Isn't not voting better than casting an ignorant vote?

[VikingLegacy]

---

Members don't see this ad.

baleeted

 

[bigmike7104]

All probably vote libertarian even though it usually doesn't make much difference either since it's always the dems or republican. But who knows, Ron Paul has been getting a lot more support over the years so maybe things will start changing if people start to realize how much both parties suck.

 

[Remuneration]

Libertarians also suck, hope this helps.

 

[FlowRate]

Libertarians also suck, hope this helps.

Yeah, liberty blows.

 

[morning]

1. When did I sign this social contract? How do I get out of the social contract? What happens if I get out of the social contract?

2. I am not saying that you are forced to vote, I'm saying that people who vote are forcing me to abide by THEIR opinions, regardless of whether I vote or not.

3. Rights should not be lost to "maintain a functioning society."

"Those who sacrifice Liberty for security deserve neither."

4. Third party candidates that I would vote for cannot affect the change I desire from within the system itself.

Dude, your posts in this thread are just bursting with melodrama. You have no idea what real, actual "government by violence" is. Don't equate voting in a democracy with being oppressed via the threat of violence. That's just a bit offensive to the people who actually ARE being held down by the threat of violence.

It's pretty easy to sit in a warm house, in a stable country, and pontificate about how oppressive everything is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o76WQzVJ434

 

[Paladin7]

Laws are indeed passed according to the vote of the majority. However, we operate under a Constitutional Republic in which a Constitution protects the rights of each and every individual. If a law gets passed that violates the due process or equal protection guaranteed to each individual person, then that law (passed by the majority) is unconstitutional.

What can an individual do to preserve his rights? He can exercise his right to vote, and vote for representatives who understand and value the Constitution and the individual rights it protects.

People who abstain from voting, whether it be in silent protest or sheer apathy, only spite themselves. They simply increase the ease with which representatives in favor of big, powerful, centralized government may be elected. Then we may all know what true "force" and "violence" feels like.

 

[Suenya]

Dude, your posts in this thread are just bursting with melodrama. You have no idea what real, actual "government by violence" is. Don't equate voting in a democracy with being oppressed via the threat of violence. That's just a bit offensive to the people who actually ARE being held down by the threat of violence.

It's pretty easy to sit in a warm house, in a stable country, and pontificate about how oppressive everything is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o76WQzVJ434

First of all, there is a threat of violence or imprisonment (by force, no less!) used to enforce most of the laws in the country. That's how pretty much every legal system works (whether you like it or not). Personally, I think it's pretty awesome in some cases... I'm glad it's used to prevent and punish things like assaults and rape. I'm less than thrilled about much of the rest of it. The same process is used though. Voting is related to this, mostly indirectly, by supporting those who create new laws allowing the use of force or the threat thereof to prevent people from doing things others dislike.

Just because some people have it far far worse does not mean that violence is not inherent in the system. I know you probably don't agree with these seemingly small negatives of the system, which I understand. I don't really understand the idea that it would be insulting to people that have it worse. I hear things like that argued all the time, and most of the time I just don't get it. It's not like he said "this is like the holocaust/darfur/etc" or even Russia. He just said that he has a moral objection to this aspect of the system, which may be less pronounced here than elsewhere, but still exists.


Sit in front of city hall and pass out bags of marijuana for like 10 cents per ounce and see if the government won't use the threat of violence or actual violence to stop you, especially if you try to non-violently run away if they attempt to arrest you.


And I do vote, but instead vote for the person who I think will do the overall least of what I consider to be immoral things. Normally that means third party (and where I used to live, for my congressman who I disagree with but respect and trust far more than any challengers he's had), sometimes in really close match ups I'll vote D or R if I feel like I have an okay guess as to who is less likely to do more things I dislike.

 

[greatnt249]

What can an individual do to preserve his rights? He can exercise his right to vote, and vote for representatives who understand and value the Constitution and the individual rights it protects.

Uh huh...and what if ("hypothetically" speaking) none of the candidates meet the bolded qualifications? Rhetoric is one thing; action is another.

