# Referendum of Death **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 4, 2019, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/referendum-of-death/832034 "2019-04-04T14:13:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2019, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/referendum-of-death/832034/101 "2019-04-07T22:10:28Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > … some who would just murder all of the NO voters they could just because they can. With no legal repercussions for these folks, it’d add up to a very impressive kill count. I would not absolutely count on “no repercussions”. It is, yes, legal for you to go through that intersection on the green light, but if someone is making a left across your lane of travel and you make no effort to avoid them, there could be repercussions for acting legally. If you kill Joe, Joe’s spouse could sue you for visiting undue hardship upon the three children, who no longer have a father or breadwinner. The law does not always insulate you from the side-effects of legal behavior. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/referendum-of-death/832034/102 "2019-04-08T06:05:40Z")
> [@SpoilerVirgin](#): > > I was going off your statement that "If asked I would say “Even though it’s legal, don’t do it,” which implies that you don’t believe the law is a good idea. In this hypothetical there is a difference between thinking the _law itself_ is a bad idea and thinking that _voting_ for the law is a bad idea. I can certainly see why a person might think the proposed law is evil and heinous yet at the same time voting “yes” for it because, given the utterly nasty situation, they consider that their “best” move. There are similarities to the presidential election in 2000. One might have felt that Ralph Nader was the best candidate for the office yet still voted for Gore because they thought that was their “best” move. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/referendum-of-death/832034/103 "2019-04-08T06:27:08Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Most people aren’t inclined to murder, but a very few are. Ordinarily, those few are kept in line by the law and the potential for punishment. But if this measure passed, you’d have some people who would murder any NO voter they could find who happened to be of a particular demographic they disliked, and some who would murder any individual they happened to dislike for other reasons if they also happened to be a NO voter, and some who would just murder all of the NO voters they could just because they can. With no legal repercussions for these folks, it’d add up to a very impressive kill count. > > There would also be a large number of murders of YES voters, by folks who were under the mistaken impression that they were NOs. Sure, these folks would get prosecuted by the law, but their victims would still be dead. Yes. As I noted earlier, if this vote passes it would mean civil war. No way the deaths would be limited to no-voters. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/referendum-of-death/832034/104 "2019-04-08T07:55:34Z")
> [@cuauhtemoc](#): > > […] Or even someone who doesn’t vote at all? > […] > 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. You could treat someone who did not vote as a Yes or as a No without his/her abstention counting as a vote: only valid cast ballots count to determine the majority but the abstentionists would be treated either as Yessers or Noers with all consequences the majority vote carries. I voted No, BTW. I am already very tempted to go out on a rampage and kill all the bastards, but the bastards probably would vote Yes, so the only ones left to legally kill would be those I don’t want to kill. But you set up a nice \*Gedankenexperiment \*there, I must admit. Clever. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/referendum-of-death/832034/105 "2019-04-08T15:30:51Z")
> [@cuauhtemoc](#): > > (The polled question is the referendum itself. It’s not public.) This seems inconsistent with the premise. Why did you not make it public, as the referendum is supposed to be? ---
**Author:** ![cuauhtemoc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecb155/32.png) [@cuauhtemoc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cuauhtemoc)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/referendum-of-death/832034/106 "2019-04-08T17:30:49Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > It makes sense to vote against the referendum if there is a good chance it will fail, since it failing is in the interests of all of society. But once or if it has become clear that the referendum is going to pass (let’s say, it’s got an overwhelming majority,) is there still any rational reason to vote “no” (other than if you are simply a super-principled person who would rather die than vote for something wrong?) Yes, I think the pre-election polls would become pretty important. If it’s obvious the law will fail, it’s very easy to vote no. The closer it gets to passing, the harder it gets to take the principled stand against murder. But then you have to figure, if the final vote