I asked a question earlier that didn’t articulate an issue which I find rather interesting on many levels, one simply being its inflamitory nature (which I must apologise for in advance!)
The U.S. has a non-transparent voting system, which would render the constitution and all subsequent laws not-binding to me as a U.S. citizen, as the governmental form cannot possibly be charachterized through a democratic lineage. It is a loaded statement and an earnest question that is actually quite fascinating to me. I suppose that the entire non-transparency must first be established as being unreasonable (which it can easily be IMO), at which case, the arguiement for U.S. law being non-binding would begin to take shape. I’m more interested in the second, but would be willing to entertain the first condition, and basically seek to deconstruct the U.S. voting system if necessary. Think of this as a declaration and a question. To the degree that the declaration (non-transparency) is potentially vastly inflammitory (conspiracy), and loaded (as the topic is not fully articulated within this post); I again apologise in advance.
Many thanks for the replies to my previous topic, and advance thanks for discussions along this topic.
Any chance you can articulate your position using simple language and shorter sentences? It would also be nice if you would define some of the terms used since any desire for fruitful discussion is better when all the players understand the meanings of the terms used.
IMHO, so far your words are bureaucratic obfuscation if not academic mumbo jumbo.
You’ve got two premises there: First, you’re claiming that a non-transparent voting system (not quite sure what you mean by that; any citizen can easily learn how the voting system works) makes a country not a democracy. Second, you’re claiming that the laws of a non-democratic country are non-binding. Neither premise is true. If matters are decided by vote of the citizens, that’s a democracy, no matter how opaque the process, and the laws of a monarchy, say, would be just as binding as those of a democracy.
To put it in perhaps more practical terms: If you try to claim that the laws of the country are not binding upon you, and act accordingly, then the men with the handcuffs and guns will still take you to a room with steel bars in the windows. Perhaps in jail you’d be able to comfort yourself with the idea that your punishment is unjustified, but that won’t make it any less real.
OK,…, just responding to the post title, Sure, you could argue that any US law doesn’t apply to you for any reason you chose to invent. But I doubt that would get you far. Imagine:
Traffic Cop: “Hey buddy, did you know you were driving at 48 miles per hour in a 35 mile an hour zone? License and registration please.”
Justthink: “Sir, The US has a non-transparent voting system, which would render the constitution and all subsequent laws not-binding to me as a US citizen.”
Trafic Cop: " License and registration Please".
I suppose if you chose to pursue your argument to trial, and assuming a judge would hear it, they might offer you an opportunity to define what you mean by a “non-transparent voting system” and why that would affect the democratic (or rather undemocratic) lineage of our political system and weather or not, should you be able to make that case, it would render you as a US citizen, unbound by the laws and constitution.
But before you make that step, and as Duckster requested, care to elaborate your position?
Democracy is defined through a process of voting.
Republic is a political system of representation for a democratic constituency (goes back to Plato’s idea of role specialization to maintain an effective social contract - incidentally, he uses this arguement to assure the reader that slavery is a necessity for a social contract, otherwise the political body would not be wealthy enough to have the time to learn about politics, thus not making them specialists, thus ineffective… there’s a slight more to it, but that’s the basic summary)
Democracy - voting binds society
Republic - representative government (elected through voting to cast votes that represent population sectors - note: even with all of our technology, these population sectors are unfortunately still based geographically… 70 percent of the U.S. population could all be ‘anarchists’ or whatever, but recieve no representation because of an over 50% cut-off which can nullify them in a certain geopraphical expanse, thus not representing the aggregate figure which represents a potential national majority.)
Socialism - (contract binds society, contracts modified through a ‘one person, one vote’ process in order to be defined socialist)
Totalitarianism - Unnilateralism of the ruling party, punishment for those outside that unillateral agreement of the ruling party. Non-voting society.
Plutocracy - Government run exclusively by the wealthy
Capitolism - A wealth hoarding priciple of life (capitol: potential wealth; represented wealth) Think: pharoah saving grain in Egypt for the 7 year drought… that is capitolism. Social contracts are required to build, maintain and protect reseviors of capitol.
The problem in definition arises when the voting process is non-transparent (you can’t see what they do with your vote; which in effect makes the act of voting meaningless). If the pretense of a society is that the laws are formulated through a democratic process, and binding because of the kinetic energy of those decisions; then it would stand to reason:
A non-transparent voting system would make these laws not binding, as the trusted kinetic energy inherent in the law formulation shows evidence of corruption. This is of course mere speculation unless it can be shown beyond all reasonable doubt that a known transparent method which is viable and cheaper than the one in current use has been discarded without the consent of the population.
