andros: A civic duty? Really? You want me to go to the polls to pull down a lever to have someone get into office who, more or less, does the exact same thing as the last guy? Heh. You have an odd sense of civic duty.
K9, I told you why I don’t vote. You claim I’m lazy. That’s wrong. Plain and simple. Way to avoid every point I made AND use personal attacks. You may go now.
asahi, I graduated in '97.
You’re a child and you have a child’s understanding of what voting is. It’s not “pulling down a lever.” Voting is taking the time to be informed, using that information to form opinions and then voting based on those opinions and then keeping yourself informed on the actions of elected officials and the outcomes of political decisions to inform your next vote. Pulling a lever is actually a very small step in a cyclical process.
And the “exact same thing as the last guy” was disproved after the 2000 Florida recount. Again, you have a child’s view of the world. It seems to come from insecurity, you don’t feel like you matter and you’re dead set on proving that you don’t.
*vote
/vōt/
noun
1.
a formal indication of a choice between two or more candidates or courses of action, expressed typically through a ballot or a show of hands or by voice
verb
1.
give or register a vote.*
Funny, the people who write the dictionary seem to disagree with you.
Had you taken the time and done the math, you could have calculated my age. You’d have noted that I’m substantially older than a child. So much for taking the time to be informed, right? So much for using that information to form reasonable opinions, right? You talk a good game but you don’t really follow through, do you?
Dems and Republicans make the same promises over and over again. “We’re going to stop being dependant on oil!” Or “We’re going to fix social security!” Or “We’re going to get out of Iraq!” The war on drugs. The war on poverty. Our failing education system. Mass incarceration. Has any of this changed?
Gay marriage? The supreme court had to do that. Legalize marijuana? The voters have done that (at the state level in some areas, not yet at the federal level).
And lastly, I think I matter quite a bit. But I’ve come to the conclusion that my vote doesn’t. Those are two very distinct things. Perhaps someday you’ll understand.
You’re whole argument is nu-uh. You’re a child. You have a childish world view and your childish enough not shut up about it.
No. My whole argument is what I posted in my first post. If you choose to read that as “nu-uh,” well, we have nothing further to discuss. Also, my child-like brain is educated enough to know the difference between “your” and “you’re”. You might want to fix that. I’d hate for you to have to suffer the sting of such irony.
Your argument is like you’re saying “I don’t have to pick up my room, mom will do it anyway”.
“nu-uh” is three steps up from that.
Lazy. that’s all it is. Your weak rationalisations do nothing to make it better.
Huh. People keep saying things like that, Librarian. Problem is that if it’s so simply, why can’t anyone present valid arguments against it? And by the way, lazy people don’t take the time to craft posts like my original post. Nor do they explain point by point why they think someone is wrong. What lazy people do is fail to address arguments. Instead they make accusations and don’t even bother checking them against reality.
Feel free to call me lazy. But don’t be lazy when you do it. You too can feel the sting of irony. Seems to be a theme here.
Uh, lazy people always craft elaborate arguments why they shouldn’t do something and they repeat those rationalizations over and over. Being lazy, they have lots of time for this and they think that they win the argument when other people get too bored with them and stop responding. If lazy people put the effort in to actually doing something constructive that they put in to justifying why they won’t, we’d all be living like the Jetsons by now.
The fact that you think your argument that you shouldn’t vote because both sides are the same and that “I don’t get 37 votes” is some master opus of political thought shows just how atrophied you’ve let your thinking become.
Huh, I just noticed that you’re always posting around the same time I am, but I’m in Ramallah on a business trip. Where are you posting from?
You know, a lot of Russia is basically in the same time zone as Ramallah.
Just a random factoid. Don’t know why I mentioned it.
Saint Petersburg is one hour ahead of Ramallah, just a fun fact.
[quote=“asahi, post:1, topic:823987”]
I was having a relatively stable blood pressure weekend until I read this from New York Magazine, in which they interview young Americans who don’t plan to vote.
All I can say is, maybe this is the end. Maybe the Enlightenment experiment of the 18th Century has run its course, lived its lifespan, and set to die in the 21st.
Here’s a gem:
:rolleyes:
And then there’s this thought salad:
And this, folks, is a corker:
GOOAAAALLLL!!!
