What is wrong with the brains of the Vote Nazis?

Great Debates
21

I still don’t see a real argument other than just saying, “I get a feeling of hypocrisy.” To disparage a fellow citizen’s opinion because he exercised his free prerogative to express (for all anyone knows) his approval of the status quo by not supporting one particular candidate is disturbing.

The statement that a person “had a chance to do something about it” presupposes that the critic recognized an alternative before the election and chose to ignore it. I don’t think it’s fair to make that assumption and then base your indictment of fellow citizens on the “feeling” the assumption creates.

22

For people who like “none of the above,” there is actually an alternative. Every polling booth I’ve ever seen has the option of a “write-in” ballot. The person you want may not be on the ballot, but there is a space (and usually a pen or pencil available) to write the name of a person you would prefer instead of the listed candidates.

I’m also of the mind that if you don’t vote, you have the right to complain, but if you knew what the alternatives were and didn’t bother, I reserve the right to laugh at you for not trying.

23

If you sincerely have no interest in voting for anyone, then the answer is quite simple.

Don’t bother.

All casting a vote would amount to in such circumstances would be to acknowledge and declare, in effect, that you believe in the quaint myth that the “people rule”. Perhaps you have already noticed how totally irrelevant the voter becomes to the political process once the election is over (disregarding, for the moment, street demonstration activities and the like).

Equally as irritating as the Vote Nuisances are those other pests who place a great deal of significance on whether or not you “know” who your local politico (Fed, State, Council) happens to be. As if that matters a damn. It is about as useful as searching out the identity of your local bank manager when you have no need to contact him or her.

The pointlessness of simply “knowing” the identity of that personage (bank manager, political stooge) should be particularly obvious to those who live in a political district where one party or another has a lock on the electoral outcome.

I could, if I ever needed to, find out the names of my political “representatives” in about 3 minutes, but I would only do this if I ever needed to approach one of them on official business and ask them to make “representations” on my behalf. The only time that political “representatives” ever genuinely represent one of the voters in their district, incidentally.

24

AOB: The pointlessness of simply “knowing” the identity of that personage (bank manager, political stooge) should be particularly obvious to those who live in a political district where one party or another has a lock on the electoral outcome.

I always thought that the point of knowing the identity of your various reps is that it should entail at least some knowledge of what they’re up to. I agree that a bank manager is someone whose actions need not directly concern me unless I want to deal directly with him/her (as long as I don’t read that he/she’s been indicted for embezzlement or something like that), but I think it’s part of a citizen’s job to have some idea of what your reps are doing even if you’re not lobbying them directly.

Similarly, I always thought that the “you ought to vote” guilt-trip (which I cheerfully practice myself, and sometimes on myself) was more about the necessity of being an informed and engaged citizen than about the desirability of just pulling a lever on Election Day. If you’ve looked at the issues and honestly decided that you don’t care or know enough about the differences between the choices to vote meaningfully, I have much more respect for you than I do for someone who just shrugs and says “I never vote, I don’t know anything about it, it’s all bullshit anyway.” The more citizens behave like that, the more bullshitty politics will get.

SE: *I strongly believe that there are lots of wonderful people who don’t have an interest in politics. *

I agree. However, I think that these otherwise-wonderful people are shirking one of the important duties of citizens of a republic.

(By the way, there are workarounds available for that. I have a friend in a different state who’s one of the world’s most wonderful people, but he finds it really tough to get motivated about researching or deciding on any electoral issues below the federal level. However, we share a lot of the same values and political principles, so I’ve sort of become his “voting consultant”. When there’s an election coming up in his district, I study up on the issues and candidates—everything from senatorial races down to local referenda—and email him a brief summary of the options along with some cites and my recommendations. Yeah, in theory I could abuse his trust to use his vote for my own political agenda, but I wouldn’t do that and he knows I wouldn’t. It may be a sort of second-hand citizenship for him, and it makes more work for me, but I think it’s much better than just abdicating a citizen’s electoral responsibilities.)

25

We’ve had a couple threads about this. I know I posted in one but can’t find it.

Anyhoo, I basically agree with the OP that not voting doesn’t invalidate all your other political actions/thoughts. There are many ways to affect a democracy and quite frankly I’m not convinced loudly complaining isn’t more effective than a vote. Also, not voting generally gets noted as apathy while spoiled/write-in votes are chalked up to stupidity or whackiness. Which point are you trying to make (assuming you haven’t sunk to the “lesser of two evils” strategy)?

Also I hate it when Vote-Nazis load you into cattle cars and ship you off to be murdered.

26

I once voted for a candidate specifically because he assured the voters repeatedly that he would implement policies A, B, and C upon election. But when elected he claimed that his perspective had changed and he did not find it feasible to pursue implementation of the policies. He transformed into the opposing candidate and life went on with nary a whisper of protest from my fellow electors. In effect, not only was my vote nullified, my vote went toward support of policies antithetical to my beliefs.

