Referendum of Death

In My Humble Opinion
1

Imagine you live in a pure, direct democratic state where everything comes up for a vote and majority rule is the only constitutional principle. The question on the ballot is this:

Shall it be law that anyone who votes “yes” on this question has the right to kill, without impediment by the state, anyone who votes “no” on this question?

A month before the election, polling shows this measure to be very, very unpopular due to its monstrous idiocy. It’s like 99% against, and nobody seems to be worried about the possibility of its passage.

But then people start to talk. Why isn’t it 100% against? Who are the people supporting this nonsense? Surely they’re joking. They’re lying to pollsters, to protest something about the system, or just to make themselves feel special. They’re being “ironic” after a fashion… right? They have to be, because the alternative is too horrible to contemplate.

On the other hand, they’re willing to go so far as lying to pollsters just to make a point, because it carries no consequences. If they judge that their votes will also carry no consequences, might they not take the gag one step further and vote yes?

Questions like this make a small number of people nervous, and in the next week’s poll, support for the measure has increased a small amount. People are reasoning that if there’s a non-zero chance of the measure passing, they don’t want to be among the newly imperiled “no” voters. And immediately, the headline on every news site is “Support for Death Referendum on the Rise.”

Now people really start to go nuts. Voter by voter, it’s starting to sink in that this thing could possibly squeak by. All it needs is 50% plus one vote, and if you voted no, you’re dead.

But then somebody comes up with an idea: if everybody votes yes, it’s the same as nobody voting yes, because then there would be no no-voters to kill! It’s brilliant! We all just have to vote yes, problem solved!

And here come the trolls. They want the final vote to be close. Their ideal result is 51% yes, 49% no. Their reasons are unclear. Maybe they’re foreign actors looking to destabilize your political system. Maybe they really want the right to kill people. Or maybe they just want to burn it all down for laughs.

So they meme, and agitate, and do everything they can to sow doubt and distrust among the voting public. Now there’s a new conspiracy theory: It’s a trap! A socialist purity test! The government’s actually gonna round up all the yes voters and put them in camps! Wake up sheeple!

As for you, you started out like most reasonable people: firmly in the majority of ardent no voters. But the poll numbers, assuming you can trust them, are following a very disturbing trend.

At what point do you start to get worried for your own safety? At what point do you waver? At what point, if any, do you start to consider voting yes?

(The polled question is the referendum itself. It’s not public.)

2

I think I’d vote no. It’s the more principled stance, and I don’t think there is anyone out there who wants to kill me, even if there were no consequences.

3

I vote No, and then I start killing those bastards who voted Yes.

4

What if it’s also legal for your killer to loot your property after they kill you? In that case, there would be a material, financial incentive for yes voters to kill you (they get your stuff). They wouldn’t have to specifically want to kill you, they’d just have to be selfish enough to kill anybody who owns stuff they could take. Does that affect your answer?

5

It seems to me that those persons odious enough to vote yes, are unlikely to be constrained by who voted how. Perhaps initially but not for long. Very soon everyone is in peril from the yes voters, most likely. If I’m likely to get offed anyway, I’m going to go ahead and vote No so I can sleep at night.

6

Spectacular hypothetical, **cuauhtemoc **. I am genuinely conflicted.

7

But keep in mind, in this scenario, killing a yes voter is still considered murder under the law. Yes voters would retain the same legal protections they had before. Anyone who tried to kill them would still face prosecution by the state. They would be constrained from killing other yes voters by that fact only, same as before.

8

Dang, that would suck. However, I can’t justify voting for such a bad law just to save myself. I’ll do the right thing and let the chips fall. Been nice knowing you all

9

I swear I’m not picking on you, but…

Do you have kids? Or other people who depend on you for their own well-being or survival? You understand that you’re making a consequential decision for them as well as yourself, right?

Or maybe you don’t have kids or other dependents, but what if you did? Do you acknowledge how much more difficult it would be for you to take the principled stand in that case?

10

How old do you have to be to have voting eligibility? What happens to someone who sends in an incomplete ballot? If this passed I would anticipate a yes voter being crazy enough to kill everyone who voted no for sport. In fact there might a competition to see who could kill the most right out of the gate.

11

I’m not sure why the yes voters are being look at like sociopaths. Just because the law passes doesn’t mean you are required to kill someone. I have lots of rights that I don’t exercise on a regular basis. Back when spousal rape was legal do you think every or even most wives were raped? Voting yes seems like the easy thing to do protect yourself and your family and then just don’t go use your new rights.

Find the people who do use them and deal with those people separately.

12

Is this a public vote?

How will a Yes voter know I voted No?

13

If I vote No and a Yes voter tries to kill me, can I defend myself? And who do I have to worry about if I don’t vote?

Regards,
Shodan

14

I’m not going to vote for a law legalizing murder to save myself or save my family from financial hardship in the event of my death. (maybe i can buy a lot of life insurance?) Although I’m sure we could come up with exceptions, doing the right thing is almost always the right thing to do.

If you really want to make it hard for me, make my kids’ lives directly dependent on my vote. That would give me pause.

15

Doesn’t matter, all the Yes voters would still end up dead. The only way this works is if the voting results are made public, right? How else would you know if it was legal to resist getting killed, right? So everyone would know who voted yes. And those people would be killed off by vigilantes fairly quickly in organized or disorganized self-defense. Human nature being what it is, it’s better to be tried by 12 than carried by 6. And no jury of No voters would ever convict.

16

I went no because I am generally against killing.

And I want pie dammit; polls should always include pie.

17

I didn’t specify, but the question is how would it affect your vote? Suppose it’s 18, like the current US voting age. Would you be more or less likely to vote yes if it were raised to 21? or 25?

Or even someone who doesn’t vote at all?

If non-votes count as yes votes, people could boycott the vote on principle and risk nothing for themselves, because they’ll be okay whether it passes or not. Yet this also makes it likelier to pass, because of all the people who don’t vote.

On the other hand, if they count as nos (No’s? Noes?), boycotters take a great risk. Although in their favor would be, again, the large number of people who don’t vote.

18

I was thinking a fraction of adolescents under 18 might be more enthralled at the idea of killing. I wasn’t really thinking as to how it would affect my vote. My inclination was to use any excuse to abstain from voting.

19

I’d vote no, and if the “Yes” side prevails and tries to kill me, I’d just act in self-defense and fight back and kill them if need be, and then have to flee the law. But, not voting for “yes.”

20

The reason to vote no wouldn’t be “Yeah, I don’t really feel like killing anybody, no thank you.” It would be to stand against the idea that the majority can tyrannize the minority at will, and to protect the (possible) minority of people who may have been tricked into voting “no” by yes-voters who just want to kill them.

In this scenario, you would have to go on record, publicly, as voting yes or no.