I don't vote...get over it!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
61

I’m getting a bit tired of people dragging out the “lesser of two evils” crap. I know this isn’t the Pit, so I’ll try to be civil. Unless you (anyone reading this) consider yourself hard-core right-wing and/or a one-issue voter (usually abortion or gay marriage), THERE IS NO REASON TO VOTE FOR BUSH and about a thousand reasons to VOTE AGAINST HIM.

Did anyone read my post earlier? Anyone? Bueller? (Thanks TommyTutone)

This president is a disaster in every single area, and if he’s re-elected, without another re-election for him to look forward to it’s only going to get worse and worse and worse. Even the barest amount of research will show shocking things he’s done already, when he thought he had to keep things fairly low key with this election on the horizon.

This election isn’t your normal “One’s a Republican, one’s a Democrat, so who cares?” situation. Seriously, the tiniest amount of research would show that this is NOT just another election. Yes, Republicans want people to think it is, but it’s not. Not for anyone who cares the least little bit about this country and our children’s future.

Just on environment alone he’s enough to scare the bejezuz out of anyone who cares about the basics of clear air and clean water. Forget the spotted snail owl or other such bullcrap spouted by right-wingers to make environmentalists look looney. We’re talking BASIC standards that are being constantly weakened in favor of fat cat donors.

If you care about basic civil rights, and women’s rights, it should scare anyone that Bush will probably be appointing 2-3 new Supreme Court justices in his next term.

The war is a disaster, but more important for the long term is that Bush has driven away so many of our allies, and has bred countless new terrorists who will grow up to be countless DEAD (as in suicide bombers) terrorists. And his “keep America safer” spiel to the contrary, his record on terror is terrifyingly dismal. How many people know that he could have, very possibly, stopped 9/11 before it happened? Don’t know that? That’s how uninformed you are. (I know there are a lot of very informed people here)

Kerry has a mess to fix, a terrible terrible mess, and it’s not going to be easy, but having him in office is, at the very least, a start.

If all you know of Kerry is that…well, lessee, he’s a flip-flopper and somp’ns weird about his Vietnam thing, you’ve heard exactly what the Republican Noise Machine has wanted you to hear.

Bush has flip-flopped FAR more than Kerry could even imagine.

Kerry has been far more consistant in his views yet they keep being distorted by the media (KERRY NEVER VOTED FOR THE WAR, OK?) and when he has changed his mind, it was because he learned things that would cause more reflection on the matter.

How many people know that the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” (cough) have been THOROUGHLY discredited? No? I’m not surprised.

How many people (not wonks) know anything about Kerry? Wonder why? Ask the media why you’re being kept in the dark. They don’t want him to win either. Anytime there’s something positive about Kerry, they report it almost grudgingly. A bounce after the debates? Man, they hated telling people about that. The “Liberal media bias” is a myth. Does anyone here know that Kerry wrote a book about terrorism? The New War: The Web of Crime That Threatens America’s Security was released in 1997! The man brought down a credit union that was funding terrorists, for heaven’s sake.
Kerry’s been out there practically every single day, giving speeches and talking talking talking. How many have heard more than a soundbite?

Kerry doesn’t do soundbites well, but listen, really listen, for more than a few minutes and most people will realize that he’s talking like an honest-to-goodness intelligent human being, saying important things that need to be said.

I didn’t know him from adam before the Democratic convention (I never pay attention to the primaries) but since then, the more I learn about him, the more I like him. He’s an attack dog when it counts (his role in exposing Iran/Contra, and BCCI is simply awesome to think about), but he knows how to listen and how to get things done.

It’s a contrast. I don’t believe for a second that Bush cares anything about the American people in general, only his “base” and those who share his ideology. The barest of research shows that Kerry cares very deeply about this country and its people.

He’s a good, decent, honorable man. I don’t agree with him about every issue, but that’s not that big a deal to me. I don’t think there’s anyone I’d agree with about everything.

For someone who doesn’t vote, and if you cringe away from Bush’s policies at all, and don’t mind the generalities of Kerry’s policies (http://www.johnkerry.com will tell you quite a bit), then your vote WILL matter. At the very least, you’ll cancel out someone’s vote FOR Bush. I’m sure a Republican will come along and say “Well, I’ll just vote now to one-up again” but you know, Republicans DO vote anyway. It’s not going to wash.