The next election cycle I refrained from voting. Instead I wrote a series of letters to a newspaper with a statewide circulation. My criticisms of policy were thus heard by many thousands of people.

A vote Nazi would conclude that I was practicing sufficient civic behavior in the former instance and should have been censored in the latter.

But in which case was I being more effective, and being more traditionally American?

This is one of the things that bothers me about Vote Nazis. They elevate symbolic acts above substance.

27

Originally posted by Kimstu

You truly believe in that pap, don’t you.

Whether or not you live in a safe electoral district (Local, State, Federal) for one party faction or other, has it ever occurred to you that maybe, just maybe, you have no political power worth a damn?

Has it occurred to you that maybe a more accurate description of the system of government you describe as a “republic” (the long-winded title being a: “Constitutional Republic”) would be: “Elective Dictatorship”, in which the subjects have:

No power or to approve proposed new laws or regulations.
No power to repeal laws or regulations.
No power to penalise or restrain the rulers, elected or otherwise, or their agents for abuses of power.

And the winning party faction can (and does) basically what it pleases for most of the term of its office).

I take it that after casting your vote at an election you feel a warm glow of satisfaction at a job well done.

Oh well. Each to his own.

28

Slight departure:
If it were a legal neccessity to vote, as I believe it is in Australia, conscientious non-voters would presumably be making more of a statement than voters who were “guessing”.
Would the vote nazis here, in that case, endorse staying at home? Or is it taking part in the system that counts?

29

  1. You DO have a duty to vote. You may not like everything about every candidate, but a person can usually align himself with the party that most accurately reflects his feelings on matters that affect us all. Duty is simply what you should be doing. You don’t have to…you just should. Exercising the right to vote is something a WHOLE LOT of people don’t get to do. It’s really quite invigorating. You should try it.

  2. You have a right to complain even if you don’t vote. This is America. Complain all you want. But some people might not listen as closely as they would if you cared more at election time. I only want you to vote if you vote the same party/candidate I vote. So if you’re on the other side, keep being apathetic! :wink:

  3. If the reason you don’t vote is because you don’t know what’s going on, there are remedies to that situation. I’m not the most informed voter out there (most people don’t), but I take the time to understand the basics and hope for the best on election day.

30

I’m not the most informed voter out there (most people don’t),

Well, I mean’t “aren’t”. Duh. :smack:

31

I don’t think even the most strident vote Nazi is going to try to force anyone to vote. The general sentiment is that you should be informed, and participate. If you choose not to because you’re too lazy to get informed, don’t vote because you’re polluting the system with ignorance. If you are informed and choose not to vote, however, don’t expect me to sympathize with you when you aren’t happy with the results. Even if things don’t go your way with whoever you elected, you still have other avenues through which to voice your complaints. I support the writing of letters if upset about results, or any form of free speech protest (non-violent of course). But voting is the primary action in the exercising of free speech.

Ever have a friend who bitches about their life but does nothing to improve it? The one with no education who complains about his job but won’t get a degree or diploma or something (excusing of course people in compromising situations who can’t reasonably do so). Or the one with the fat ass who bitches about her weight while reaching for that bag of chips and the Hagen Daas. If they wanted to, they could change things, but they don’t, so they really shouldn’t complain.

It’s similar with those who apathetically choose not to vote. You are walking down a path, and come to a Y intersection. You can choose to go one way or the other, you can even read all about the expected outcomes of either choice if you want, but one way or the other you will end up down one of those paths because the one you are on is about to disappear. So if you make the choice not to choose, you will be swept along one or the other anyway. Even if you are well-informed of the options but cannot choose one over the other because both are equally execrable to you, you will still be swept onto one of them. Along comes a tide of voters on the path, and they catch you up in their arms and carry you off down one of the paths. You eventually become disenchanted with their choice, and start to complain. You knew the end of the former path was coming, you knew it was one or the other, yet you made no effort to influence your direction. Why should I or anyone else give two shits about your complaints if you made no effort to set your path? I made my choice, and now I am observing the results. If I am displeased, I make another choice the next time the branch comes. In the meantime, I can express my disapproval in various ways, including the aforementioned letter-writing. Or I can protest. Or I can attempt to run for office myself. There are various means for expressing disapproval for a candidate or government, but the fundamental basis for this expression is in the voting booth. Choosing not to says that you choose to ignore that, so I’m going to ignore you when you complain.