[/QUOTE] Funny that you're Pitting non-voting dumb shits in this particular election.So you’re Pitting people who don’t vote, in a midterm with the highest participation rate in over a century. Okay, then.
Bolding mine.
Well I’m not sure what they’ve been teaching in schools the last few decades come to think of it.
And I’m not saying you’re not educated - I’m sure you’re educated in a lot of areas, including some I’m not. But I think if you analyze democracy as a political system and put it in its proper historical context, it’s best understood as a system in which there is collective responsibility. There’s a reason that black civil rights activists risked their lives for the right to vote in the Southern states. It was because they knew that while protesting was important, political representation was the only way to ensure that they had a voice. Democracy does not ensure that people are going to have a good quality of life or that their political system won’t be corrupted; it means that they can do something about holding leaders accountable without having to go through the trouble of violent revolution. It ensures that those who are governed can collectively work together to have a way to change leadership if they’ve had enough of the current regime.
Any person who fails to vote in a democracy is putting more of the responsibility of protecting democracy on other voters, and they are empowering those who propose an authoritarian style of governing. It’s actually a lot like individuals who don’t pay their taxes. By itself one citizen doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it adds up.
Or littering, or not having your car up to spec on emissions standards, or not picking up after your dog, or taking “souvenirs” from natural parks.
There are many things that, if you are the only person who does them, will not make any difference to society, but if many people do them, then harm is caused.
My personal morality stems from looking at what the world would be like if everyone did what I did. If everyone litters, then we live in trash, if everyone pollutes, we live in a swerer, if no one picks up after their dog, we’re walking in shit, and if everyone desecrates our natural parks, then we don’t have anything nice left.
Same with voting. If everyone votes, then we have a robust democracy. If no one votes, we have authoritarian rule.
I see Thrull’s screed as exactly the same as justifying throwing your Mcdonald’s bag out the window, rather than placing it properly in the trash.
This is what I always said, that voting gives you the right to complain.
Unfortunately, some people feel differently, they feel that if you voted for the candidate or issue that won, then you don’t have a right to complain, so it is better to not vote, then you can complain of either side that won. (Same as voting third party in a 2 party race.)
Then they can claim that their hands are clean, that they are not responsible for whatever negative that may come.
At my most generous, I see that as cowardice.
But yeah, voting is your voice in the government. It’s a tiny voice, and things may not go your way, and if they do, they still may not work out the way you expected.
If you don’t vote, you have chosen to be silent. If you have chosen to be silent, then SHUT THE FUCK UP about it.
I’m of the opinion that everybody has a right to complain and be unhappy, because complaints aren’t ever, in anything, conditional upon you having previously taken demonstrably impotent steps that utterly failed to do anything effective to prevent the thing you’re complaining about. The notion that people who didn’t vote for the asshole in charge must keep silent about it is idiotic tomfoolery invented as a pathetic ruse to fool people into voting.
And I say that as somebody who voted, in Idaho, where republicans won EVERYTHING, and everybody knew they would. Goddamn waste of time.
You have a right to complain, sure, that’s in the 1st. You have a right to be unhappy, that’s the basic and seemingly ideal human condition.
You don’t have a right for me to give a shit about your complaints, if you didn’t vote. (or at least desire or attempt to vote, I hold no ill will towards those involuntarily disenfranchised.) I don’t want to hear it, and I will either demand you shut up, if you are in my home or in an area that I control, or I will use my freedom of speech to suggest that you shut up, if we are in a public forum.
If that’s just a ruse to get people to act like adults and perform their civic duty, then I’ll happily go along with it. We also have a ruse that pieces of paper and numbers on a computer are worth something tangible, and that drives our economy, so I go along with that one too.
The idiotic tomfoolery in acting as though not voting is somehow more noble is an insidious ruse to fool people into giving up control of their government.
To be fair, this thread was started before election day.
As was already mentioned, I opened this thread before the elections. But even if I had opened later, I would make the same complaint. Although it’s the highest participation rate since 1914, it’s still only 49%. So while it’s progress, it’s not clear whether this is part of a more democratic trend or just a momentary, reactionary blip.