So what you’re basically saying, Surreal, is that since one vote doesn’t matter, nobody should vote.
Just because you probably won’t cast the deciding vote doesn’t mean that your vote doesn’t help whomever you vote for.
What does voting cost you, anyway? A few hours a year waiting in line and driving to and from the voting area? Given the fact that you’re exercising a right that millions of people have died for, I think it’s more than worth the time spent.
Not even a few hours around here. During the last election I was in and out in under 20 minutes.
You are lurching from ridiculous to absurd. Your notion that a vote for the losing candidate is somehow wasted is very simpleminded, as though the point of voting is to always back the winner. This is an appallingly cynical and uninformed view; the importance of voting is not about the result, it is about the participating in the process. Even if my candidate loses, I am empowered by the simple act of giving a damn. The only redeeming virtue of your philosophy is that by staying home, the rest of us are neither burdened by your candidate, nor must we respect your opinion; you have rendered your self politically irrelevant.
I believe that Surreal is committing the well-known Fallacy of the, er, Something-or-Other.
It’s not so much a Fallacy as it is a Paradox, or maybe just one of those Makes-Your-Head-Hurt-When-You-Think-About-It things. Any one person’s vote doesn’t make a difference (unless the winner wins by a single vote (in which case you can bet there’ll be investigations and recounts)), since if that person hadn’t voted, the result still would be the same. But if a large enough number of individual voters all think this way and decline to vote, it can make a huge difference.
Yes my friend. Do not donate the $20. It will make no difference. Buy yourself some doughnuts, or pornography. Everyone likes pornography.
MWAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA!!!
Rubs Republican hands together in evil glee
Sorry, Muad’Dib. I ended up giving Howard Dean $25. I do have to admit that many of my reasons are irrational – I’ve never donated money to a political campaign before, and I’m kind of curious to see what happens. (Will I get a bunch of mail? Will I feel any more connected to the political process than I usually do? Who can tell?)
I got an email from the Dean campaign this morning, opening with this:
On the one hand, my contribution to that was insignificant. On the other hand, a bunch of us insignificant contributers combined to donate a mighty impressive sum of money in one day. Worth it? I still dunno.
Well done, Interrobang!?. It is through those ‘insignificant contributers’ that things are achieved.
According to a bit at Salon (to which I won’t link since it’s a subscription/day pass mess thing) the average size of contribution to Dean’s campaign was $67. So while it’s true that by itself your $25 may not be that consequential, as noted, in the aggregate it’s pretty amazing.