Of course, I am well aware that it is difficult to pick a good candidate. We (in Canada) are likely to have an election coming up soon and it’s definitely going to be a negative choice because of the sad state of the opposition right now. That said, if I do not begin with making that fundamental first expression, how will anything change ever? After years of mismanagement from the PCs under Mulroney, the people blew them away with a massive Liberal majority that sent the message that they were unhappy with the PCs. If you want to see change, you have to start there. Now the PCs don’t even exist, and the new party they’re struggling to put together is desperate for some good press. The people spoke, through the polls, and the party has been forced to change. Go and get informed, go and vote, and only through greater participation will true change occur, because apathy breeds the status quo.

32

EM: A vote Nazi would conclude that I was practicing sufficient civic behavior in the former instance and should have been censored in the latter.

I think you’ve got yourself a straw Vote Nazi there. I cannot imagine why anybody who cares about involved citizenship would “censor” you for writing letters to newspapers criticizing policy. As I already said, I have a lot more respect for people who are politically engaged, even if they don’t vote, than for people who just don’t care.

And most of us self-proclaimed Vote Nazis here have admitted quite freely that simply pulling a lever in a voting booth without having any clue about the issues does not an informed or engaged citizen make. I can’t see anything wrong with commending you for your “sufficient civic behavior” in voting for your chosen candidate based on his stated positions on the issues, even if he dishonestly abandoned those positions after being elected. Not even Vote Nazis require you to be clairvoyant before you vote.

AOB: You truly believe in that pap, don’t you.

:rolleyes: Geez, why do so many “Vote Nihilists” get so defensive and
angry even when we Vote Nazis are merely saying calmly and politely that we think citizens of a democracy have a duty to be politically involved? Why so touchy? What’s so terrible about my disagreeing with you about what your citizenship responsibilities entail? I certainly respect your right to act in accordance with your opinion, even if I don’t have much respect for the opinion itself. I can’t see why that should piss you off so much. If I were really loading you into cattle cars (good one, CK :slight_smile: ) and shipping you off to execution, I could understand it.

Whether or not you live in a safe electoral district (Local, State, Federal) for one party faction or other, has it ever occurred to you that maybe, just maybe, you have no political power worth a damn?

Of course it has: maybe, just maybe, I don’t. I certainly don’t believe that my individual vote is statistically important enough to decide any electoral contest (except maybe the smallest of small local races; I have heard of one-vote winning margins, but realistically, they’re incredibly rare). On the other hand, my activities as an informed and engaged citizen, a la EM’s letter-writing, may well have some non-negligible political effect. It would be stupid and cowardly to give up doing what I believe to be the right thing just because I can’t measure how much effect it has overall.

Has it occurred to you that maybe a more accurate description of the system of government you describe as a “republic” (the long-winded title being a: “Constitutional Republic”) would be: “Elective Dictatorship”

No, because “Elective Dictatorship” seems to me like a silly contradiction in terms. Real dictators don’t have elections, or at least are never removed from power by them. I have seen plenty of elected officials removed from power by the voters.

in which the subjects have:
No power or to approve proposed new laws or regulations.

Leaving aside direct popular referenda which do involve that power to some extent, I still don’t consider that having a representative democracy instead of a direct democracy means that the voters have no say in what laws get enacted.

No power to repeal laws or regulations.

See above.

No power to penalise or restrain the rulers, elected or otherwise, or their agents for abuses of power.

Except to elect somebody else, which quite often does penalize an official.

And the winning party faction can (and does) basically what it pleases for most of the term of its office).

You know, if you had less lofty disdain for politics, you might actually pay attention to the details of legislative and elective activity long enough to realize that (especially at the state and local level) there often is quite a bit of compromise between minority and majority positions. I don’t say that majorities never spit in the face of bipartisanship (esp. perhaps in the current federal government), but it is by no means universal or inevitable.

I take it that after casting your vote at an election you feel a warm glow of satisfaction at a job well done.

Actually, what I mostly feel is mild satisfaction tempered with unhappiness about the numerous and dismaying flaws that are unquestionably still rife in our political system. However, I know that sitting around apathetically and cynically sneering about those flaws will accomplish even less than making efforts to fix them, however insignificant or futile some of those efforts may be.

33

Duty is an obligation or a requirement, not an option. No one has a duty to vote in a popular election. This is a clearly fallacious myth perpetuated by Vote Nazis. The feeling that someone “should” vote is a personal opinion. No one has the right to pass judgment on another person’s decision to not vote.

And the reason it is upsetting for Vote Nazis to say “if you don’t vote you don’t have a right to have your opinion heard” is because it is a false, un-American, fascistic statement which seeks to inhibit the liberty of fellow citizens. This is a serious matter concerning free political discourse. It is an attempt by self-righteous people to intimidate and guilt people into silence.