I was going to go through and cite everything here, but I already did half of it in my other post, and I don’t really have time to do the rest. The information is out there, and yeah, it’s mostly on lefty sites, because the mainstream press will only tell you things in hard-to-find dribs and drabs, and right-leaning sites care not a whit about lying right to your face.

I’m not crazy, I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I’m not alone. (stealing from my own post)

Military families are speaking out.

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Other veterans are speaking out.

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Diplomats and Military commanders are speaking out.

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Intelligence people are speaking out.

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Big-time Republicans are speaking out.

John Eisenhower

Ron Reagan

A lot of people are speaking out.

Please, please please, if NOTHING ELSE, please rent and watch Fahrenheit 9/11. Just for the heck of it, just to see what all the fuss is about. Just that one thing. Please. If you have even an ounce of gratitude that you were born (or naturalized) in this country, please watch it once.

62

I’m not going to debate Kant, nor the applicability of Kant to day-to-day life.

I understand the practical matter that my voting won’t accomplish it’s purpose. If that’s unethical by Kant’s definition, then it’s unethical. I’ll try to live with myself.

I consider this to be a poor analogy, only connected from a “Kantian” point of view. If you steal money, you are directly affecting another person. The argument CAN be expanded to the question “what if society at large stole?” but it doesn’t have to be to see the negative consequences of your action.

If I don’t vote, the outcome will be exactly the same. My actions have no effect on other people. People understand this distinction between not voting and stealing, whether they agree with me about voting or not.

Yeah, I realize that if I agree with Democracy this violates Kant’s Ethical Imperative – or whatever his term is. . . “categorical imperative” – stuff that’s fun for Philosophy 101 but hardly a useful tool for real-world behavior.

That’s not how I make my decisions.

If you want to show everyone reading the thread how clever you are, then right now is your chance to point your finger and say, “see, there, Trunk just admitted that by not voting he’s knowingly behaving unethically.”

Then, come back and really try to convince me that in the real-world my vote makes a difference. Or is that it? Not voting is unethical according to Kant.

63

Equipoise, I appreciate your hard work, but your high level of emotion would probably turn non-voters off. They KNOW the world will survive a Bush second term. Maybe not in the exact shape you’d like it to be in, but nothing that they can’t handle. There are plenty of reasons to vote for Bush if you believe in some of the core principles he does. Trunk seems to receiving the message from you that he should vote only if he agrees with you. I don’t think that’s what we’re all trying to say.

I just wonder if he lives in a swing state… :smiley:

64

Trunk, I think you’re being pedantic and nitpicky, all so that you can weasel out of voting and remain comfortably spoiled with your lazy, defeatist attitude. If my vote is a “waste,” then please suggest an alternative. I wish to shape the system that governs my life in this country – what else may I do?

I’ve pointed out that your vote is a finite quantity among the hundred million or so that will be cast. Your assertion that it does “nothing” is false. You are a member of one of three groups of citizens in your state: those who vote for the winning party, those who vote for a losing party, and those who choose not to vote. Imagine a situation where 50% of the population expresses no preference, such that no candidate can earn a majority of the population’s approval – in this case, you are surrendering your government to rule by a minority of its citizens.

You will get taxed by whomever your neighbors elect. You will be subject to laws passed by whichever Attorney General your elected officials select. Your streets will be paved, your children educated, your neighborhood patrolled by groups of people empowered by your vote. If you don’t think any of that affects you, you’re being intellectually dishonest with yourself. I’m not asking you to go campaign for the Raving Loonie Party. I’m asking you to give a fuck for an hour, show a little bit of responsibility for your government – since it kills people and moves massive amounts of money throughout the world – and since you’re one of a small group of people who are allowed to express an opinion, maybe you shouldn’t waste that opportunity.

65

I THINK that Mehitabel is saying I believe this old one: “I’m not voting for A because B is going to win anyway.”

Which is, OF COURSE, just as illogical as saying: “I’m not voting for B because B is going to win anyway.”

It’s another one of those election time sayings that indicates people really haven’t thought about what their vote is doing – that is, it’s equally as pointless to add a vote to a guy who wins by 1000 votes as it is to add a vote to a guy who loses by 1000 votes. Understanding this is step 1 in giving yourself a nice, relaxing, stay-at-home November 2nd.