is close, then almost half the population will now be vulnerable. There might be an uneasy peace for a little while, because as has been mentioned, most people aren’t itching to go out and kill. But I’d have to think that, with a legally sanctioned caste system that privileges half the people so grossly at the expense of the other half, there’s going to be trouble. Likely a civil war. Then it would be a question of what side you’re more comfortable standing with in battle: the privileged oppressors or the downtrodden minority. It would be less a question of your own safety, because you wouldn’t really be safe either way. Maybe there’s a point where, if it looks like the yesses will win by a large margin, you can ethically vote yes with the aim of using your retained privilege to help protect the newly vulnerable underclass. It would have to be at a point where you can’t plausibly believe the nos could mount any effective resistance themselves, as they’d be such a small percentage of the population. ---
**Author:** ![cuauhtemoc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecb155/32.png) [@cuauhtemoc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cuauhtemoc)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/referendum-of-death/832034/107 "2019-04-08T17:39:56Z")
> [@Fugazi](#): > > You’re asking me to trust in the goodwill, restraint, and/or morality of millions and millions of strangers. A large chunk of these strangers put Donald Trump in office. Yeah, I don’t think so. I just don’t have that much faith in human nature. I’m voting yes as purely a defensive measure. I have no intention of killing anyone, but I’m not opening myself up to being killed by any Cletus with a pickup and a gun rack. And this is the heart of the matter: We don’t trust each other to do the right thing. Is that depressing to anyone else? Do you suppose it was different at any other time in this country’s history? Was there a time when it would have been assumed that any sane person would vote against such a bad law, and that since most people were sane, there was no chance of it passing? Suppose I had posted this hypothetical in 1950? ---
**Author:** ![cuauhtemoc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecb155/32.png) [@cuauhtemoc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cuauhtemoc)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/referendum-of-death/832034/108 "2019-04-08T17:59:25Z")
Also: > [@Fugazi](#): > > You’re asking me to trust in the goodwill, restraint, and/or morality of millions and millions of strangers. Is it the large number that bothers you? Suppose the number were smaller? I’m sure a lot of you are familiar with the theoretical [Dunbar’s number.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number) > [@](#): > > Dunbar’s number is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships—relationships in which an individual knows who each person is and how each person relates to every other person… > > Proponents assert that numbers larger than this generally require more restrictive rules, laws, and enforced norms to maintain a stable, cohesive group. It has been proposed to lie between 100 and 250, with a commonly used value of 150. Imagine instead that the vote comes up in the village you were born in, population 150. You know these people. You don’t trust every single one of them completely, but you don’t believe half of them are secret monsters, and besides they’ve all lived together in a functioning community for as long as you’ve been alive. Would that make you more likely to vote no? ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/referendum-of-death/832034/109 "2019-04-08T19:31:49Z")
> [@cuauhtemoc](#): > > And this is the heart of the matter: We don’t trust each other to do the right thing. Is that depressing to anyone else? Do you suppose it was different at any other time in this country’s history? Was there a time when it would have been assumed that any sane person would vote against such a bad law, and that since most people were sane, there was no chance of it passing? Suppose I had posted this hypothetical in 1950? That says more clearly there’s an assumed real world country and it’s the US. Which I can see from the POV of commentary on US real world society. But OTOH the idea of a direct democracy referendum dealing with basic rights is more far fetched in the US than most other places. Not that a ‘death referendum’ is likely anywhere, obviously. But the US system, not only laws and the Constitution, but general beliefs of the electorate to a significant degree also, is relatively less friendly to absolute democracy than most places. That’s not always good, or bad, depends on the real world issue and one’s POV. But I think it’s worth noting now that you more clearly say this is supposed to be a commentary on _US_ social cohesion. Which was surely greater in 1950 than now. But which again isn’t strictly speaking a good or bad thing. The consensus of 1950 included some ideas, implicit or explicit, of who ‘we’ were as Americans that almost everyone would reject now Although in other cases the US social divide