>>509502551
The expansion of rights is one of the things that kills empires. Your own British Empire flourished until such a time as the peoples of your colonies were to be given equal rights - a cascade begun by women's suffrage. Now your colonies are gone and you live in a nightmare police state beset by foreign invaders whom are infinitely favored in your courts and laws.

The counter balance of authority is absolutely necessary but authority can be gatekept by its constituents in a republic. When the people of a nation are of one national identity with a well defined (and importantly - attainable) class of voters who decide who does and doesn't run the country things work out much better. And this is proven, not theoretical. See: the beginnings of America wherein landowners were the only voters.

I posit that one should earn their vote, either through public service as military or first responder, through being the head of household with at least one child and no felonies history, or to be awarded on a case by case basis by a local authority for an act that saved the life of one of their countrymen. Such a system would by default exclude the vast majority of women and minorities anyway.