I DON’T live in a swing state, and you’re completely missing my point if you think I’d be saying anything different if I did live in a swing state. Completely.

Of course, I’m not exactly sure what Mehitabel meant, so I might be answering something different. She seems to be saying that I think I should vote only if I agree with Equipoise??? :confused:

66

What purpose do you think voting serves?

False. If you don’t vote, one of the candidates will receive one fewer vote than he would have otherwise. The outcome is demonstrably different. It’s not just that the one vote that puts the candidate over the top makes the difference – if the candidate wins by 500 votes, then all but the last 499 made a difference. Likewise, all but 499 of the non-voters are culpable for the all of the winner’s policies.

Bullshit. Every vote is one part of the whole. If you don’t cast a vote, you have effectively voted for whomever wins, and you are responsible for failing to stop any evil he commits. If George Bush gets re-elected, and you failed to vote, I blame you for not stopping him. I blame you for every dollar in the deficit, every extra dead Iraqi, and so forth. You are one voter in the most powerful nation on earth. Get used to it.

You’re clearly in no mood to be convinced. Bring an open mind and I’ll fill it.

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  1. Start an organization that can swing large BLOCS of voters.

  2. Become a popular enough person to hold influence over a large number of people, through some sort of media.

  3. Donates LOTS of money to the causes you believe in so that they can motivate large groups of people and advertise.

  4. Run LOTS of advertisements on television with your point of view.

  5. Get YOURSELF elected to office.

Those things make a difference. One vote doesn’t.

My assertion is technically false in that it changes the margin of victory by one vote. But, that’s being pedantic and nitpicky.

For all practical purposes, my assertion is true, because they’re not making laws in slight gradations that depend on how many people voted a particular way. As if someone is sitting around saying, “well, since 1000 people voted FOR this tax, it will be a $500,000 tax. If 999 people voted for it, it would only be a $483,000 tax”. That’s NOT being pedantic or nitpicky. That’s the blunt instrument that is reality.

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nt

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Each of those strategies relies on the fact that each vote makes a difference. Are you getting any cognitive dissonance here, or do you honestly suggest that, instead of voting, I go out and try to convince multiple people that they should vote?

Wouldn’t I be a hypocrite, and therefore less credible, if I urged people to vote a certain way and did not vote myself?

Your assertion is false, period. Every vote has the potential to change the course of the election.

No, we do that through a legislature, whom you elect. So if the country is split roughly 50/50, the houses of Congress will also be split that way. Then they vote – in essence, casting your vote – and policies get enacted. Concessions are made to woo individual legislators, and these concessions result in more or less extreme laws, much along the lines of what you suggested above. It happens by representative proxy, but it happens nonetheless.

So tell me, why do you vote?

Let’s ditch the ad hominems and get a real response. I assert that you are to blame for all of the faults of the winner if you do not vote against him. It’s a crime of omission, but a crime nonetheless. And yes, I mean “crime” figuratively.

Well, I’ve given up a large number of my civil liberties and several years of my life to shape the way this country is run, but in the end, my boss is chosen by the will of the people. I just get a little fed up when Joe Citizen is so apathetic that he can’t be bothered to cast one vote. I reserve a certain amount of scorn for them.

By the way, I’m voting in Delaware – which is almost certain to be a Democratic state this year – but I’ve registered 20 other people to vote in states including Ohio, New Jersey, Colorado, Florida, and New Mexico. To the degree that those 20 people are politically similar to me, I’ve cast 21 votes. Are all 21 a waste? How many do I have to register before it’s not a waste of my time?

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Nope, I was gently remanding our racehorse friend for the “Vote because the world will end if Candidate X wins!” thing, thinking that would not send you running to the polls either.

I guess what I was trying to say was that, if you do live in a swing state, your vote will make more of a difference than mine in good ol’ predictable NY.

I’ve also noticed that constituencies that do not traditionally vote often end up ignored, their neighborhood infrastruture underfunded, their needs unheard, because why should a politician give a damn if they get pissed off? What are they going to do to him?

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I’m suggesting that if you hold sway over a large BLOC of voters, then that can make a difference, and clearly makes a larger difference than a single vote has.

Most of those assertions relies on the fact that LARGE BLOCS of voters CAN make a difference. I never said that wasn’t true. I said that individual voters don’t make a difference.

