To the undecided voters

[East Coast Hustle]

also, as far as the "right to own guns/right to vote" thing goes, let's try to remember that it's not that voting protects your right to own guns, it's that owning guns protects your right to vote.

[Cain]

But a government is less likely to run amok if it knows it's citizenry is armed, which, if I'm not mistaken, is one of the main points in having the right to bear arms in the first place.

I don't really know if this impinges on the main thesis or not but I'm going to have to ask for a citation needed.  Because it doesn't seem to be working.  An ideological justification for running amok may well be far more powerful and influential than the right to bear arms.  Having arms along is not really worth much, unless they are being used.  In theory, yes, arms can be used to that end, and are helpful, but in practice it doesn't seem to be working.

I'm not saying voting is more important or owning guns or blady blah, I just have some legitimate worries about that sentence.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

also, as far as the "right to own guns/right to vote" thing goes, let's try to remember that it's not that voting protects your right to own guns, it's that owning guns protects your right to vote.

[East Coast Hustle]

my main issue here is with people namecalling and denigrating those who choose not to vote for whatever reason.

WHY ARE YUO TRYING TO TAKE AWAY MY FREEDOM OF SPEECH?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

This is why I need to just start a new post instead of editing my previous one. But anyway, I did edit it, and I think my point is quite valid.

By the way, I am not actually arguing that you have to own guns in order to protect your right to own guns. I AM, however, arguing that IT MAKES AS MUCH LOGICAL SENSE as saying that you have to vote in order to protect your right to vote.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

my main issue here is with people namecalling and denigrating those who choose not to vote for whatever reason.

WHY ARE YUO TRYING TO TAKE AWAY MY FREEDOM OF SPEECH?

NO YUO

<runs away crying>

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

The right to vote and free speech are not equal in one regard.  When you tell a Congressman, "You fucked up, I think you should get out of office", that Congressman is under no compulsion to listen to you and to abide by your decree.  However, when people use their vote to say "You fucked up, I think you should get out of office.  We want the new guy", said Congressman must abide and GTFO.  

Speech alone doesn't get things done.  Speech can be important in terms of helping to set the agenda, and getting issues into the public eye.  But in the end, if no one votes on the issues, or votes for those who will vote on the issues in Congress, nothing will get done.  If the US citizenry overwhelmingly wants Congress to go forward with stem-cell research, then the US citizenry needs to follow up with that will and vote for the appropriate Congressmen to undertake that endeavour.  It's all fine and dandy for people to want to have stem-cell research, but then if a bunch of Born-Again Conservatives get into office, well, that ain't gonna happen is it?  

And let's not forget the important state and local issues that are voted on.  It's easy to just focus on the Prez election and look at how insignificant one vote is.  But when it comes to whether or not to open a Casino in your town, whether or not to raise the mill rates, whether or not to close the local library, in those instances every vote is important and holds significant weight.  

Thus we should bring back rotten fruit to the political process.

However, that's still missing the point.

The Right To Vote and the Right To Complain are both guaranteed AND neither is a requirement for the other, as our Constitution stands.

Everyone can choose to vote or not vote.
Everyone can choose to complain about the government or not.
Most of the time, we don't know if the person complaining, voted.

Thus, this whole argument is silly. We don't KNOW who did and didn't vote, nor who/what they voted if they did turn in a ballot. Thus, we can only weigh their whining/complaining etc on its own merits, not on the merits of some act in Nov 2008 that they may or may not have been involved in.

Hell, with the amount of legalese and interpretation involved in most issues, even the people that do vote for or against something may end up kicking themselves later. The Ohio smoking ban is a good example of that.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

P.S.

You have to vote in order to protect your right to vote
You have to own guns in order to protect your right to own guns
You have to vote in order to protect your right to own guns
You have to own guns in order to protect your right to vote
You have to speak freely in order to protect your right to freedom of speech
You have to assemble in order to protect your right to assemble
You have to assemble to protect your right to freedom of speech
You have to speak freely to protect your right to own guns

etc

etc

[Cain]

This is why I need to just start a new post instead of editing my previous one. But anyway, I did edit it, and I think my point is quite valid.

