To the undecided voters

[AFK]

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

Yes, but speech is NEVER binding.  Even taking the cynical view that it only has weight "sometimes", sometimes > never.  No one can predict the future, and no, there is NO 100% certainty your individual ballot will be counted correctly.  So the answer is, what?  Just, "don't vote"?  So because my ballot might be missed, I should let that dissuade me?  No.  I vote, and then if there is reason to suspect foul play, use your right to complain and find the right official to complain to. 

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.

Well, in my case, I advocate on the behalf of my favorite issues AND I vote on them.  I educate and then actuate.  If an issue is that important to you, and you worry that not all understand it the way you do, you use your freedom of speech to disseminate your viewpoints.  But you can do both.  And voting takes, what, 20 or 30 minutes?  I took my wife and her parents to city hall to vote.  We were there and back within half an hour.  AND, it provided a great educational opportunity for my little girl.   

[AFK]

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?

How about this.  In polls, it is shown that 70% of a people in a particular community have said they are very, very concerned about putting in a Stop sign at an intersection.  They have said it is very, very dangerous and needs to be addressed.  When it comes time to vote, not only does it not pass, it turns out that only a small percentage of the town bothered to show up and vote on it.  If it was really that concerning wouldn't they put their money where their mouth is?  And since they didn't, why should the city government EVER listen to them if they can't bother to show up and vote on putting their concern into action? 

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

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

Yes, but speech is NEVER binding.  Even taking the cynical view that it only has weight "sometimes", sometimes > never.  No one can predict the future, and no, there is NO 100% certainty your individual ballot will be counted correctly.  So the answer is, what?  Just, "don't vote"?  So because my ballot might be missed, I should let that dissuade me?  No.  I vote, and then if there is reason to suspect foul play, use your right to complain and find the right official to complain to. 

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.

Well, in my case, I advocate on the behalf of my favorite issues AND I vote on them.  I educate and then actuate.  If an issue is that important to you, and you worry that not all understand it the way you do, you use your freedom of speech to disseminate your viewpoints.  But you can do both.  And voting takes, what, 20 or 30 minutes?  I took my wife and her parents to city hall to vote.  We were there and back within half an hour.  AND, it provided a great educational opportunity for my little girl.   

I don't think you should be dissuaded from voting. I vote and I think that ANYONE THAT WANTS TO VOTE, should vote. I think voting is important, for the people that consider it important. I don't think it should be required, or that it acts as a touchstone on your value ads a citizen or member of society.

If you want to vote, then vote... take your wife, kids, grandparents, next door neighbors and anyone else who wants to vote with you. If GA doesn't want to vote, though, then wtf business is it of anyone's other than GA's?

This entire thread reminds me of the South Park episode with the Giant Douche and Turd Sandwich... and I mean the bit where they send Stan off on a mule, not the funny bits.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

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

You seem to be assuming that the "few thousand more" would have all been anti-Bush, rather than split along the lines of the people who DID turn out to vote. What is your evidence to support such an assumption?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I don't think you should be dissuaded from voting. I vote and I think that ANYONE THAT WANTS TO VOTE, should vote. I think voting is important, for the people that consider it important. I don't think it should be required, or that it acts as a touchstone on your value ads a citizen or member of society.

If you want to vote, then vote... take your wife, kids, grandparents, next door neighbors and anyone else who wants to vote with you. If GA doesn't want to vote, though, then wtf business is it of anyone's other than GA's?

Yes, this.

And furthermore, I would argue that if you were trying to persuade GA to vote, calling him names, swearing at him, and insisting that he is a bad citizen for not voting is EXTREMELY unlikely to sway him.

In fact, these tactics seem to function less to persuade nonvoters to vote, than to simply make voters feel superior for their choice.

[AFK]

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

You seem to be assuming that the "few thousand more" would have all been anti-Bush, rather than split along the lines of the people who DID turn out to vote. What is your evidence to support such an assumption?

Just look at Florida on a county by county basis.  Higher turnout in the counties that voted for Gore certainly would've gone to his favor.  Of course, from Bush's perspective, higher turnout in the counties that went for him could've given him a convincing and clear win and avoided the Supreme Court fiasco and resulting hard feelings.  