we’re speaking of now could actually be described somewhat in terms or who is relatively more or less comprehensively hostile to the American self-image of 1950. I’d just add on a minor point that even without ‘massive disinformation campaign’ (and besides the fact US left and right now think each other’s main mouthpieces are always waging ‘disinformation campaigns’ 🙂 ) people rarely freely vote literally 100% against anything. I guess the closest historical case in the US would be zero individual popular votes recorded in for Lincoln in some Southern states in the 1860 election. But some people would virtually certainly vote against the ‘death referendum’ no matter what you specify for information campaigns either way so, so even within the far fetched hypothetical, if it has any relation to actual human nature, the case where everyone votes yes, so it’s harmless, would not exist. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/referendum-of-death/832034/110 "2019-04-08T20:52:16Z")
> [@cuauhtemoc](#): > > Maybe there’s a point where, if it looks like the yesses will win by a large margin, you can ethically vote yes with the aim of using your retained privilege to help protect the newly vulnerable underclass. It would have to be at a point where you can’t plausibly believe the nos could mount any effective resistance themselves, as they’d be such a small percentage of the population. Unless you mean you’re going to physically interpose yourself between no voters and everyone else, using yourself as a human shield, I’m not sure how your ‘retained privilege’ is going to enable you to protect anybody. Especially since you’re going to be hard-pressed to identify who you’re supposed to protect from whom - unless your vote is tattooed on your forehead you’d have to go fetch a list and laboriously identify people on it one by one. Which is fine if you’re just a murderous sociopath who doesn’t care who you kill as long as they die, but which isn’t as fine if you’re trying to identify potential killers and victims. Especially since the first thing you’d learn was that _you’re_ a potential killer - the ‘no’ person probably wouldn’t want you hanging around on the pretext of protecting them. Reading through this thread has convinced me that there’s no ethical way to vote ‘yes’. At best you vote ‘yes’ because you want to murder random people for fun. Worse than that is if you don’t care if your selfish choice causes scores of other people die. The direct murderer is responsible only for his own kills; persons covering their own butts are responsible for all the murders they facilitate. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/referendum-of-death/832034/111 "2019-04-09T00:03:56Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > persons covering their own butts are responsible for all the murders they facilitate. I disagree that I’m responsible for the actions of others, no matter how legal I vote to make that action. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/referendum-of-death/832034/112 "2019-04-09T01:20:17Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > I disagree that I’m responsible for the actions of others, no matter how legal I vote to make that action. Then no Nazi who supported Hitler was responsible for the Holocaust - or any Trump voter responsible for anything Trump or the GOP does. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/referendum-of-death/832034/113 "2019-04-09T01:54:05Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Then no Nazi who supported Hitler was responsible for the Holocaust - or any Trump voter responsible for anything Trump or the GOP does. Joining the Nazi party was an action that an individual took, making them responsible. Obama voters are not responsible for all the people killed in drone strikes during his administration. If the Democratic Party had “Drone bomb poor, brown people in the Middle East” as a core tenet, then yes, a person joining the Democratic Party would be responsible. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/referendum-of-death/832034/114 "2019-04-09T02:31:30Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Obama voters are not responsible for all the people killed in drone strikes during his administration. > > If the Democratic Party had “Drone bomb poor, brown people in the Middle East” as a core tenet, then yes, a person joining the Democratic Party would be responsible. Ah…what? This is the Referendum of _Death_, as outlined by the OP. Giving one group of people the legal right to murder another group \*\*\*is \*\*\*the very central core tenet of the referendum. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/referendum-of-death/832034/115 "2019-04-09T02:45:05Z")
True, but I personally see a difference between “allowing” someone to do something and “condoning” it. If there were a National referendum on abortion, I would vote to “allow” it, but I don’t condone abortion. If I voted to allow abortion, I’m not responsible for all the abortions that occur. If the poll in this topic was “Yes voters MUST kill a No voter”, then I would vote “No”. ---
