# People Who Follow Politics And Vote Are Morons.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-follow-politics-and-vote-are-morons/433585
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [January 15, 2008, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-follow-politics-and-vote-are-morons/433585 "2008-01-15T05:42:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 18
**Page:** 5
### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2008, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-follow-politics-and-vote-are-morons/433585/81 "2008-01-16T01:27:39Z")
[QUOTE=Zambini57]
I think the reason for my rant was that I just finished reading “The Fall Of The House Of Bush”, by Craig Unger. That, and a couple beers and I just got really pissed off.
I don’t believe everything I read, but I believe what I read in this book and it pretty much was the tipping point in regards to the destruction of any respect and faith I previously had for politics and politicians.
[/QUOTE]
You had faith in all politicians?
I don’t quite see why the fact that a few thousand more Gore voters in Florida would have spared us the crap we’ve been through the past seven years translates into not following (think detective following a crook) and not voting being a good thing.
---
### Author:  [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2008, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-follow-politics-and-vote-are-morons/433585/82 "2008-01-16T01:59:30Z")
In my case he is correct. I voted in the Michigan Primary today and I was number 48 at my polling station.
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### Author:  [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2008, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-follow-politics-and-vote-are-morons/433585/83 "2008-01-16T02:58:07Z")
Democracy benefits from an educated, informed, and active populace. I despise the attitude that I’m a sucker and that I’d be better of staying home and ‘sticking my thumb up my ass.’ Ugh. Nothing changes with shit like this.
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### Author:  [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2008, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-follow-politics-and-vote-are-morons/433585/84 "2008-01-16T03:22:34Z")
Well, if you have a low-paid part-time job and work for the hour it takes you to vote, at least you’ll have $6 at the end of the day.
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### Author:  [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2008, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-follow-politics-and-vote-are-morons/433585/85 "2008-01-16T04:40:03Z")
The irony, it burns:
[QUOTE=Liberal]
Your guess is wrong, as Pochacco pointed out. Incidentally, I would consider someone who hasn’t read the Bible — one of the most influential books in the history of Western culture — to be uneducated, not to mention someone who hyphenates “dissatisfied”.
[/QUOTE]
> [@Liberal](#):
>
> Lot’s of atheists have read the Bible for exactly that reason
I would consider someone who puts an apostrophe in “lots” as uneducated as someone who hyphenates “dissatisfied.” Gaudere’s Law much, Lib? 😉 (because there’s probably an egregious error in my post too… wouldn’t be so quick to call people uneducated based on what just might be a fucking mistype)
Also, Zambini57, a casual “fuck you” to you for this, in the “Dealing with a friend’s morals” thread linked to in post #6 by ZipperJJ:
> [@Zambini57](#):
>
> If you meet someone in one of those online dating sites, you can expect maybe, MAYBE 3-5 years of compatability before the wheels come flying off.
:rolleyes: Totally irrelevant to the topic of the thread, in a post that’s thread shitting, and idiotically judgmental. Yeah, I’m taking it slightly personally because I married someone I met online, but I’m hardly alone in that. Your allegation here that you can expect to divorce because you met online is bullshit. Don’t post while too drunk to control your bitterness would be a good rule of thumb.
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### Author:  [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2008, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-follow-politics-and-vote-are-morons/433585/86 "2008-01-16T07:27:01Z")
Darn you **Rubystreak** , I was all set to pounce on **Liberal’s** blunder and my opportunity falls short by just one posting. ☹
(Nonetheless, thanks very much for doing that 🙂 )
**Liberal** , I am surprised that you would be so petulant about such a minor matter especially when you made the extraordinary deduction that one typo indicates lack of education. Seriously, I’ve seen your postings on the SDMB for years now and you have no doubt seen mine. I will readily admit that my postings are not the eloquent dissertations that you articulate so well but I do think that I always express myself properly without creating the impression that I am uneducated. As for my inappropriate hyphenation, that was a hastily typed posting I made while at work and as **Rubystreak** said, it was _just a fucking mistype_. :mad:
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### Author:  [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2008, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-follow-politics-and-vote-are-morons/433585/87 "2008-01-16T13:34:37Z")
[QUOTE=Clothahump]
Sometimes, it really is voting for the lesser of two evils. But if you don’t vote, don’t complain about the government - you lost the right to do so.
[/QUOTE]
That’s why I’m voting for the Cthulhu/Yog-Sothoth ticket this year. I’m tired of settling for the lesser evil.
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### Author:  [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2008, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-follow-politics-and-vote-are-morons/433585/88 "2008-01-16T13:45:57Z")
[QUOTE=Rubystreak]
I would consider someone who puts an apostrophe in “lots” as uneducated as someone who hyphenates “dissatisfied.”