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Well, then I'd guess that they weren't all that concerned and the poll was probably wrong.

Oddly enough, this leads to a story about my little town of Roseville, Oh.

There was an intersection in our town that had four accidents in one year. People complained, people wanted a stop sign there. So they got a petition together, took it to the Mayor and said "All these people agree. We need a stop sign." The mayor said OK, and had a stop sign put in. No election, no waiting for the ballot year and electronic voting machines or anything else... people simply acted on the need.

That, I think, is an example of the point I'm making. If I want a stop sign at point blah, I can hold a rally and go vote... or I can walk around get a bunch of people to support me and tell the town to just go buy a damned sign.

Voting is important, voting is awesome and people that want to vote should vote. But its not the only way to be involved in the community or civic system, nor is it the most direct, especially if you're not otherwise involved in the political process.

So for RWHN and Jenne, they seem politically motivated, informed and they want to vote... SO BY GODDESS THEY SHOULD!

GA doesn't want to vote, so whoopie!  Next year, she'll complain about some political asshatery and I doubt that we'll remember she didn't vote.

Freedom must work both ways, or its not freedom. Either we're free people, or we're compelled by the government to vote. You cannot be both.

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

You seem to be assuming that the "few thousand more" would have all been anti-Bush, rather than split along the lines of the people who DID turn out to vote. What is your evidence to support such an assumption?

Just look at Florida on a county by county basis.  Higher turnout in the counties that voted for Gore certainly would've gone to his favor.  Of course, from Bush's perspective, higher turnout in the counties that went for him could've given him a convincing and clear win and avoided the Supreme Court fiasco and resulting hard feelings.  

And greater turnout in both might have resulted in exactly the same damned thing we had anyway.

[AFK]

Well, I don't advocate people calling names one way or the other.  Taking personal shots is pretty lame in either direction.  

HOWEVER, that doesn't mean one who advocates and tries to encourage people to vote, through education and information dissemination, should be looked down upon either.  For some people, not voting, is as simple as not understanding the process or not understanding what issues are at stake.  The informed non-voter is one thing.  The un-informed non-voter is a whole different scenario altogether.  

[AFK]

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

You seem to be assuming that the "few thousand more" would have all been anti-Bush, rather than split along the lines of the people who DID turn out to vote. What is your evidence to support such an assumption?

Just look at Florida on a county by county basis.  Higher turnout in the counties that voted for Gore certainly would've gone to his favor.  Of course, from Bush's perspective, higher turnout in the counties that went for him could've given him a convincing and clear win and avoided the Supreme Court fiasco and resulting hard feelings.  

And greater turnout in both might have resulted in exactly the same damned thing we had anyway.

Yes, but why base a vote or a non-vote on what might happen?  Why base it on what others are doing? 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

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

You seem to be assuming that the "few thousand more" would have all been anti-Bush, rather than split along the lines of the people who DID turn out to vote. What is your evidence to support such an assumption?

Just look at Florida on a county by county basis.  Higher turnout in the counties that voted for Gore certainly would've gone to his favor.  Of course, from Bush's perspective, higher turnout in the counties that went for him could've given him a convincing and clear win and avoided the Supreme Court fiasco and resulting hard feelings.  

And greater turnout in both might have resulted in exactly the same damned thing we had anyway.

Yes, but why base a vote or a non-vote on what might happen?  Why base it on what others are doing? 

Yeah? Why?

[Cain]

*walks in, whistling innocuously*

Hey, someone left a hat here.  Its got "Diabolocus Advocatus" written on the side.  I wonder what happens when I put it on....anyhow, the Prosecution would now like to call the honourable IOZ to the stand, in the case of Democracy and Voting.