By the way, I am not actually arguing that you have to own guns in order to protect your right to own guns. I AM, however, arguing that IT MAKES AS MUCH LOGICAL SENSE as saying that you have to vote in order to protect your right to vote.

OK, thats fine.  But logic aside, I was interested in the idea, in and of itself.  Because in my experience, lots of countries with armed people have experienced repression and the like.  Playing groups off against each other, retaining a monopoly on the use of violence, relying on punitive measures and state terrorism is usually enough for a state to muck people around, even if they are armed.

I mean, to use an example, Bush abolished haebus corpus.  While it has not been used much, I very much doubt the fear of guns stopped him, or even came into the equation.  He could use an ideological construct, the War on Terror, to convince those with the guns that it would be never used against them (even though in all likelihood it will be one day, unless that law is repealed quite soon).  Hegemony, as Gramsci understood it (how a ruling clique imparts its ideology to the rest of society) would need to be overcome before one could even consider using arms.

I guess I'm saying arms are potentially useful tools, but the hardware in the head is more important.  All talk about voting etc aside.

[AFK]

To refer back to the point that someone (don't remember who and don't feel like reading back ATM) was concerned about: how does one retain one's right to own guns if one does not vote?

Voting may help retain the right to own guns, but how do you protect your rights in a failing democracy when the elections are rigged? That's when gun ownership becomes a "use it or lose it" right. I am not necessarily advocating gun ownership, I am just pointing out that the same logic does apply, IF we are going to apply that logic.

That doesn't make any sense.  If you're right to vote has been compromised or taken away, it's most likely the case that ALL of your rights are being violated and compromised.  So it's no longer about owning a gun as a right, it's something you are doing out of necessity regardless of the actual "right" of gun ownership.  The situation you are talking about is more a akin to having a gun to protect yourself from some government-gone-amok.  But when your government has gone amok.  The Constitution goes out the window. 

The bottom line is, that in a non-corrupt government, protecting your right to own guns WILL involve voting.  Whether it is supporting a candidate who supports your interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, or voting for a Proposition or Referendum that supports your interpretation of the 2nd Amendment.  One of the precious few ways we have to protect our rights, legally, is to vote for people who will help protect our rights.

But a government is less likely to run amok if it knows it's citizenry is armed, which, if I'm not mistaken, is one of the main points in having the right to bear arms in the first place.

Yeah, I'm not sure that a guy with a shotgun is going to be much of a match for a tank.  But anyway, think about it.  When we have these elections there is this prominent group called the NRA that will invariably inject itself into the debates.  And how does the NRA hope to influence its members and other US Citizens?  By giving them information on how to protect the 2nd Amendment, how to protect their right to vote.  What else do they do?  Encourage these people to GO OUT AND VOTE.  You hear it all the time, "Protect the 2nd Amendment, vote for John McCain".  Why?  Because the next Prez will most likely be appointing Supreme Court Justices which can have a HUGE impact on cases involving gun ownership.  So, protecting your right to own guns isn't as simple as just having a gun.  It's making sure you have legislators, Presidents, and ergo, Supreme Court Justices, who are on your side.  

However, I have to confess I have very little interest in this argument, as my main issue here is with people namecalling and denigrating those who choose not to vote for whatever reason.  The "use your rights or lose them" argument really doesn't work with voting, as it assumes that somehow fewer voters automatically = a lower percentage of those who do vote are concerned about maintaining constitutional rights. As someone else pointed out in this thread, the 2000 and 2004 elections had VERY high turnouts, yet since then more of our right have been eroded than at any previous point in history.

AND, if a few thousand more had turned out in Florida, perhaps the last 8 years wouldn't have happened.  

