If I don't vote, I can't complain

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Bandit72
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If I don't vote, I can't complain

#1 Post by Bandit72 » Mon Jan 19, 2015 5:57 am

This, rather nauseating reasoning, was garbled at me by an ex colleague of mine. He couldn't understand why I didn't vote. Accused me of being apathetic. Said we should should be 'forced' to vote. A bit like the system they have in Australia. I couldn't be arsed to get in a huge debate as to why I thought his reasoning was nonsense or why I think democracy doesn't reflect the people. I however do like the idea of Tiered Democratic Governance

http://www.ted.com/conversations/9374/a ... rrent.html.

I'm even in favour of a constitutional republic.

But what do other people think? Are you only allowed to complain if you do vote?

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kv
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Re: If I don't vote, I can't complain

#2 Post by kv » Mon Jan 19, 2015 6:24 am

vote or shut up lol or not i don't care anymore either

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Larry B.
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Re: If I don't vote, I can't complain

#3 Post by Larry B. » Mon Jan 19, 2015 6:52 am

I clicked in this thread thinking "Oh, I didn't know Bandit shared that reasoning," as I couldn't have guessed that. So it was a nice surprise reading your post.

I think it's a very nonsensical reasoning, to be honest.

One of the main reasons I don't vote is that 'the voting system' was created not by us citizens, but by the very same people who were in power in the first place. And every amendment to that system is, likewise, designed by people who are in power. Why, oh why would I trust in that system. Why would I believe that they'd create a system that would allow me to reject all of them and all of their friends if I think they're doing a poor job.

It's not gonna happen. And if I vote, I feel like I'm recognizing their system as a valid form of democracy, which I feel it is not.

George Carlin had some good points as well. Although it's stand-up comedy, we all know that there's truth behind it:


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Bandit72
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Re: If I don't vote, I can't complain

#4 Post by Bandit72 » Mon Jan 19, 2015 7:21 am

Great clip! And, yes, your points are all valid. I was trying to get him to explain to me what gave 51% of the public the right to tell 49% of us what the fuck to do. (In layman's terms)

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Hype
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Re: If I don't vote, I can't complain

#5 Post by Hype » Tue Jan 20, 2015 5:46 pm

You guys and Carlin are mistaken about the purpose and function of voting. But in a representative system that isn't pluralistic or proportional and that doesn't require mandatory voting, and often doesn't even have term limits (especially local-level), the reasons to not vote may seem a lot stronger than they really are in the long run.

And by the way, I do support mandatory voting, but my reasons are tied to incentivizing civic-mindedness (incl. education and system-reforms).

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Re: If I don't vote, I can't complain

#6 Post by Bandit72 » Wed Jan 21, 2015 12:10 am

Adurentibus Spina wrote:And by the way, I do support mandatory voting, but my reasons are tied to incentivizing civic-mindedness (incl. education and system-reforms).
Well yes, my concern with those two specific issues would also be a reason for me to vote. Watching two/three/four grown men bitching and shouting at each other linking past failures/triumphs/prime ministers puts me off a bit. Left and right in this country are basically the same thing, we just have a different representative. And it's this what a lot of our country's population use a tool for political argument. The majority are either going to be a staunch supporter of the left or right depending on which area of the country you grew up in and what your parents voted for.

It's :bs:

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Hype
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Re: If I don't vote, I can't complain

#7 Post by Hype » Wed Jan 21, 2015 12:48 pm

Bandit72 wrote:
Adurentibus Spina wrote:And by the way, I do support mandatory voting, but my reasons are tied to incentivizing civic-mindedness (incl. education and system-reforms).
Well yes, my concern with those two specific issues would also be a reason for me to vote. Watching two/three/four grown men bitching and shouting at each other linking past failures/triumphs/prime ministers puts me off a bit. Left and right in this country are basically the same thing, we just have a different representative. And it's this what a lot of our country's population use a tool for political argument. The majority are either going to be a staunch supporter of the left or right depending on which area of the country you grew up in and what your parents voted for.