Only to people who thought like you. Imagine if all the black people in America werer 50-50 on Bush-Kerry right now. If Jesse Jackson convinced every black person in America to go vote, and vote for Kerry, he did a HUGE job. He might even have swayed the election. He could spend November 2nd in Tahiti and he still did more than any one of those voters. That behavior might seem hypocritical to some, but you can’t disagree with my point here that he did more.

I don’t vote. And I already said why.

You first.

So, you’re asserting that Bush wins, I’m responsible even though if I went to the polls and voted, the result would have been the same? That’s an understanding of cause and effect that I simply do not share. And, it’s near the heart of the matter. When you understand that, you’ll start to see where I’m coming from.

All 21 are probably a waste.

But, that’s the proper course of action. If you could find a way to activate a much larger amount than 21, then you’d really be doing something.

Shoot, the last election was one of the closest ever and whole states could have reversed, and not changed the result. Think about what that really means. Entire states could have gone to Gore that went to Bush and Bush still would have been elected. And YOUR little vote makes a difference?

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I have seen numbers showing that the vast majority of people who vote belong to certain demographics.

I’m certain that politicians have seen these numbers also.

So, let me ask you:

If you were a politician, and you saw from the polls that the vast majority of [tenants/women/people of colour/poor people/residents of a certain area/etc] didn’t vote, would you really keep their interests in mind when making your policy decisions?

In other words: 70% of tenants in Toronto don’t vote (and the majority of homeowners do). Why in the world would a politician be bothered to pay attention to tenant issues, when s/he could be pretty sure that the people who
voted him/her in (ie homeowners) won’t care?

Staying home on voting day gives pols a good reason to ignore you.

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Trunk, you’ve suggested that if one wanted to influence government, one should campaign, lobby, or get oneself elected. I hope I haven’t altered your point too much by paraphrasing it.

Each and every one of those options depends on individual voters. And yet you think that only fools vote. Another paraphrase, and a somewhat more farfetched extrapolation of what you’ve said, but I don’t think it is too extreme to say that you are not voting because you feel doing so would be foolish. It is a small leap to apply your logic for yourself to every other potential voter. [I realize that another part of your argument is that you are not well-informed, but all of your most recent posts have relied on this ‘it makes no difference’ point and it has been demonstrated that becoming better informed is not much of an obstacle.]

How do you reconcile your belief that influencing voters and elected officials is the only effective way to change government policies with your belief that the entire system is based on the foolish act of voting?

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You must have missed this, from post 6:

I was in no way directing any of my thoughts to Trunk.

There are other people reading too though. I may be passionate, but the things I’m passionate about are worthwhile.

You’re partially right in that the Supreme Court appointed Bush before waiting to see if he was lawfully elected, but if enough extra votes had been cast, and counted, the courts stepping in wouldn’t have been necessary in the first place.

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Let’s say the ultimate goal here is for me to get “Trunk’s Beneficial Law” (TBL) passed.

Let’s look at the best way I could get that done. This is kind of trimmed down, but you get the point.

  1. Be a powerful elected official who pushes TBL.

  2. Be a powerful lobbyist who can influence that elected official and/or officials.

  3. Influence a large group of people to vote for a candidate sympathetic to TBL, through speaking, media, etc.

  4. Got to the polls and cast a vote for a candidate supportive of TBL.

Now, realistically I realize that most of us can only do #4. But, you need to realize this: if I open the paper the day after the election, my one vote didn’t make a difference. However, that entire BLOC of voters in #3 might have made a difference.

If you can activate such a BLOC, that’s very important. That’s what candidates and lobbying groups are always doing. Even though that BLOC is often “undecided” voters. That’s what the “swifties” are doing. That’s what “move on.org” is doing. Trying to sway large amounts of undecided voters, and motivate large amounts of their side’s supporters.

None of that changes the fact that my vote doesn’t make a difference.

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Yeah, especially since you don’t have one.

melondeca, good on you!

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You seem to think that there’s some sort of quantum barrier below which votes don’t count–10,000 votes are important, but no individual makes a difference. I’d say that each one of that 10,000 makes exactly 1/10,000 as much impact as the group does. Small, but not zero. And each is necessary for the bloc to become a bloc in the first place.