34

Of course, I am biased. But I have to support the “moral duty” faction. Declining to participate in your government because you don’t think you make a difference, or because you are uninformed, or because you are throwing a hissy fit, is just plain stupid. Every vote counts. More so at a local level than nationally, but it still counts. If you don’t like any of the selections, write in None of the Above is Acceptable. If you are willing to accept the benefits of citizenship, then you should be willing to accept the responsibilities of citizenship. All the Vote-Nihilists (love thet description, by the way!) are just parasites, willing to take without giving back. Citizenship requires WORK, dammit! If you don’t know about the issues, then force your representatives to educate you.

AOB: No power, huh. Tell that to the people of California, who just threw out the most incompetent and corrupt governor we had ever had. No comment on what we replaced him with, mind you. But no power? I don’t think so! The initiative process is a way for the people to act directly. That is why old-line party politicians hate it so much. Sounds to me like you are just lazy…like any number of my students. You want everything handed to you on a plate, then you complain that it isn’t the flavor you wanted. Bah.

35

I want to make this very clear. I enjoy voting. When I feel the need to express my view on a subject, when I feel that one candidate has answers to problems, I exercise my right to suffrage. Sometimes when I stiil feel the flush of patriotism I witness to non-voters and tell them of the struggles of the common man over human history to have a say in his own destiny rather than forever being subject to tyrants and dictators. But I have never felt like calling these people who refrained from public elections as “stupid” or “parasites”.

As a citizen you have only one obligation. That is to obey the laws of the land. If you do this then you should be exempt from the derogation of others. I welcome hearing the opinions of non-voters.

I am appalled at the hatred directed at people who aren’t playing the game the way the Vote Nazis want it to be played.

36

The thing is that we are currently living in good times, relatively speaking. Yeah, there are problems splashed across the news every day, but they aren’t really problems that affect our daily lives. Sure, we are at war, but it’s not like we have food rationing or are losing 5,000 troops a day. Yeah, there is terrorism, but not to the point where we have serious concern leaving our homes.

So, the ship is sailing as smoothly as can be expected. And when the ship is in smooth waters, it really doesn’t matter who is steering. In other words, almost anybody can be president during good times. So, it’s not really a big deal if people don’t vote during good times.

On the other hand, consider the numbers. Let’s say we have a voting population of 100 million. During times of apathy, 10% of the people vote and a candidate wins with 50% of the vote, while the loser gets 45%. That leaves only 4.5 million citizens unhappy.

Yet, if 80% of the voters turned out, and we saw the same 50%-45% win, we’d have 36 million unhappy citizens.

37

cit·i·zen·ship ( P ) Pronunciation Key (st-zn-shp)
n.
The status of a citizen with its attendant duties, rights, and privileges.

You stand on your rights, demand your privileges, and shirk your duties. As a citizen you have many more obligations than just to follow the laws of the land. In fact, you have a moral duty to NOT follow the laws when those laws are unjust. Or did you forget whose holiday was yesterday?

I stand by my “parasite” observation.

38

That’s generally what I do. However, there are some races that are so low-profile that even the newspapers don’t publish endorsements. There was an election in our Parks and Recreation district for which I never saw any of the candidates names in the paper at all. And I read the paper every day.

Ed

39

Who wants your sympathy? I’m not offering mine when the guy you elect turns around and does the opposite of what he promised.

What I expect is you to listen to informed opinions whether they come from a voter or not.

Or don’t, who cares. :wink:

40

First of all I don’t know who “you” is supposed to refer to. Second, your dictionary definition of ‘citizenship’ doesn’t suppot a contention that voting is a duty. Third, your intentionally distractive drift toward the subject of civil disobedience is irrelevant to the distinction between **rights ** and **obligations **. Society requires people to obey laws but doesn’t require people to exercise rights.

The idea that people “should” vote is still an opinion unless anyone can show legally and factually that it is a required *duty * of citizenship. And if this can not be proven then the people who insult and disparage abstaining citizens who are living decent and honorable American lives are guilty of slander and intimidation.

If a man stands before a public forum and expresses his political opinion, and another person stands in opposition announcing before all that the man is a stupid, ignorant parasite who has no right to speak or criticize and is less of a citizen because he has not fulfilled his civic duty to vote, then the first is perfectly in line with American ideals of freedom of speech. But the second person is out of line and is acting contrary to the cherished ideals of free public discourse.

Everyone has the right to express opinions, but when your opinion is that other people should be denied *their * rights to express *their * opinions then you are engaging in irrational contradictions.

To tell people that voting is a civic duty is either a mistaken opinion or a blatant lie. Either way it is doing a disservice to people trying to understand our political system.

True statement: “I think it makes for a healthy society when many citizens are informed and active in the electoral process and no eligible citizen is denied the right to participate.”

False statement: “Voting is a requirement so if you don’t vote you have no right to complain.”

I hope that American teachers are not forgetting the difference.