It's :bs:
Right, which is why I vote. But I don't vote for the candidate I think will win. I vote against the candidates I think shouldn't hold office. And I think this is really the best way to think about how democratic representation really works. It's not simply representation of the will of the people directly, or of their beliefs, or of their desires, or of their demographics, although these can all be useful ways to criticize elected officials. But the electoral process itself is a sacrosanct feature of democracy precisely because it's a peaceful, free, and open mechanism for removal of bad leaders. Without elections, we'd have to rely on assassinations, succession, or courts, or coups, to change leaders, and none of these is able to correct for bad leadership or bad previous elections as well as elections can. The fact that elections often don't do this doesn't count as a reason not to participate in them, since that very non-participation doesn't really weaken the status quo, but it does remove voice of dissent.

I take not voting or spoiled ballot voting to be about as effective as being vegan is at helping animals.

If we had an electoral process with candidate rankings, we'd be able to both strategically vote against bad leaders and vote for those we think most closely represent our views (if such candidates exist). But the UK, Canada, and the United States are all odd democratic states for retaining first-past-the-post elections...

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Larry B.
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Re: If I don't vote, I can't complain

#8 Post by Larry B. » Wed Jan 21, 2015 1:10 pm

I think what you say is bullshit, essentially because when you say that the process is about "removing bad leaders", you apparently don't take into account the fact that they will always be replaced by some fuckwit who is along the same line of the fuckwit whom you've just voted out of office. It's a misleading system that you validate by taking part in it. You accept that "well, this is the way it is."

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Re: If I don't vote, I can't complain

#9 Post by Bandit72 » Wed Jan 21, 2015 2:26 pm

Larry, I totally agree. Why vote "against" the candidate you personally think shouldn't hold office? Isn't it a policy game, not a personality contest? And aren't they all the same anyway? And what do you class as a bad leader? Someone with a lisp? Someone in a wheel chair? Someone who's obese and stinks of piss? Aren't the elected just a charismatic front?
I take not voting or spoiled ballot voting to be about as effective as being vegan is at helping animals
Eh? And what if no one voted? Wouldn't that be at all effective? Over the last 15 years I've just become disillusioned with politics. Endless wars, cuts, horrendous decisions, bad spending, privatisations, bills that have been passed through parliament...the list goes on. ugh.

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Re: If I don't vote, I can't complain

#10 Post by Larry B. » Wed Jan 21, 2015 3:13 pm

I think at some point, as it has happened before, some societies will resort to the one power they have: violence. Organizing themselves to kill X, Y or Z politician(s), throwing molotov cocktails, burning stuff down, etc., is mostly the only way any significant change can be achieved. Both the political class and the citizens need to stretch the situation until just before it snaps to get anything done. And for some things to happen, that snap is actually needed.

Of course, all of this rioting and killing could be avoided if we had a more honest society, where voting actually means something and where political parties don't require their members to be above a certain line of assholery to run as candidates, and where corporations aren't the ones ruling the place.

Just a small example: last year, there was a "citizen consultation" in my commune regarding certain mundane topics (the name of a hill, the schedule of garbage trucks, etc.) Since I live in arguably the most noteworthy commune of the country, and because these type of consultations aren't common around here, this was public news. I went along and voted, results were published within a week, and what the public decided was done. So I asked myself once again, is it really that hard to use a similar system for other, more important topics, like abortion or gay marriage? I immediately remembered that corporations and the churches don't give a fuck about the schedule of garbage trucks, but they do care about abortion, gay marriage and other apocalyptic immoralities.

It's a sad realization, but if anything is to change drastically, quite a few people need to die. And they're the ones with armies.

So in the meantime, I just won't vote and I'll have the peace of mind that I didn't take part in their charade.

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Re: If I don't vote, I can't complain

#11 Post by Hype » Wed Jan 21, 2015 6:27 pm

Yeah you guys don't understand how democracy works... If no one voted you'd break the system and be left with anarchy. Yeah, let's do *that*. :eyes:

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Re: If I don't vote, I can't complain

#12 Post by Bandit72 » Thu Jan 22, 2015 12:53 am

Adurentibus Spina wrote:Yeah you guys don't understand how democracy works... If no one voted you'd break the system and be left with anarchy. Yeah, let's do *that*. :eyes:
You wouldn't break the system, you would force a change to the system. Big difference.

Anyway, it'll never happen. It is drilled into the mindset of modern society that democratic voting is part of your life.

