Carry on.
Everything that follows in the mouth of this stranger, whom we do not know.
And totally disavow.
And totally disavow has absolutely nothing to do with it.
I don't disavow this joke.
Well, you can't really disavow yourself, can you?
Well, I'm the epileptic.
If anyone's going to get offended, it's me.
Basically, when I'm trying to explain people, they ask what they do in the event of seizure.
So I turn on the basics, move everything away out of my head, make sure you roll me onto my side when I'm done.
And during a seizure, if you get the chance, put a glow stick in my hand because then I'll turn the office into a rave.
Okay.
And I got a final warning for that because I'd offend the one epileptic in the room.
And I was like, who's the epileptic?
I want to apologise.
It's like, Steve Lovell.
Oh, shit.
Sorry.
And I held up my name name.
It's like, oh, we're still giving you the warning, though.
It's like.
I offended myself.
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