But you do have the right to vote, just not here. BTW, does Australia make you pay taxes just for being a citizen like America does?
Another non-response that brings up an irrelevant issue rather than addresses the one being debated. You’re pretty damn good at this!
I assume you’re talking about US obligations to file US tax returns even when living abroad? If that’s what you’re talking about, i have two responses:
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No, Australia does not do this.
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Your description of US policy as making you “pay taxes just for being a citizen” is a misrepresentation.
It’s entirely relevant. What is the basis for deciding who votes? Is it citizenship, or residency? Do we get to do both, vote back home and wherever we live?
I’m actually fine with basing it on residency alone, so long as expatriates also vote where they are and not here.
So the problem you have with the system is the way people keep voting for the other side.
That would be hilarious if it wasn’t for the fact that your side is actually trying to stop people from doing it.
When is this ever going to happen? Despite xenophobic fears, this country has never come close to being overrun by immigrants, illegal or otherwise.
At the absolute peak of immigration over a hundred years ago, it reached 14.8% (in 1890) of the total population. So assuming that every one of those foreign born voters was trying to vote in favor of their native countries, they’d have still been outvoted six to one by native-born American voters. Which means any candidate dumb enough to run on a platform of putting foreign interests ahead of American interests will never get elected.
Well it certainly takes less tan 14% swing an election. Having a two party system means that you have to differentiate all of those possible political positions in only two parties. So you could easily have a party that has some sort of pro-other-country stance but that still has other policies that appeal to a significant portion of native voters, or the other party having such objectionable policies that someone will vote for that first party in the first place despite their discomfort with those pro other country positions.
If the democrats decided one of their policies would be to give free trips to Disney Land for all for all immigrants, they’d still get nearly half of the non-immigrant vote since such is the nature of a two party system (some people may stay home, not many will switch to republican just for this reason), except now they’ve got that extra 14% swing on top of that, making them dominate elections.
Or as a practical example, perhaps the democrats would offer a more favorable trade policy towards Mexico that wasn’t in US interests - then the voting public who views themselves as having more allegiance to Mexico than the US would support that.
It’s less a problem than just an observation that Democrats constantly lose elections due to an unmotivated base, and every time that happens they think up a new idea that’s sure to work this time. It never does, so they never stop trying to figure out a new way to get people to vote. I’m sure 2014 will bring a raft of new proposals to make voting even easier, because obviously it’s just too darn hard to vote. There can’t be any other explanation, Democrats lose sometimes!
I don’t think you understand what the word “never” means.
Who knows, maybe they’ll actually increase turnout someday. Probably by pre-filling out ballots.
What Barack Obama showed in 2008 is that there’s only one way to increase turnout: have an inspiring candidate. But I guess that’s too hard for Democrats.
More people voted democratic for president, house candidates, and senate candidates. Gerrymandering is a significant factor in the electoral loss of the house. Painting the democratic base as unwilling to turn out is either incorrect, or an admission that so many more people lean democrat that even with their poor turnout they still are more popular in elections.
This was true in the last two general elections, but the midterms and special elections have seen Democratic turnout look pretty bad. And even in the case of general elections, you can’t discount the presence of Barack OBama at the top of the ticket. That motivated a lot of turnout across all groups in 2008, and at least among minorities in 2012.
In 2014, the Democrats are almost certain to lose the popular vote as they did in 2010.
This sort of “forever” prediction is just as silly as “the Democrats will never lose again because of demographics”.
Voters’ views change. Unmotivated voters have been with us since democracy was born.
But I don’t think the Republicans have had an inspiring candidate in 30 years either.
Neither Bush Sr., Dole, Bush Jr., McCain nor Romney were inspiring to any extent, and I don’t think the 2016 Republican nominee will be either.
True, but Republicans are less dependent on that. Our voters have turned out at lower rates the past two elections, which sucks, but we still don’t see the kind of volatility in turnout Democrats experience.
An inspiring candidate like Reagan is more important for getting independents and some Democrats on our side. Our base generally comes out, no matter how significant the election. I just wish I knew why a couple million more stayed home in 2008 and 2012 than usual. Did they really like GWB better than McCain and Romney? Would they come out for Jeb? Notice I’m thinking about how to bring them out with candidates, not, “Hmmmm, how can we manipulate the system to make it easier for our side to vote? Election day on Sunday with polling places in churches?”
You say that like it’s a bad thing. More legal voters participating in an election? How is that not a goal to aspire to?
I know. It’s an interesting way of thinking about democracy, to go out of your way to find fault with the idea that voter turnout is a bad thing.
I believe in turnout as a good thing, in and of itself, not because of some general notion that it favors my candidates. In fact, in Australia, where i’m from, the current government is one that i would not vote for in a million years. The prime minister is a total conservative jerkoff, probably exactly the sort of guy that **adaher **would be happy with. And high voter turnout has not prevented the conservative coalition from winning more than half the federal elections since World War II.
As with any worthy goal, there’s a right way and a wrong way. The right way is to make them want to come out. If there were actual impediments to voting, then removing those impediments would be a good thing. Problem is, there aren’t any impediments to voting. There are just uninterested people, and Democrats think that if they just make it more convenient that these uninterested people will decide to vote. It hasn’t happened yet, and it’s not likely to happen in the future.
There is only one priority in the American system: individual liberty. All else is subordinate to that. Does increased turnout do more to guarantee our liberties? No. Nor are those who want more turnout particularly interested in the question.
Until Democrats started suffering from voter base motivation problems, voter turnout was like the weather: everyone complained but nobody did anything about it. Mainly because like the weather, there were no easy solutions. Well, now that Democrats have a problem, they are desperately trying to change something even harder to change than the weather: human nature. Problem is, when your ideology is built around destroying individual initiative and appealing to the unmotivated, it shouldn’t be surprising that your voter base starts to behave this way.