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Larry B.
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Re: If I don't vote, I can't complain

#13 Post by Larry B. » Thu Jan 22, 2015 5:41 am

Yup.

And I don't know whether Hype is being naive or what. As if at one point nobody is going to vote and the authorities will go "Damn, there are no votes but we must respect the results. The people have spoken! Every single one of us will leave our posts and just wander around aimlessly on the streets while chaos takes over. God have mercy on our souls."

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Re: If I don't vote, I can't complain

#14 Post by Xizen47 » Thu Jan 22, 2015 8:34 am

Adurentibus Spina wrote:Yeah you guys don't understand how democracy works... If no one voted you'd break the system and be left with anarchy. Yeah, let's do *that*. :eyes:
Yeah, so let's just keep casting meaningless votes and pretend we're making a difference.....

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Re: If I don't vote, I can't complain

#15 Post by mockbee » Thu Jan 22, 2015 10:02 am

It would be in the best interest of crappy politicians in office if fewer people voted. Why would they care?

It would be a hell of a lot easier to control the populace, and special interests would rule supreme.

Maybe you think that is the case now, and it is by many accounts, but surely it can be worse....much, much worse.
Anarchy comes to mind.

:noclue:

Everyone with a brain should and must vote for a decent society to function.

We take a lot for granted. Of course we will self organize, right? Not exactly.

I'm not saying things are hunky dory by any means, just the alternative to democracy is garbage.

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Re: If I don't vote, I can't complain

#16 Post by mockbee » Thu Jan 22, 2015 10:26 am

Bandit72 wrote:
Adurentibus Spina wrote:Yeah you guys don't understand how democracy works... If no one voted you'd break the system and be left with anarchy. Yeah, let's do *that*. :eyes:
You wouldn't break the system, you would force a change to the system. Big difference.

Anyway, it'll never happen. It is drilled into the mindset of modern society that democratic voting is part of your life.
You have more faith in elected leaders than I do. That's curious to the point you are trying to make.

Also, I think it is the nature of the human populace that is the real issue here, not elected leaders.

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Hype
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Re: If I don't vote, I can't complain

#17 Post by Hype » Thu Jan 22, 2015 11:07 pm

Xizen47 wrote:
Adurentibus Spina wrote:Yeah you guys don't understand how democracy works... If no one voted you'd break the system and be left with anarchy. Yeah, let's do *that*. :eyes:
Yeah, so let's just keep casting meaningless votes and pretend we're making a difference.....
That begs the question (technical term). You presume that meaningful votes are ones that "make a difference". This is a confusion of purposes... which is what I've been trying to suggest all along, though I admit I haven't typed out the treatise on government I could (cf. Locke... he has two of them!)

Anyway, apparently the current norm in academic political circles is to play up the significance of "deliberative democracy" (I put this in scare-quotes because I suspect it is neither truly deliberative nor truly democratic, and the endorsement of this shift is based on faulty assumptions about agency and autonomy, but nevermind). But I stand by my claim that the only genuine purpose for voting is to offer a collective mechanism for reliable ousting of poor leaders. It isn't a guarantor, nor a corruption-fix, or anything like that... It's not supposed to be. It's just the only system we've yet to conceive that is both feasible and reliable over time. The fact that George Bush II was elected twice doesn't serve as a defeater, because 8 years of GW led us to reject the GOP, whereas in Libya people had to literally stab their dictator to death to get rid of 40 years of utter shit.

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Re: If I don't vote, I can't complain

#18 Post by Hype » Thu Jan 22, 2015 11:13 pm

Bandit72 wrote: Why vote "against" the candidate you personally think shouldn't hold office?
This is a good question. I should have made it clear that the same way of thinking can be used to vote against specific policies, or platforms, or ideology. The point is that democratic voting is a mechanism for peaceful succession of leadership... and that's why it's valuable. It's a failure to understand democracy to think that when your guy, or your policies, or your ideology, aren't successfully elected or implemented, democracy has somehow failed. But, especially in FPTP systems (Canada, UK, USA, really...) so-called "wasted-vote syndrome" is a problem.. and it generates voter-apathy, and spoiled ballots, and cynicism, and "voting for the candidate you think has a chance to win"... which are all sort of perverse.

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