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

This is why I need to just start a new post instead of editing my previous one. But anyway, I did edit it, and I think my point is quite valid.

By the way, I am not actually arguing that you have to own guns in order to protect your right to own guns. I AM, however, arguing that IT MAKES AS MUCH LOGICAL SENSE as saying that you have to vote in order to protect your right to vote.

OK, thats fine.  But logic aside, I was interested in the idea, in and of itself.  Because in my experience, lots of countries with armed people have experienced repression and the like.  Playing groups off against each other, retaining a monopoly on the use of violence, relying on punitive measures and state terrorism is usually enough for a state to muck people around, even if they are armed.

I mean, to use an example, Bush abolished haebus corpus.  While it has not been used much, I very much doubt the fear of guns stopped him, or even came into the equation.  He could use an ideological construct, the War on Terror, to convince those with the guns that it would be never used against them (even though in all likelihood it will be one day, unless that law is repealed quite soon).  Hegemony, as Gramsci understood it (how a ruling clique imparts its ideology to the rest of society) would need to be overcome before one could even consider using arms.

I guess I'm saying arms are potentially useful tools, but the hardware in the head is more important.  All talk about voting etc aside.

YES!

People voted Bush into office. In 2004 we had a record turnout and voted him into office again... even after he'd started writing signing statements, arguing for torture etc. Why? Because their head hardware was set to 'SCARED MONKEY' rather than 'THINKING HUMAN'.

[AFK]

Thus we should bring back rotten fruit to the political process.

However, that's still missing the point.

The Right To Vote and the Right To Complain are both guaranteed AND neither is a requirement for the other, as our Constitution stands.

Everyone can choose to vote or not vote.
Everyone can choose to complain about the government or not.
Most of the time, we don't know if the person complaining, voted.

Thus, this whole argument is silly. We don't KNOW who did and didn't vote, nor who/what they voted if they did turn in a ballot. Thus, we can only weigh their whining/complaining etc on its own merits, not on the merits of some act in Nov 2008 that they may or may not have been involved in.

Hell, with the amount of legalese and interpretation involved in most issues, even the people that do vote for or against something may end up kicking themselves later. The Ohio smoking ban is a good example of that.

Yes, people CAN complain whether they vote or not.   But sometimes speech alone isn't enough.  Speech isn't binding.  A vote is. 

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Thus we should bring back rotten fruit to the political process.

However, that's still missing the point.

The Right To Vote and the Right To Complain are both guaranteed AND neither is a requirement for the other, as our Constitution stands.

Everyone can choose to vote or not vote.
Everyone can choose to complain about the government or not.
Most of the time, we don't know if the person complaining, voted.

Thus, this whole argument is silly. We don't KNOW who did and didn't vote, nor who/what they voted if they did turn in a ballot. Thus, we can only weigh their whining/complaining etc on its own merits, not on the merits of some act in Nov 2008 that they may or may not have been involved in.

Hell, with the amount of legalese and interpretation involved in most issues, even the people that do vote for or against something may end up kicking themselves later. The Ohio smoking ban is a good example of that.

Yes, people CAN complain whether they vote or not.   But sometimes speech alone isn't enough.  Speech isn't binding.  A vote is. 

A vote is binding, IF it gets counted properly and IF it's in line with the majority.

Sometimes, I wonder if everyone thinks through the risks of EVERYONE voting... if EVERYONE votes, lots and lots of your favorite issues might be in the minority.

Consider, for example, that a minority of people in the colonies wanted a revolution... even after it was won. If EVERYONE had a say, we'd still be getting taxed on tea (Oh, I guess we are being taxed on tea anyway...)

[Kai]

Its not that you CAN'T complain if you don't vote.

Its that no one will listen to your screeching if you don't.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Its not that you CAN'T complain if you don't vote.

Its that no one will listen to your screeching if you don't.

Do you ask each complainer if they voted in the last poll, before considering or dismissing their argument?