Thanks for the explanation, Justhink, but could you explain some more?
I don’t understand the kinetic energy of decisions.
You have an intriguing premise, that the possibility of fraud shoud negate the legitimacy of laws. Really, though, you skip a step. The passage of laws is transparent - I can learn how my representatives vote on laws. They don’t have the luxury of anonymity that I have.
You should add into you premise that the election of representatives isn’t legitimate because of the possibility of fraud.
Ack! I figured as much. Ok, just a brief summary of the U.S.'s non-transparent voting process.
99% of all precincts in the U.S. use computerized vote counting.
60% of these machines are known to posess the same source code (many speculate that they all do)
100% of court cases (since the advent of computerized vote-counting) have protected the source code of these machines under trade-secret law. The highest elected official who has attempted to veiw them through the court system is a secretary of state. Only the company distributors are allowed to veiw the source code per legal precident.
Vote-counting machines now have two-way modems in them with direct satellite connections which can monitor and edit the tabulations in real-time.
The ‘fairness and accuracy’ test (you gotta love these names), can easily be bypassed by a trojan horse or backdoor, per testomony by advanced computer systems theorist and professor from Princeton University. His exact quote, “It is not a situation of a door without locks, it is a situation of a house without doors.”
Under the current system, precincts are abdicating their right to speak for the tabulation for their own constituency by having the votes carted off to a centralized/secret lock-down facility somewhere within the state (many actually now have laws in place making it illegal to count the votes on site or post precint tabulations).
These facilities can be entered with extreme persistence, but no media recording devices of any form are allowed into them, and the best access is watching the votes being fed into these machines through glass panes, or obscure corners.
Computerized counting machines can create votes faster than they can count them; since lockdown and veiwing times are typically delayed by the courts for well over a week… and these machines can produce any desired result within a few hours (and have the old votes simply burned) - recieving the votes per court order is also insufficient. The voter does not recieve a reciept for their ballot.
The first book on the topic “Votescam: The Stealing of America” was banned in the U.S.
The first person to bring the topic to light, toured the country showing how the old Shoup machines ‘untamperable’ can easily be tampered before a news audience… the report had a 5 minulte slot on T.V. and no newspaper reporting whatsoever… he was shot 2 months later, not covered in the press at all.
This was back in the early 60’s when computerized voting could have been stopped.
VNS has been incorperated sinse 1964 - it was created by the 5 major news organizations at the time; to which supposedly the logic of installing two-way modems into the counting machines was justified.
Only two instances have ever been aired on television on this topic, only one of them nationally (by Peter Jennings); the slots were inadequate in articulating the concern, edited for content (per testimony of the person interveiwed for the slot) and very brief in general. A few articles in underground journals have reported on it and one article made it to the New Yorker (we’re taking like 2 decades ago for all of this).
Transparent Voting has been very well thought out, even by the govenments own panel on the topic (all of their advice based on the conclusions of a worthless voting system were discarded by congress incidentally). It has been known since the very inception of computerized vote counting about 50 years ago (this has actually been a long, very brutal war in American history for those who have championed the cause).
Week long holiday to celebrate and inform the public of the value of democracy and a transparent voting process; also to give them the time to veiw the issues and/or draft their own bills for submission.
Paper Ballots marked with indelible ink that have a ten digit identification number to mark both the ballot and the reciept; which gets torn off and kept by the voter as evidence of their vote selections. The ballot is then found in the precinct posting on a list of ten digit identification codes in alpha-numeric order.
The voter verifies that the votes were registered the same as when they made the selections, and can veiw their ballots position in the sum total column for the precinct. A double check can even be issued afterwards to weed out ‘extra voters’ by having the vote reconfirmed at the precinct and all unreconfirmed votes dropped from the precinct results, before the final numbers are submitted to the national pool. This would take no more than one day. Without the reverification process… votes can be hand-counted in three hours with the current precint/vote counter ratio in America.
I still don’t understand the point–just what is a ‘transparent voting system’, upraised hands? It seems to me that some mechanical/computerized system is the only way to speed up the process and reduce ballot-box stuffing, and even if you make the thing out of clear plastic there is no guarantee it is doing what they say it is doing.
That is one of the primary points… though transparency can also be argued (particularly in the case of GATT and NAFTA which still have vast sections of privitized legislation in them - you can see who votes, but not what they voted on in that case).
Regardless, a 50 year wipe on current law would not be unreasonable given the arguement in relation to computerized vote counting. It would be difficult to argue back much further than 50 years; but you may be able to indict your charging parties on an anti-trust premise, and render them incapable of retroactive indictment because of their ‘treason’.