To those arguing for more third-party support, do you honestly want an election won by a majority 30% of the population?

 

[FlowRate]

Dude, your posts in this thread are just bursting with melodrama. You have no idea what real, actual "government by violence" is. Don't equate voting in a democracy with being oppressed via the threat of violence. That's just a bit offensive to the people who actually ARE being held down by the threat of violence.

It's pretty easy to sit in a warm house, in a stable country, and pontificate about how oppressive everything is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o76WQzVJ434

There's no melodrama--it's fact.

Also, you've just presented me with a relativity argument. That's like saying your tribe is just fine because it only sacrifices one virgin a year, instead of the tribe one forest over that sacrifices 10 virgins a year. Virgins in the other tribe have it much, much worse, after all.

Laws are indeed passed according to the vote of the majority. However, we operate under a Constitutional Republic in which a Constitution protects the rights of each and every individual. If a law gets passed that violates the due process or equal protection guaranteed to each individual person, then that law (passed by the majority) is unconstitutional.

What can an individual do to preserve his rights? He can exercise his right to vote, and vote for representatives who understand and value the Constitution and the individual rights it protects.

People who abstain from voting, whether it be in silent protest or sheer apathy, only spite themselves. They simply increase the ease with which representatives in favor of big, powerful, centralized government may be elected. Then we may all know what true “force” and “violence” feels like.

Congressmen do not understand or value the constitution, as a general rule. We've raped the constitution to the ground at this point.

First of all, there is a threat of violence or imprisonment (by force, no less!) used to enforce most of the laws in the country. That's how pretty much every legal system works (whether you like it or not). Personally, I think it's pretty awesome in some cases... I'm glad it's used to prevent and punish things like assaults and rape. I'm less than thrilled about much of the rest of it. The same process is used though. Voting is related to this, mostly indirectly, by supporting those who create new laws allowing the use of force or the threat thereof to prevent people from doing things others dislike.

Just because some people have it far far worse does not mean that violence is not inherent in the system. I know you probably don't agree with these seemingly small negatives of the system, which I understand. I don't really understand the idea that it would be insulting to people that have it worse. I hear things like that argued all the time, and most of the time I just don't get it. It's not like he said "this is like the holocaust/darfur/etc" or even Russia. He just said that he has a moral objection to this aspect of the system, which may be less pronounced here than elsewhere, but still exists.


Sit in front of city hall and pass out bags of marijuana for like 10 cents per ounce and see if the government won't use the threat of violence or actual violence to stop you, especially if you try to non-violently run away if they attempt to arrest you.


And I do vote, but instead vote for the person who I think will do the overall least of what I consider to be immoral things. Normally that means third party (and where I used to live, for my congressman who I disagree with but respect and trust far more than any challengers he's had), sometimes in really close match ups I'll vote D or R if I feel like I have an okay guess as to who is less likely to do more things I dislike.

Why should we have to choose a lesser evil? Should we not strive for good?

 

[Suenya]

Why should we have to choose a lesser evil? Should we not strive for good?

Because, functionally actively trying to prevent greater evil is a more efficacious way of moving towards good. Baby steps, and all that.

 

[VikingLegacy]

baleeted

 

[Suenya]

There are quite a few negatives you might not realize relating to intelligence (assuming a very good IQ test as a measure of intelligence).

1. Many many intelligent people (from 120 up) still rely mainly on simple heuristics politically. They are different ones, but they don't necessarily give you better results (even ignoring that we all disagree on what is good results). While it's not true that the smarter people are more intellectually lazy, politically thinking, the distribution is pretty similar. On a personal level, talk to someone you respect as a scientist, perhaps that you do research with. You may be lucky, but most of the time people aren't as careful in their thinking about politics as they are about research, and use alot of emotion as substitute for research and understanding.

2. George W Bush, who is pretty unpopular among many groups of voters of all political denominations, was actually strongly favored among members of high IQ societies (the very high ones, like top 0.1%). I don't think he was a good president personally, and we may all disagree (and maybe we're wrong and in retrospect he'll have been prescient in many ways, but I doubt it), but people in the 165+ (i think) range supported him far more. Not an ideal group, since it's a self selected group who joins such societies, but just to point it out.

