He won. The “West Wing” scenario played out exactly as–
Uh oh.
Has anyone checked on Joe Biden?
PAD
456 comments on “I’ll be darned”
Dennis V wrote: Hey AJ, where do you get your news from? It can’t be very credible since these idiot white supremacists have been in jail and are facing charges of plotting to kill a presidental candidate (among other charges). Sorry to burst your Bush hating bubble.
No, Dennis, I’m talking about the FIRST, far more credible, assassination attempt in Denver. Y’know? Where two “meth heads” were caught having traveled to Denver with a high powered rifle, talking about shooting Obama during his acceptance speech? Wow, they say it didn’t get much coverage and this goes to show they’re right. Here’s a link for you’re edification: http://firedoglake.com/2008/09/18/can-bushs-justice-department-do-its-job-when-it-comes-to-protecting-barack-obama/
I don’t know if this is considered a “left-wing” source by you, but this is the first summary of the facts I could lay my hands on. I heard all the basics off of the mainstream media. It’s almost as though the prosecuters were switched through time and space … the white supremists were the ones who were actually talking through their hats.
2) Roger Tang wrote: And the relative strength of the dollar has absolutely nothing to do with it, either, right? (regarding the fall in gas prices)
OK, like McCain, I don’t claim to be an expert on the economy. But I do pay attention to the news, and have the decidedly non-Republican ability to take two conflicting statements and judge that one of them must be false. When the price of gas was going up, the media and pundits were blaming the weak dollar (and Chinese demand, also). Now the price of gas is going down, and you claim it’s the weak dollar? That’s right up there with my Republican friends who breathlessly inform me of the statements of Obama’s religious leader, REV. Wright, and then a few months later come up to me and tell me he’s a muslim. Excuse me? Didn’t you just tell me he was going to a Christian church?
Or my all-time favorite, Sadaam has WMD and we have to go in there and get them. Excuse me? If he has WMD, and we tell him we’re attacking his homeland to take him out, will he not at the very least use the WMD on our advancing troops? Is this not the very reason that we’ve never invaded a country that has WMD before, no matter how despicable they are? Oh, wait, Bush is going to go ahead and send our troops into this meatgrinder? Then he’s either 1) looking for an excuse to use nukes on Iraq (the threat of which wouldn’t deter a country that’s being invaded anyway — they got nothing to lose) or 2) he knows that Sadaam doesn’t have WMD in the first place. You don’t have to be Spock to use simple logic. (BTW, I’m open to a credible attack on this logic, since I think it’s flawless but I obviously think I’m smarter than most people. “Maybe the Bush administration had secret knowledge that caused them to invade” doesn’t count, since the people who postulate that can’t come up with a hypothetical fact that would justify sending our troops to certain doom.)
AJ said: “No, Dennis, I’m talking about the FIRST, far more credible, assassination attempt in Denver. Y’know? Where two “meth heads” were caught having traveled to Denver with a high powered rifle, talking about shooting Obama during his acceptance speech? Wow, they say it didn’t get much coverage and this goes to show they’re right.”
Okay, I recall hearing about that one on cable news. It it was investigated by the FBI and the Secret Service but they couldn’t find any evidence that they were actually out to kill Obama, so what else is there to report? Had they foudn anything more I’m sure it would have been reported in the news (like the one I mentioned). The government takes these things very seriously and I don’t buy that Bush and the DOJ would ignore this.
As for that link you provided, I’ve never heard of this site before, but judging by the headline they gave it, “Bush DOJ Doesn’t Even Pretend To Take Threats To Obama Seriously” (not to mention the other titles I looked at on the site)… so, yes, this is definitely a far Left Wing site which is very anti-Republican / anti-Bush. It lack any credibility in my book and the example I provided in my previous post proves their paronoid conspiracy theory is bunk.
> 2) If you don’t live here, why do you care what our gun laws are?
The novel WARDAY has a scathing passage where the protagonists – survivors of a ‘limited’ nuclear exchange are travelling across the US by steam train – much of the electronics having been fried by the multiple EMPs. They encounter a very angry fellow and in the ensuing conversation learn that he’s from up in Canada which has been similarly screwed. “But I’ll bet you didn’t stop to think of that, did you? You had your little war, and the fact that it would affect people outside your borders really didn’t enter into it for you, did it?”
I mention this because the bit I’m responding to shows the same arrogant lack of understanding.
Canada’s biggest city, Toronto, is increasingly having problems with gun violence and killings. Nowhere near the scale of some U.S. cities, but still worrisome compared to the norm up here. But how can this be? Guns are strictly regulated up here, especially hand guns which have been almost impossible to obtain since 1934.
Ah, but we live next door to the U.S. where it is much simpler to get guns, and, guess what? It’s easy for the crooks to just smuggle them up here and use them as they wish. And that’s why we care about your laws.