**Author:** ![MarvinKitFox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ba0ec/32.png) [@MarvinKitFox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarvinKitFox)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/referendum-of-death/832034/116 "2019-04-09T06:51:06Z")
I would promptly pack my bags and LEAVE this so-called democratic state where everyone’s vote is public knowledge. It had been proven repeatedly that the only democratic vote is a secret vote. The moment you know your vote will be public, you are not voting your opinion but your fears. You might as well have phrased the question as: Do you vote that traitors to the Nation should be shot without trial? … Names of “yes” voters will be posted on the “wall of death” notice board. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/referendum-of-death/832034/117 "2019-04-09T12:46:14Z")
This would amount to starting a civil war between the yes and no voters, which is why really important questions like presidential elections should not be decided 50.01% to 49.99%. The supermajority required to amend the US Constitution is a prime example: the 2/3 - 3/4 majority required is roughly what it takes to win a civil war if the losing side rebelled. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/referendum-of-death/832034/118 "2019-04-09T22:26:11Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > True, but I personally see a difference between “allowing” someone to do something and “condoning” it. > > If there were a National referendum on abortion, I would vote to “allow” it, but I don’t condone abortion. If I voted to allow abortion, I’m not responsible for all the abortions that occur. > > If the poll in this topic was “Yes voters MUST kill a No voter”, then I would vote “No”. The poll is “SOME yes voters WILL kill a no voter.” This vote was instigated by some people and they were vocal enough to convince the cowardly populace that there was a chance they’d win. Honestly, this whole vote really comes down to two questions: 1) should murder be illegal at all? and 2) are you willing to murder countless others to save your own skin? The argument you’re making analogizing this to abortion is the first argument - you’re arguing that murder should be legal. Straight up legal, murder anybody you want, kill them all, it’s not your problem because you’re not the one that made them do it. That’s the argument you’re making when you try to dismiss your responsibility for their actions; you actually **are** responsible for your vote, and for the consequences of your vote, whether you dislike admitting that or not. If you vote to legalize abortion, you’re responsible for the part you played in allowing women the freedom to get abortions. If you vote to legalize murder, you’re responsible for the part you played in allowing people to commit murder. Which means that, as you can probably anticipate, nobody’s going to be impressed by your “I didn’t shoot you, I merely loaded the gun and handed it to the person who was announcing that he would shoot you if he had a loaded gun” argument. All that said, if you’re really pro-slaughter of innocents, that’s at least an ethos. But most people throwing their support behind this are more in the “I’m willing to slaughter millions of people just to save my own skin” camp. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/referendum-of-death/832034/119 "2019-04-10T00:38:05Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > The poll is “SOME yes voters WILL kill a no voter.” No, I don’t agree that is the poll. > [@](#): > > Which means that, as you can probably anticipate, nobody’s going to be impressed by your “I didn’t shoot you, I merely loaded the gun and handed it to the person who was announcing that he would shoot you if he had a loaded gun” argument I don’t care if anybody is impressed. Like I said, I’m responsible for my actions and the actions of my children. I’m not a fan of the “He told me to do it!” defense. Do you feel you are responsible for each and every person that the US killed during the Obama Administration (assuming you voted for Obama)? If you let someone borrow your car, and they get drunk and crash into a van of nuns and kittens, are you responsible for those deaths? Since you put the keys into the hands of the guy that killed them? If you want to take responsibility for what other people do, then more power to you. I’m not doing that. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/referendum-of-death/832034/120 "2019-04-10T14:00:25Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > If you let someone borrow your car, and they get drunk and crash into a van of nuns and kittens, are you responsible for those deaths? If he was drunk when you gave him the keys, OR he was loudly stating that he was off to get drunk as soon as you gave them to him (And that’s the analogy here.), then yes, of course you are. Not _as_ responsible as the drunk driver, but you’re still responsible. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/referendum-of-death/832034.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/referendum-of-death/832034.md?page=7)