3. Intelligence is, in most but not all endeavors, is of extremely diminishing marginal utility. I would be amazed to find that this is one of the areas it is not. Having a higher IQ probably wouldn't make much of a difference even if people weren't mostly voting heuristically to begin with.

 

[greatnt249]

Instead of measuring votes towards an issue, why not measure IQ points towards an issue?

Because intelligence doesn't necessarily correlate with the moral character of an individual. Just because you're intelligent doesn't mean you have the best intentions for society in mind, or that you are immune from corrupting influences.

 

[morning]

Apparently we should be happy with the lesser evil.

Your point is one of many contentions I have with our version of democracy. I don't like having essentially a multiple-choice pick of bad leaders and bad options.

I think democracy can be good as a concept, provided the voters are high-quality human beings of superb mental capacity and moral character, but we don't have that. What we have is our pick of a small handful of people more gunnerish and prestige-hungry than the worst of premeds, and a few scant issues choices that reduce complex problems to yes/no questions. This system gives absolute blithering idiots the right to have their far-less-than-equal voice be heard equally.

I have no solution, I would never have been the one to institute a thing like democracy, but I have a small idea to throw out there:

Instead of measuring votes towards an issue, why not measure IQ points towards an issue? Imagine everyone got their IQ formally tested each year, and if they had an IQ of 95, their vote would really be "95 points" towards their given decision. If somebody with an IQ of 150 voted for an issue, their vote would count for 55 more "points" than the other person's. That way, whatever opinion that had more IQ points behind it would win.

It's not a perfect solution, and I only proposed it to stimulate conversation on how to fix things.

Here's how you "fix things": teach critical thinking and philosophy in school. Dedicate a half hour to an hour to it, every single year. Have children analyze news articles for bias and falsehoods. Carry on debates about the teachings of the famous philosophers. Discuss the scientific method, and look at current and old works of scientific research for weak methodology and biased results. Teach kids how to cut through BS, false dichotomies, logical fallacies, and all the others layers of crap that a flawed species piles onto public discourse (the infatuation with IQ as a benchmark for a person's worth can be found within said layers of crap, mind you.)

This will never happen, of course. You can't teach critical thinking in a country where 45% of the population believes that we were created 10,000 years ago. People would not have it.

"I wish to propose for the reader's favourable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true. I must, of course, admit that if such an opinion became common it would completely transform our social life and our political system; since both are at present faultless, this must weigh against it." -Bertrand Russell

 

[Suenya]

In my public high school, we didn't have philosophy (oh how I wish we did, everyone should have at least some logic and philosophy of science), but we spent alot of our 10th/11th grade history classes discussing things like historical perspective, and critically reading different accounts of the same events. And everyone loved those classes. I sort of wish they were more common.

 

[pvmed]

.

 

[morning]

It's surprising to see this coming from someone who obviously appreciates "The Big Lebowski."

Just FYI, I have enough homework as it is, as do most people who do not vote (people that have like, um, ya know, JOBS). Employers don't just give time off so their stupid employees can go vote. Besides, who wants to stand in line for 45 minutes to take part in a vague gesture of doing so called "civic-duty." I'd rather masturbate, and when I get done I'll have something to show for it, unlike you, the voter. (to quote George Carlin) 😛

Well...at least it's an ethos 😀

 

[Barcu]

It's surprising to see this coming from someone who obviously appreciates "The Big Lebowski."

Just FYI, I have enough homework as it is, as do most people who do not vote (people that have like, um, ya know, JOBS). Employers don't just give time off so their stupid employees can go vote. Besides, who wants to stand in line for 45 minutes to take part in a vague gesture of doing so called "civic-duty." I'd rather masturbate, and when I get done I'll have something to show for it, unlike you, the voter. (to quote George Carlin) 😛

Don't employers by law have to give employees time to go vote?

Now, that would certainly not get someone like you to vote, but if that is someone's one excuse, better come up with a better one.

 

[pvmed]

.