Right Wing Commentator Matthew Vadum Says "Registering Poor to Vote is Un-American"

Right wing commentator & senior editor at the Capital Research Center, Matthew Vadum says "registering the poor to vote is un-American" and is "like handing out burglary tools to criminals.

Matthew Vadum

Apparently being poor in America is an automatic disqualifier to cast one's vote, that's according to Matthew Vadum of the Capital Research Center. In his latest article for the American Thinker, Vadum writes he believes that "registering the poor to vote is un-American." Here's an excerpt from his article:

Why are left-wing activist groups so keen on registering the poor to vote? Because they know the poor can be counted on to vote themselves more benefits by electing redistributionist politicians. Welfare recipients are particularly open to demagoguery and bribery.

Registering them to vote is like handing out burglary tools to criminals. It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country -- which is precisely why Barack Obama zealously supports registering welfare recipients to vote...

[....]

Encouraging those who burden society to participate in elections isn't about helping the poor. It's about helping the poor to help themselves to others' money. It's about raw so-called social justice. It's about moving America ever farther away from the small-government ideals of the Founding Fathers.

"Registering the unproductive to vote is an idea that was heavily promoted by the small-c communists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven" -- and if that assertion sounds suspiciously like the similar theories involving Cloward and Piven promoted by Glenn Beck, it is no coincidence.

How different is this from saying the Voting Rights Act should never have been passed to allow blacks the right to vote? Matthew Vadum's words are hateful and mean spirited. One's socioeconomic status shouldn't be used to determine who gets the right to vote or not. There are many rich criminals walking around in our midst and the long arm of the law have taken many off our streets -- Bernard Madoff, for example.  Gee, I wonder who is the elitist in this debate?