# What's wrong with voting against your self interest? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 11, 2015, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-voting-against-your-self-interest/727542 "2015-08-11T12:11:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-voting-against-your-self-interest/727542/101 "2015-08-13T21:17:02Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > They don’t have to be. They can be set to raise more, less or the same. Sorry I missed this. I didn’t say they had to be. I said they generally were. Those advocating a flat tax are not usually those interested in raising taxes. And while the result of a flat tax might be a loss in revenue, the advocates typically try to decouple the tax from budget and spending issues. So my point stands. > [@](#): > > Well, the key is to close loopholes. Technically, their called “deductions”, since a loophole has the connotation of being not quite legal. I was talking about loopholes going into the new law. Yes, loopholes in the old law will be eliminated - that is certainly not in dispute. But given the input of various lobbyists, I think the chance of a loophole free law in this universe is slight. > [@](#): > > A flat tax that treats all income equally, and that has a fairly high standard deduction (Forbes wanted to set it at $33K back in 1996 when he was touting it) will do the trick. Now, it’s not really a flat tax since it has a deduction, but once you get past that deduction, it’s flat. No mortgage deduction, no deferred interest tax rate of 15% (take that, hedge fund managers!), no nuthin’. You’d probably need to index long term gains for inflation, but that would be it. Set the tax rate at whatever suits your purpose (less revenue, same revenue, more revenue). Set the deduction at whatever you want to make it more fair (for whatever definition of “fair” you are using). However, consider Schedule C income. You clearly can’t tax that on just income - you have to deduct expense from running the business. Not so simple now, huh? And while this just applies to the self employed (and there is a lot of them) there would now be a major incentive to create a schedule C business if at all possible. And that is minor compared to the chance of our brave and honorable Congress standing up to the housing industry and all those losing mortgage deductions. If Congress were that brave they could eliminate favorable treatment of hedge fund managers without totally tossing the current tax code. So, I ask again - are the rich going to pay more, less, or the same under a flat tax? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-voting-against-your-self-interest/727542/102 "2015-08-13T21:17:59Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > I believe that in the vast majority of cases both sides agree on basic values and even on specific objectives, but disagree on policies of how to achieve them. > [@bone](#): > > Do you still think this? You have conceded that you level the criticism quite a lot. What I’m trying to impress upon you, is that not only are their more than two sides, but it is simply not true or not knowable that in the vast majority of cases the different sides agree on basic values. I certainly share very little basic values with you, as we’ve illustrated. I, too, think that is a terrible assumption to make, and it’s going to lead to all sorts of incorrect conclusions. But maybe **wolfpup** should flesh that out and see if we’re talking about the same thing or not. What are the values that you think all sides agree on? Let’s tackle that one first, and then we can move on to objectives and tactics. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-voting-against-your-self-interest/727542/103 "2015-08-13T22:32:14Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > Not even close. I wonder why you feel the need to embellish in this fashion. “highly informed”, “categorically not important”, ‘misinformation being great for democracy’, and ‘negative outcomes being what the voters wanted’. Those are poor interpretations of my statements. I’m trying to think if you come to those through honest interpretation or if the mischaracterization is intentional. It does seem to be a trend. I’m sorry you don’t like my writing style. I just try not to be boring. I’m going to guess you don’t like Bill Maher or Jon Stewart, either. 😃 > [@Bone](#): > > Do you think you are immune to this phenomenon? If not, then aren’t you subjected to the same risk of being manipulated to vote against your own interests? If you are immune, why do you think others are not? It’s not a question of being “immune” to anything. It’s a question of being analytical and looking beyond the superficial, beyond the metaphorical glittering shiny objects. It’s a question of being appropriately skeptical of advocacy spinmeisters and politicians, of taking into account their motivations and trying to look at the issues beyond the spin. Should everyone rush out and buy every gadget that’s advertised on television as the cure for everything from clogged drains to a lackluster love life? **Yet clearly many do** , because it’s the economic foundation of commercial broadcasting. And I suppose it’s also about getting your information from thoughtful print journalism and not from television sound bites (especially if the television in question is Fox News!). > [@John\_Mace](#): > > I, too, think that is a terrible assumption to make, and it’s going to lead to all sorts of incorrect conclusions. But maybe **wolfpup** should flesh that out and see if we’re talking about the same thing or not. > > What are the values that you think all sides agree on? Let’s tackle that one first, and then we can move on to objectives and tactics. First of all I was trying to be optimistic and conciliatory in suggesting that there was a lot of common ground. Perhaps I was sadly wrong – doesn’t matter, because I think