[/QUOTE]
Given his difficulty in thinking outside of the bounds of Christianity, I would assume that he simply was referring to atheists belonging to Lot. Probably some crazy ass sect who think there is no god, but believe that Lot should be worshipped due to his insane willingness to sacrifice his family in order to spare someone from teh gay, and his having good hetero sex with his own daughters.
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### Author:  [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2008, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-follow-politics-and-vote-are-morons/433585/89 "2008-01-16T17:58:08Z")
[QUOTE=Maus Magill]
That’s why I’m voting for the Cthulhu/Yog-Sothoth ticket this year. I’m tired of settling for the lesser evil.
[/QUOTE]
I didn’t know Hilary had already chosen her running mate.
Regards,
Shodan
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2008, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-follow-politics-and-vote-are-morons/433585/90 "2008-01-16T18:04:24Z")
C’mon **Shodan**. That’s hardly fair.
Cthulhu’s _much_ better looking!
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### Author:  [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2008, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-follow-politics-and-vote-are-morons/433585/91 "2008-01-16T18:11:42Z")
[QUOTE=wolf\_meister]
**Liberal** , I am surprised that you would be so petulant about such a minor matter especially when you made the extraordinary deduction that one typo indicates lack of education.
[/QUOTE]
Don’t miss the point the way Rubystreak did. I’m just tired of people dismissing conservatives and people of faith as idiots, which is as bigotted a stance as any conceivable. Look again at your original post, and see how broad your brush was. You have included in your screed people who are my friends and family, because I don’t base my friendships on screening people for their political views and such. If you do, then you are insulating yourself from reality.
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### Author:  [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2008, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-follow-politics-and-vote-are-morons/433585/92 "2008-01-16T18:53:54Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal]
You do. You’re the one who talked about how best to “design societies”.
I’d call that present day. They take an oath to uphold the Constitution, a document that limits the powers of the federal government, and then turn around and badger us about every aspect of our lives.
[/quote]
Yes they do. And what do we do about it? If people WANT to be badgered, and keep electing badgerers, the available course of action is to try to convince them not to want to be badgered, and not to elect badgerers.
As for “designing societies”, you’re right that societies can’t be designed. But we can design governments, we can design legal systems. And don’t say that you don’t want to design a government, because guess what, you live in a society with a government, and if you aren’t going to get into the fray and argue for your position you’re going to get run over by those other misguided corruptable humans. You can’t opt out, because opting out means that some guy with a sword is gonna whack you, and unless you’ve got neighbors who’ve agreed to help you whenever someone with a sword tries to whack you, you’re either gonna get whacked, become a slave, or spend all your time learning to use a sword yourself, and once you do that then you’re the guy with a sword who goes around whacking people with a sword.
And this is the situation since the dawn of agriculture. If you’ve got a farm, someone is gonna want to a cut of the proceeds of that farm in exchange for not whacking you with a sword. So you’ve gotta have your own swords, except once your farm has it’s own soldiers, then they become the ones who take a cut of your farm in exchange for not whacking you. So you’re either a farmer who’s the slave of a guy with a sword, or a guy with a sword who enslaves farmers. Without soldiers you’re vulnerable to other soldiers, with soldiers you’re vulnerable to your own soldiers. And so we have the entire sorry history of the human race in a nutshell, and things like liberal democracy are an attempt to crawl out of the hole.
> [@](#):
>
> All mechanisms fall short because all mechanisms are manipulatable. All philosophies fall short because all men are corruptible. People have stormed castles and died for freedom many times throughout history. But that won’t happen so long as the populace is pacified with teats to suck, which is another reason tyrants like democracy.
You know, this is just silly.
Yeah, we don’t live in a utopia. There is no such thing. But we don’t live in tyranny, unless every human being who has ever lived has lived under tyranny. Refusing to see a difference between imperfect liberal democracy on one hand, and tyranny on the other hand, is simply blindness. They’re NOT all the same. West Germany is not the same as East Germany. North Korea is not the same as South Korea. The collectivist who proposes public funding of elementary schools is not the same as the collectivist who proposes making a mountain of skulls out of the bloodsucking parasite bourgeois running dogs.
The advantage of democracy is not that you get your way. You only get your way if you persuade a plurality to support you. The advantage is in an autocracy only the autocrat gets his way, everyone else gets screwed.