In another one of your recent posts, you wrote that winning by a larger margin makes no difference when issues are acted upon. This seems flawed to me. If one candidate is for a particular issue and wins 80% of the vote based on that, then other elected officials and future candidates will need to take that issue seriously. If they win by 1%, those that follow will think that their position on that issue isn’t too important to the electorate (or that the electorate is evenly divided on it, which has a very similar effect).

I can certainly understand someone thinking that no issue is important in this way, since the country is so evenly divided on so many things. But there are lots of issues that have completely disappeared from national discourse because the electorate has made itself so clear on them and no candidate would put himself on the losing side and get any support at all. Also, local issues tend to be less 50/50 than national issues are and each vote adds to the mandate.

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So how many meaningless individual votes do I have to pile up before I have one of your LARGE BLOCS[sup]TM[/sup]?

I won’t disagree that he did more – but I will disagree that his vote would be wasted. Besides adding to the tally, the fact that he votes that way gives him more credibility when he solicits the votes of others and draws more people to his cause.

Fair enough. I’ve dropped the personal attacks; my goal from here on out is to refute your assertion that individual votes are meaningless.

Yes, I assert exactly that. If you don’t do at least that much, then you bear the responsibility for the results. Your vote was solicited, you elected not to state your preference, and so the decision was made for the wrong side. The next day’s outcome has no bearing on the decision you made, because the decision is made before you know the election results – when you still have an opportunity to influence them. Even if you can’t change the result, you bear responsibility for not exerting as much influence as you had on the problem.

I am humbled by political organizers who spend all day getting out the vote. They rally hundreds of people, usually for one party, which exerts tremendous influence. I don’t have their resources, so I can’t match their results. But I’ve gotten out 20 votes – working on #21 – and that’s pretty damn good. I’ll wake up November 3rd knowing I did all I could to influence this election.

When I understand what? I’d really like to understand your position, whether to write you off as unapproachable, or to better understand how I might convince you to vote.

Again, how many do I have to activate for it to be “really something”? Would 100 do the trick? How about 1,000? Is 10,000 enough, or is that a waste because I couldn’t get 100,000?

I have in essence cast 20 votes instead of one. I did this because of a military get-out-the-vote campaign started by a general above me. He has hundreds of officers under him doing this. Is he “really doing something”?

The electoral vote tally was 271-266. Each state gets 3 electoral votes at minimum (I should know – I vote in Delaware). If any 3-vote state that went Bush had gone for Gore, Bush’s total would have been 268, and Gore’s would be 269. Your statement is exactly wrong: if any Bush state had gone for Gore, the election would have gone the other way.

Add to that the fact that New Mexico was decided by fewer than 500 votes, and I assert that my “little” vote does make a difference. And yes, I say that in the knowledge that Delaware was a 60,000 vote “blowout” for Gore/Lieberman.

One last question: if I ran on a platform indistinguishable from any other candidate’s, but also promised to pass Trunk’s Beneficial Law, would you vote for me?

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I don’t blame you. In your position, I wouldn’t want to either. :wink:

The point is that an ethical decision should be made regardless of whether the consequences are direct and concrete or broad and seemingly inconsequential in the singular instance. Take sneaking into a movie theater, for example, or ripping a musician’s CD off the intenet. If I didn’t deprive anyone of a seat in the theater, my having snuck in is seemingly inconsequential. They would have shown the movie anyway, and if I wouldn’t have paid to get in if I hadn’t snuck in for free nobody was directly affected, and nobody was the wiser either way. Similarly, if I steal a song from the internet that I wouldn’t have bought otherwise, nobody is directly affected, since no profits would have been paid either way. Both actions are still unethical and are still theft; I realize that if everybody acted as I did, there would be no movie theaters and no professional musicians.

Ethics involves more than respecting the property rights of others. Just as one understands that having jurors is a necessity for the operation of our judicial system, having voters is a necessity for our democracy.

Attacking the source of the argument rather than adressing the argument itself, e.g. saying it’s from Kant or Philosophy 101, is an ad hominem fallacy. For that matter, your entire argument suffers from a fallacy of composition: my individual vote is of very little consequence, ergo the voting process as a whole is of very little consequence.

I’m not trying to prove how clever I am or to embarass you. I’m trying to point out that you’ve taken a position that is logically and ethically indefensible. Not voting is shirking a moral duty regardless of the significance or insignificance of your individual vote.

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…and remember to chant to yourself, “It’s only a movie. It’s only a movie. It’s only a movie.”