I’ve established now with quite a few specific facts and cites that voters for some of these right-wing policies were neither expecting nor supportive of the actual outcomes of their voting decisions, nor are they in any way benefiting by them, and that the idea that these useful idiots to the plutocracy were actually voting in their best interests is, well, a useful mythology. What I was trying to convey is that we could agree that, for instance, a peaceful, safe, and just society with a robust economy and broad participation in the social and economic capital was a goal shared by both liberals and conservatives. That this would inform everything from gun policy to tax policy to corporate regulation – and that though liberals and conservatives might well disagree on almost all of the specific policies, these rational end goals would be shared ones. I am, in fact, now starting to doubt this. We’ve been hearing about how “small government” is the objective, in and of itself, independent of the need for public services; about how the conservative value is such as to not care in the slightest about income disparity, despite its injustices (if one is moral) and its clearly destabilizing societal impacts (if one is merely pragmatic) – to the extent that economists now regard it as a serious emerging global problem with its epicenter in the US, where it festers in its most extreme form. And that’s just one tiny example of what I would think should have been an obvious common value. Perhaps there really is a fundamental value difference, where one set of values is some form of extreme libertarianism that says the only thing that matters is **me** – _ **my** _ freedom to do whatever I like, and nothing else matters. Government is bad and government regulation is bad and therefore no public agency has any right to interfere with dangerous work conditions, or dumping toxins into drinking water, or emissions of anything into the atmosphere – and if disaster strikes, we’re all on our own. Is this what we mean by not having shared values? Otherwise I’m at a loss to explain how there could not be shared values in the terms I just described. And the problem with this form of extreme libertarianism is that this is not how humans live; we all live on the same planet and in the same environment, we are social creatures, and we depend on each other and on the collective social capital of society to meet our needs and elevate our lives to something greater than subsistence cave dwellers. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-voting-against-your-self-interest/727542/104 "2015-08-13T23:29:12Z")
Sorry about the huge load here. The elephant in the room some are bending over backward to not address (obfuscate might be a good word) Wolf: Great job. But I think we have some people here just trawling for action. MEDIA The Science of Fox News: Why Its Viewers Are the Most Misinformed Authoritarian people have a stronger emotional need for an outlet like Fox, where they can find affirmation and escape factual challenges to their beliefs. By Chris Mooney / AlterNet October 20, 2014 Print 232 COMMENTS Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from Chris Mooney’s book The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science and Reality. In June of 2011, Jon Stewart went on air with Fox News’ Chris Wallace and started a major media controversy over the channel’s misinforming of its viewers. “Who are the most consistently misinformed media viewers?” Stewart asked Wallace. “The most consistently misinformed? Fox, Fox viewers, consistently, every poll.” … And thus we find, at the root of our political dysfunction, a classic nurture-nature mélange. The penchant for selective exposure is rooted in our psychology and our brains. Closed-mindedness and authoritarianism—running stronger in some of us than in others—likely are as well. But nevertheless, it took the emergence of a station like Fox News before these tendencies could be fully activated—polarizing America not only over politics, but over reality itself. Chris Mooney is the author of four books, including “The Republican War on Science” and “The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science—and Reality.” ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-voting-against-your-self-interest/727542/105 "2015-08-13T23:30:51Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > I’m sorry you don’t like my writing style. I just try not to be boring. I’m going to guess you don’t like Bill Maher or Jon Stewart, either. 😃 Then what you describe as ‘writing style’ is intentional. > [@](#): > > It’s not a question of being “immune” to anything. It’s a question of being analytical and looking beyond the superficial, beyond the metaphorical glittering shiny objects. It’s a question of being appropriately skeptical of advocacy spinmeisters and politicians, of taking into account their motivations and trying to look at the issues beyond the spin. I take it you believe that you yourself engage in this analytical review, being skeptical and looking at issues beyond the spin, and therefore you’ve been able to come to the conclusions you have. Why do you think people have concluded differently than you on a variety of issues? Do you think if they engaged in the same level of analytical review, the same level of skepticism, and taken the same efforts to look beyond the spin that those that would disagree with you would come around to your way of thinking? > [@](#): > > First of all I was trying to be optimistic and conciliatory in suggesting that there was a lot of common ground. Your attempt to be conciliatory has the opposite effect. How about this example to illustrate: “_I know that we both agree on our [celebration of the right to keep and bear arms as a bulwark against tyranny and defense against unlawful acts] and even on [wanting to push constitutional carry in all 50 states], but disagree on policies of how to achieve these things._” \<— That’s not conciliatory. > [@](#): > > I am, in fact, now starting to doubt this. My goal is achieved. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-voting-against-your-self-interest/727542/106 "2015-08-13T23:41:49Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > Then what you describe as ‘writing style’ is intentional. > > I take it you believe that you yourself engage in this analytical review, being skeptical and looking at issues beyond the spin, and therefore you’ve been able to come to the conclusions you have. Why do you think people have concluded differently than you on a variety of issues? Do you think if they engaged in the same level of analytical review, the same level of skepticism, and taken the same efforts to look beyond the spin that those that would disagree with you would come around to your way of thinking? Why is this relevant? He wants to know how they think because it will inform him, and enable his political life. Why do you put words in his mouth? (You tryin to say he’s “arrogant”?) > [@](#): > > Your attempt to be conciliatory has the opposite effect. How about this example to illustrate: “_I know that we both agree on our [celebration of the right to keep and bear arms as a bulwark against tyranny and defense against unlawful acts] and even on [wanting to push constitutional carry in all 50 states], but disagree on policies of how to achieve these things._” \<— That’s not conciliatory. I don’t know where you’re going with that. I think he’s referring to things found in the Declaration of Independence and in the laws we inherited from European societies about trying to live peacefully as a state. You should be specific about these things too, or else say you share them with him. Why do you have to conflate? > [@](#): > > My goal is achieved. OK turn on Fox and try to feel like the center is holding (for them and their business party/partner). There’s not much time left. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-voting-against-your-self-interest/727542/107 "2015-08-13T23:48:54Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > OK turn on Fox and try to feel like the center is holding (for them and their business party/partner). There’s not much time left. Sorry about not quoting correctly. I’m trying to figure that out now. [http://www.alternet.org/media/science-fox-news-why-its-viewers-are-most-misinformed](http://www.alternet.org/media/science-fox-news-why-its-viewers-are-most-misinformed) ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-voting-against-your-self-interest/727542/108 "2015-08-28T06:51:00Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > But no one ever asks "What’s wrong with “Steven Spielberg and Barbra Streisand?” But they’re multimillionaires who vote liberal because of the social issues, even though the Republicans offer them more tax breaks. Left-leaning multi-millionaires of the entertainment industry are hardly a good counterexample. If they have to pay a half-million more in taxes on their investment or production company revenues, it will make little to no difference as to their personal circumstances. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-voting-against-your-self-interest/727542/109 "2015-08-28T07:42:00Z")
The thread was bumped so I skimmed it again. As so often in these threads, one can ignore everyone but **wolfpup** and see most of the intelligent answer: > [@wolfpup](#): > > There is enough dodging and deflection there to make my head spin! 🙂 Do I have the following assertions correct? > > [ul] > [li]That the bamboozled voters who can’t answer a single factual question when asked by pollsters are not ignorant, they are highly informed fact-based rational voters who merely have values different from mine;[/li][li]That the specific examples I cited of major policy-relevant facts that voters either don’t know or have all wrong are all categorically “not important”; [/li][li]That high-priced PR companies spinning bullshit and inundating the public with fear tactics and misinformation on dozens of different fronts on behalf of their paying masters are great for democracy even when they drown out the facts and turn voters into clueless unwitting dupes;[/li][li]And that when the kinds of negative outcomes I cited inevitably occur – as a direct result of reckless policies enacted by venal politicians – those outcomes are really what the voters wanted all along![/li][/ul] > And the Duke-Harvard research I cited that proves my points with respect to income disparity – conveniently ignored by you without comment. The Princeton study I cited that suggests the above factors are so egregious that true democracy is barely functioning any more in America – ignored without comment. > > In short, repeating over and over again that all these things are “values differences” doesn’t make it true. _ **Of course** _ there are values differences between conservatives and liberals. But the overwhelming evidence is that this isn’t what’s happening here. > > I believe that the unlimited dominance of money in electioneering creates a dominance in the public mindset of the interests and viewpoints of those who have the most money to spend, which is always linked to the interests of the biggest corporations and the wealthiest donors. The “free speech” label in this context is a ruse, a pretext for surrendering the public dialog to the dominance of the moneyed interests and, ironically, actually works to suppress the free speech of voices representing the public interest by drowning it out with high volumes of expertly crafted spin from the well-financed purveyors of special-interest bullshit. And that’s only half the problem. The other half is the direct purchase of political power through election funding, as we saw when the Kochs and Adelson were interviewing and vetting their preferred flunkies among the presidential candidates. This is not a casual happenstance but a deeply ingrained systemic problem, and the results are all around you. > > OK. 