> [@](#):
>
> There are far more than two possibilities. The phrase “liberal capitalist democracy” covers three separate things: (1) liberalism is a political philosophy; (2) capitalism is an economic philosophy; and (3) democracy is a form of government. You could just as well have a “conservative Keynesian republic” for example. Or a “libertarian communist monarchy”.
Well, exactly. Three planks. The trouble is that removing one or two of the planks means the collapse of the others. Democracy, in the sense of holding periodic votes, is meaningless without a liberal society. Even when the elections aren’t just sham elections, what good does it do to elect a guy from one tribe or another tribe, like what just happened in Kenya? Without a liberal civil society, without the rule of law, it’s all meaningless. And without democracy and capitalism, liberalism vanishes. Liberalism, in the sense that both you and I understand it, is both a goal and a means, it describes the sort of society I want to live in, and it describes the philosophical outlook people must have to achieve that sort of society. A liberal society is the goal, not democracy, democracy is just a means to achieve that end. There have been liberal authoritarian goverments, but such a system can’t last, because once the enlighted tyrant dies or gets bored with his playthings, the institutions that support liberalism are gone.
And this is why Augustus meant the end of the Roman Republic. An effective, just, and fair emperor who provided peace and prosperity for a generation. Except after Augustus was gone there was no possibility of returning to republicanism, instead we have Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero.
> [@](#):
>
> In any event, it seems disjointed for you on the one hand to chastise me for bitching and on the other hand to brag about how you extend me the right to complain.
You have the right to complain, and I have the right to chastise you for pretending to believe that there was no difference between East Germany and West Germany.
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### Author:  [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2008, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-follow-politics-and-vote-are-morons/433585/93 "2008-01-16T19:01:00Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal]
Don’t miss the point the way Rubystreak did.
[/QUOTE]
I didn’t miss the point. The point was, you nitpicked his minor spelling error as an indication of his lack of education, when all it was was a slip of the fingers… you made one a few posts later. Does that mean you’re uneducated? Or a hypocrite? Really, did you think you made a substantive point about wolf\_meister’s education level, or were you making a cheap shot at his smarts by pointing out a typo?
You should apologize to wolf\_meister, but if you don’t, whatever. But don’t say I missed your point. I got it, just fine… what there was of it, which wasn’t much.
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### Author:  [@Zambini57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zambini57)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2008, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-follow-politics-and-vote-are-morons/433585/94 "2008-01-16T22:18:52Z")
[QUOTE=Rubystreak]
The irony, it burns:
I would consider someone who puts an apostrophe in “lots” as uneducated as someone who hyphenates “dissatisfied.” Gaudere’s Law much, Lib? 😉 (because there’s probably an egregious error in my post too… wouldn’t be so quick to call people uneducated based on what just might be a fucking mistype)
Also, Zambini57, a casual “fuck you” to you for this, in the “Dealing with a friend’s morals” thread linked to in post #6 by ZipperJJ:
:rolleyes: Totally irrelevant to the topic of the thread, in a post that’s thread shitting, and idiotically judgmental. Yeah, I’m taking it slightly personally because I married someone I met online, but I’m hardly alone in that. Your allegation here that you can expect to divorce because you met online is bullshit. Don’t post while too drunk to control your bitterness would be a good rule of thumb.
[/QUOTE]
Well, it’s too bad you took what I had to say “personally”. Here’s a clue:Don’t ever take what you read on a message board personally. After all, who am I ? You don’t know me, I don’t know you. Why should you care what I have to say? I’m not your father, mother sister, brother or anyone else that should matter.
If what I say, an anonymous poster should have any affect on your life, then you need to step back and re-examine. Anyone who takes to heart what they read on a message board is way too sensitive, or way too isolated, which is what I was driving at in my post.
Did you meet your “soul mate” online? Well, good for you. But, I have to say that the whole computer dating thing is pathetic.
Consider: Humanity has been “civilized” for aproximately 7,500 years. Many early marriages were arranged by the parents of the soon- to- be betrothed. It worked. I spend alot of my free time readimg history and pre-arranged marriages was a concept that worked. Later, marriages were arranged through family ties. Families were close then. Grandfathers, grandmothers, fathers , mothers, sisters, brothers lived in proximity to each other, and marriages were arranged through those connections.
Now, in this isolated society we live in, those connections have been broken.
Most people are seperated from their family, and communicate with them maybe a couple times a year. My own family consists of myself in Georgia, my parents in Florida, brothers in California, and aunts, uncles etc., in Pennsylvania.
This is typical. We are scattered to the four winds, and we are alone. This is a good thing? It only happened in the pursuit of money.
So now, isolated as we are, we resort to computer dating. If it works for you, great. But, are you trying to tell me that in 7,500 years of human civilization, that this is what we really want? I don’t think so. I think it is a desperate measure.