Holy shit Justhink, you really know how to waffle dont you! You’re worse than a politician…
Basically what you are putting forward (in your last post at least) is a conspiracy theory that the government (or whoever) can fix the vote, right?
How about some cites (with real EVIDENCE) for all these statistics that you keep spurting out?
So Justhink–in your mind, the evils of ballot tampering in secret elections are vastly worse than the evils of intimidation/manipulation/punishment of voters in non-secret elections?
Couple long cuts from a thread I started about America being a Totalitarian Plutocracy over at cross-x.com. Granted, I still have some source ommitted which would be much more relevant to the discussion here since the focus is primarily on ‘vote-fraud’ issues, which I will generate for further review. I have some basic source outlined here, with the teeth to throw in additional source on claims if asked.
http://www.cross-x.com/UBB/Forum16/HTML/001286.html
My mind has the non-transparency of the process quite solidified, though that appears to be the primary point of debate here (not that I mind! I think it’s an important issue) As time has moved on, I have become increasingly more interested in legal binding issues that arise form this, to which i have not much education.
-Justhink
(I was using ‘Soothesayer’ in the cross-x forum)
A bit out in left feild, but I suppose the whole topic is shrug
1.) The first idea that popped in my head was that the line is fuzzy in general. Intimidation, manipulation and punishment have all been used in America against voters who have attempted to institute a more transparent system, and who have argued for something as simple as another ballot because they screwed up… also, there is a fine line between the secret and non-secret. America can be argued as having a non-secret election, just not forthcoming as to the corruptability of the process.
2.) In the first instance, trust is being violated - but people are not beaten.
In the second instance people are being visibly beaten to act a certain way… yet the act is transparent.
There is evidence that the first instance becomes the second instance when the trust violation is articulated and demanded for change. It seems silly to conceive of one as better than the other; certainly the first one seems much more benign in general and would be the better choice, but you would have to take into account the effect of the legislation passed in secret. If it’s being passed in secret, it can’t be that much better
Justhink, I’m having some trouble with your basic premise. By “binding” do you mean legally, or simply ethically? Legally speaking, the Constitution does not, I presume, say that laws are not binding without a transparent voting system, nor does any other law. So, how would this be legally true?
If you are simply arguing morality or ethics and that you shouldn’t have to obey what you perceive as a corrupt state, please say so.
“You have an intriguing premise, that the possibility of fraud shoud negate the legitimacy of laws. Really, though, you skip a step. The passage of laws is transparent - I can learn how my representatives vote on laws. They don’t have the luxury of anonymity that I have.
You should add into you premise that the election of representatives isn’t legitimate because of the possibility of fraud.”
I went on to make a few comments about the transparency of those acts, that would bring the topic back to a legal sense if it could be supposed that the vote system has been unreasonably non-transparent . I don’t know much about the law which is why I brought this up in the quetion area before the MOD transfer to this group. I guess I just figured more people would have had foreknowledge of the vote-transparency issue to help speculate on possible legal implications. They seem fascinating to me, to say the least. Let’s take the statement that was made to make my question look rediculous about the police officer and the speeding ticket: The speed limits and the fines may not have the current laws in place if a 50 years law roll-back was argued by virtue of the non-transparency; which in effect could get me off, or maybe I only have to pay $1.
As for the constitution… I believe you are correct in that the constitution does not make any statements about transperancy.
This opens up a huge can of worms for all types of legal arguments though (many I am not conceiving right now). I could be awarded lifelong backtaxes that the state and government used to run a non-transparent voting system, under law having to do with fraud; which could in effect award me the sum of whatever my traffic ticket amounted to.
Duckster: clap-trap? I don’t understand the question; frame of reference isn’t there shrugs unknowlingly
If you’re accusing the government of widespread electoral fraud, the burden of proof is definitely on you. I’d like to see some cites. I think your fraud example above falls short in that the government never claimed to have a ‘transparent’ voting process, in addition, electoral fraud usually involves a new election, does it not?
Also, what happened 50 years ago that we would need a 50 year rollback on laws? I am unaware of any changes to electoral law that would affect your transparency issues.
On a personal note, I am much, much happier and more comfortable with a secret ballot sort of system where no one knows how I voted unless I choose to tell them.
Sigh. I’m sorry, Justhink, but Duckster’s first post stands. Please start from the beginning, assume we know nothing (because I, for one, really have very little idea about what you’re getting at), and use teeny tiny words and short sentences.
Do you talk like this in real life? If so, you’re a helluva lot smarter than I am. I just can’t follow it. And I actually get paid to write for a living.