'nuff said and I guess we’ll leave it there. > And I don’t self-identify as “liberal”. I’ll quote\*\* drad dog\*\* also. Contrary to some strange comments in-thread, voters really are misinformed: > [@drad\_dog](#): > > MEDIA > The Science of Fox News: Why Its Viewers Are the Most Misinformed > Authoritarian people have a stronger emotional need for an outlet like Fox, where they can find affirmation and escape factual challenges to their beliefs. > By Chris Mooney / AlterNet October 20, 2014 > Print > 232 COMMENTS > Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from Chris Mooney’s book The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science and Reality. > > In June of 2011, Jon Stewart went on air with Fox News’ Chris Wallace and started a major media controversy over the channel’s misinforming of its viewers. “Who are the most consistently misinformed media viewers?” Stewart asked Wallace. “The most consistently misinformed? Fox, Fox viewers, consistently, every poll.” > > … > > And thus we find, at the root of our political dysfunction, a classic nurture-nature mélange. The penchant for selective exposure is rooted in our psychology and our brains. Closed-mindedness and authoritarianism—running stronger in some of us than in others—likely are as well. > > But nevertheless, it took the emergence of a station like Fox News before these tendencies could be fully activated—polarizing America not only over politics, but over reality itself. FoxNews is one of the most obvious examples, but disinformation is very common on Internet. OP’s question loses much of its interest when we acknowledge that **many voters lack the information to vote in their self-interest whether they want to or not**. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-voting-against-your-self-interest/727542/110 "2015-08-28T07:49:52Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Let’s stop right there. > > Can you show me, in your original post that I responded to, where you set that criteria up? I’ll save you the trouble. You didn’t. You just said said “flat tax”, which can be set up many different ways, as I outlined in my later [response](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18595974&postcount=71) to **Voyager**. If you had some specific plan in mind, don’t blame me because you neglected to to say what it was. > > Often, when someone proposes a new tax method, they will tout it as being revenue neutral. Makes sense, since they don’t want to sound too revolutionary. But revenue neutrality is not in any way intrinsic to “flat tax”. I wonder if you realize how frustrating it can be to attempt an intelligent conversation with you. Follow this thought experiment: Country A places a $10 tax on a poor person and a $100 tax on a rich person, and spends $92 of the $110 raised providing education and health care for the two persons’ children. It then cuts both taxes to $9, reducing revenue by $92, and stops spending on the children. **Does it advance the quality of debate to describe this as _Taxcuts for Everyone_ ?** Nevermind whether the hugely simplified scenario has any relation to reality. I’m just trying to test your grasp of, and intuition with, simple arithmetic. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-voting-against-your-self-interest/727542/111 "2015-08-28T08:32:55Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > No one “handed out” cell phones. That program subsidized phone service, not hardware. And you can only get one type of service, so if you get cell phone service subsidy, you can’t get land line service subsidy. Some companies included free phones as part of the service, but that’s on them. And the actual original is back in the New Deal days, in an attempt to get everyone on the phone grid. But everyone’s missing the main point of the Obamaphone: you can sing Mahna Mahna to it. ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/82dd89/32.png) [@Kearsen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-voting-against-your-self-interest/727542/112 "2015-08-28T16:01:09Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > You are assuming that the tax cut actually does benefit the country as a whole. > Now, as I’ve said before, when a person has an accurate view of the benefits of various policies, and chooses a candidate who supports a mix of policies which they feel benefit them in the aggregate even if a particular one does not, they are not really voting against their interests. For instance, if I vote for higher school taxes because better schools increase the value of my house, I’m making a rational choice. > > In the example I gave however, the people asked to support tax cuts they don’t get are told that these cuts will help the feared job creators, increase employment, and lead to a better job or higher wages. If you assume this is bull, then the poor voting for lower taxes for the rich are voting against their self interest in all respects. > The struggle here is not to compare the cost to them in reduced services versus the benefit in jobs, but to educate them that the supposed benefit is illusory. > One can make similar conservative arguments of course, this isn’t a left right thing but an education thing. Do you think there is a tax cut that does benefit the country as a whole? If so, I’d love to see it. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-voting-against-your-self-interest/727542/113 "2015-08-28T16:46:18Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > My goal is achieved. What we have here is a highly intelligent, articulate, and motivated troll. The lights are on, but nobody’s home because they’ve been drowned in the bathtub. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-voting-against-your-self-interest/727542.md?page=5)