There’s no way you can convince me that computer dating is the penultimate.
---
### Author:  [@Zambini57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zambini57)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2008, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-follow-politics-and-vote-are-morons/433585/95 "2008-01-16T22:32:38Z")
[QUOTE=Zambini57]
Well, it’s too bad you took what I had to say “personally”. Here’s a clue:Don’t ever take what you read on a message board personally. After all, who am I ? You don’t know me, I don’t know you. Why should you care what I have to say? I’m not your father, mother sister, brother or anyone else that should matter.
If what I say, an anonymous poster should have any affect on your life, then you need to step back and re-examine. Anyone who takes to heart what they read on a message board is way too sensitive, or way too isolated, which is what I was driving at in my post.
Did you meet your “soul mate” online? Well, good for you. But, I have to say that the whole computer dating thing is pathetic.
Consider: Humanity has been “civilized” for aproximately 7,500 years. Many early marriages were arranged by the parents of the soon- to- be betrothed. It worked. I spend alot of my free time readimg history and pre-arranged marriages was a concept that worked. Later, marriages were arranged through family ties. Families were close then. Grandfathers, grandmothers, fathers , mothers, sisters, brothers lived in proximity to each other, and marriages were arranged through those connections.
Now, in this isolated society we live in, those connections have been broken.
Most people are seperated from their family, and communicate with them maybe a couple times a year. My own family consists of myself in Georgia, my parents in Florida, brothers in California, and aunts, uncles etc., in Pennsylvania.
This is typical. We are scattered to the four winds, and we are alone. This is a good thing? It only happened in the pursuit of money.
So now, isolated as we are, we resort to computer dating. If it works for you, great. But, are you trying to tell me that in 7,500 years of human civilization, that this is what we really want? I don’t think so. I think it is a desperate measure.
There’s no way you can convince me that computer dating is the penultimate.
[/QUOTE]
oops, I meant to say the “ultimate”. No way you can convince me that in the millenia of our evolution, online dating services trump the face-to-face meeting of people.
And if face-to-face meeting of people has become difficult in our society, in this day and age, what does that tell you?
Is this progress?
No. It’s a backward step.
---
### Author:  [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2008, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-follow-politics-and-vote-are-morons/433585/96 "2008-01-16T22:43:15Z")
[QUOTE=Zambini57]
If what I say, an anonymous poster should have any affect on your life, then you need to step back and re-examine. Anyone who takes to heart what they read on a message board is way too sensitive, or way too isolated, which is what I was driving at in my post.
[/quote]
The only way it “affects” me is that it makes me think you’re an asshole.
> [@](#):
>
> Did you meet your “soul mate” online? Well, good for you. But, I have to say that the whole computer dating thing is pathetic.
Since your opinion doesn’t affect me, I’ll just repeat my casual “fuck you” and continue to disregard what you say as ignorant, drunken ranting. That work for you? Eh, doesn’t matter whether it does or not, since nothing I say should affect you anyway.
> [@](#):
>
> There’s no way you can convince me that computer dating is the penultimate.
I can’t convince you of anything and I don’t need to. You don’t know me and I don’t know you. But you’re not in a position to say that my marriage or anyone else’s is pathetic and doomed because of how we met. If you think you can, see my above paragraph.
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### Author:  [@Zambini57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zambini57)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2008, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-follow-politics-and-vote-are-morons/433585/97 "2008-01-16T23:12:33Z")
[QUOTE=Rubystreak]
The only way it “affects” me is that it makes me think you’re an asshole.
Since your opinion doesn’t affect me, I’ll just repeat my casual “fuck you” and continue to disregard what you say as ignorant, drunken ranting. That work for you? Eh, doesn’t matter whether it does or not, since nothing I say should affect you anyway.
I can’t convince you of anything and I don’t need to. You don’t know me and I don’t know you. But you’re not in a position to say that my marriage or anyone else’s is pathetic and doomed because of how we met. If you think you can, see my above paragraph.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, yeah. So I’m an asshole to you. Vice versa , sweetums. You’ve convinced me that what I have to say has no effect on you.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [January 17, 2008, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-follow-politics-and-vote-are-morons/433585/98 "2008-01-17T00:00:50Z")
[QUOTE=Maus Magill]
That’s why I’m voting for the Cthulhu/Yog-Sothoth ticket this year. I’m tired of settling for the lesser evil.
[/QUOTE]
Everyone please patronize my business, the Lessor of the Two Eagles Rent-a-Bird Franchise.
Stephen Colbert does.
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