A coworker asked me who I voted for today, and I said that I didn't vote. She asked me why not, her disapproval being frankly palpable, and I told her I didn't vote for the same reason I don't always come to complete stops at stop signs: the act reeks of undue deference to constituted authority. The presumptive obligation of each citizen to vote is one of those goofy tenets of the democratic civic religion. Like most religious precepts and practices, we continue to valorize it even as we abandon it. Well over half of us now abstain. Even Catholicism is in better shape. I actually will haul myself into a booth if there's a seat on the city council at stake, because, fuck, man, the potholes. On the opposite end of the scale you get instead the idea that if you aggregate the binary decisions of millions of people you will produce some aspirational avatar of The People, The Country, whatever . . . some pure representative of the collective will and the Direction We're Going In and so forth and so on. Most political discourse is infected with the plainly insane notion that there exists a sort of ineffible national political consensus which political leadership must tap into, like a bunch of psychic mediums, in order to Get Things Done, Bipartisanly. "The American People want . . ." begin many such ponderings. Naturally, the American People don't want anything in particular, because there are 300 million of them. We live, as we dream, alone, says Conrad. What any given soul desires at any given moment of any given day is the impenetrable business of that person uniquely. All else is obfuscation of the essential randomness of individual existence--we are but slaves to fate, etc.--usually in the servie of keeping those who are better fed and better paid than you better fed and better paid than you. Participation in the maintenance of a political order is a sucker's game. It's a beautiful day in Pennsylvania. Go outside. The sun doesn't give a damn who's president.

But only in the opinion pages of The New York Times and are elections considered intrinsically good. Elections are a means of deciding succession in government. There's a reasonable case to be made that they can produce fairer results, by which I mean a broader sense among the governed population that their rulers guard their subjects' interests, if not necessarily better results, by which I mean rulers effectively guarding their subjects' interests. Let's say "free and fair" elections, then, obeying the cant of our times, and reminding ourselves that fairness alone isn't an overriding virtue.

There is not, however, a defensible case to be made that elections are categorically different than any other method of selecting leadership, be it hereditary succession or decisions by some People's Central Committee or the drawing of lots. There is no transcendent, eternal order that dictates what is or isn't a meritous means of deciding who gets to be the next big man. These are all human contrivances, part of no natural order, based on no particular imperatives. Would the state of our government really decline if we were to select our representatives by lottery? Over the course of a couple centuries? I wonder.

The fact that our dictator is chosen by a mediated plebiscite rather than, say, elected by the Roman Senate, is really quite irrelevant to the powers that he possesses. What is the purpose of orderly succession? Why do states and governments strive for it? Because orderly succession is one of the fundamnetals of continuity of government. Change that you can believe in!

Cain,
presenting arguments from the opposition, but not necessarily believing in them.

[Payne]

On the opposite end of the scale you get instead the idea that if you aggregate the binary decisions of millions of people you will produce some aspirational avatar of The People, The Country, whatever . . . some pure representative of the collective will and the Direction We're Going In and so forth and so on.

When I was a helluva lot younger than I am even now, I used to think about all decisions that are made in parliament being put to plebiscite, "In this age of almost instant communication," I thought "Surely we can put everything that goes before parliament before The People as a whole without too much effort".

Alas, all we got was Pop Idol and controversy over the naming of an animal on Blue Peter.

I guess where I'm going with this is: Yes, the electoral process is by nature binary and broad-brush, but no one seems interested in actually FIXING that any time soon, so we have to make do with what we have.

[Cain]

The Honourable IOZ, it should be pointed out, has no interest in fixing things.  His bohemian hedonism extends only to mocking the vanities of others, not seeking to improve their lot.

Its a useful criticism against some people, but not the argument's originator.

[Payne]

The Honourable IOZ, it should be pointed out, has no interest in fixing things.  His bohemian hedonism extends only to mocking the vanities of others, not seeking to improve their lot.

Its a useful criticism against some people, but not the argument's originator.

Yeah, I'm responding more to the argument than to him though.

Back when I was thinking about the e-plebiscite thing, I was far less cynical than I am now. I considered the current system very binary even then.

[Cain]

Tis true enough.  Anyway, if you want to see some of IOZ's writings, get yourself to hxxp://whoisioz.blogspot.com/.  Personally, my favourite anarchist (not that there were many jockeying for the position, but had there been, IOZ still probably would have won out, if for nothing less than his outstandingly pretentious faggotry and excellent use of category names).