Another example of the U.S. not stopping to think (or care) that they are having a negative effect beyond their borders.
I said:
Until we get compulsory voting – which I’m in favour of
Posted by Bill Mulligan at November 6, 2008 10:54 AM
“Good grief, why??? Why not insist on everyone having a gun as well? Anyone who doesn’t care enough to vote, I say, thank you for not voting. Encourage your friends not to vote as well.
Compulsory anything is something that should be done only when the outcome makes it desirable. Forcing people to vote doesn’t in anyway seem to me to be more likely to give us better politicians and quite possibly lead to worse ones”
Well, picking up that analogy and staggering blindly with it, if everyone had to have a gun, how many of those who currently choose not to would learn some basic firearms safety and how many would turn into dangerous psychopaths? (Digressing stereophonically; I’m from a country where gun ownership is incredibly and increasingly rare so I’m not advocating the right to arm bears. I’d also posit that in some cases giving people votes is a lot more dangerous than giving them guns!)
Mandatory voting kills off the arguments about having or not having a mandate. Hopefully it makes more people engage the little grey cells on the issues (Hopefully. Maybe. Friday is my optimism day). Politicians have to fool more of the people more of the time, they can’t rely on apathy to carry the day after they’ve gotten the interest groups on board.
Australia – and about 20 other countries – have compulsory voting. Any Aussies in the room care to comment?
Cheers.
AJ: “When the price of gas was going up, the media and pundits were blaming the weak dollar (and Chinese demand, also). Now the price of gas is going down, and you claim it’s the weak dollar? That’s right up there with my Republican friends who breathlessly inform me of the statements of Obama’s religious leader, REV. Wright, and then a few months later come up to me and tell me he’s a muslim. Excuse me? Didn’t you just tell me he was going to a Christian church? (followed by babble, burble, useless off point trivia, Obama, Wright, WMDs, Saddam, invasion of Iraq, etc.)”
You really should (1) read what people say rather than what you think they’re saying and (2) look up information that you’re unsure of before taking someone to task over it. Roger referenced the relative strength of the dollar only. He never said anything about a “weak dollar” in his comment. Back in September the American Dollar actually started gaining strength when compared to the British Pound and other currency. It has, for a number of reason involving other countries economic situations, actually been reacquiring value in the last two plus months. As the dollar became stronger, it took less dollars to by a barrel of oil and it thus took less dollars to by a gallon of gas.
As for the rest of that paragraph’s rant… What exactly does it have to do with the strength of the dollar or the price of gas again???
AJ: “No, Dennis, I’m talking about the FIRST, far more credible, assassination attempt in Denver. Y’know? Where two “meth heads” were caught having traveled to Denver with a high powered rifle, talking about shooting Obama during his acceptance speech? Wow, they say it didn’t get much coverage and this goes to show they’re right.”
From that wildly Conservative website The Huffington Post:
Obama Assassination Plot Investigated, No Credible Threat Found (***UPDATE 8/26, 6:30 PM***)
“Following the press conference, the Associated Press reports that the men were no “true” threat to Obama.”
From that notoriously anti-Obama news organization known as MSNBC:
Officials: Gun suspects no threat to Obama (updated 9:40 p.m. ET, Tues., Aug. 26, 2008)
“DENVER – A group of suspected drug users arrested in Denver over the weekend with methamphetamine, guns and bulletproof vests made racist threats against Barack Obama but posed no true danger to the presidential candidate, federal authorities said Tuesday.
Obama will be in Denver this week accepting the Democratic nomination.
The three men — all high on methamphetamine when arrested — are the subject of an assassination investigation but so far, authorities say, it appears that they had no capacity to carry out any attack on Obama.”
From some tiny “local” newspaper that no one has ever heard of called USA Today:
Feds: Colo. gun suspects were no threat to Obama (Posted 8/26/2008 2:39 PM)
“DENVER — Three men who authorities initially feared were plotting to assassinate Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention are facing only gun charges — signaling they never posed a real threat.
A federal law enforcement official in Denver said the three men and a woman also arrested on Sunday are not expected to be charged with making threatening statements, conspiracy or other national security-related crimes.”
Plot to Kill Obama: Shoot From High Vantage Point (Aug 25, 2008 11:59 am US/Mountain )
“Officials with the U.S. Attorney’s office in Denver said they do not believe there is a credible threat to Obama or the convention.
“It’s premature to say that it was a valid threat or that these folks have the ability to carry it out,” said a U.S. government official familiar with the investigation. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.
U.S. Attorney Troy Eid said the case was under investigation.
“We’re absolutely confident there is no credible threat to the candidate, the Democratic National Convention, or the people of Colorado,” Eid said in a prepared statement.”
If you Google it, AJ, you’ll even get hits for The Guardian in the UK as well as about 25,700 hits. The threat was not credible. You can claim it was, but the facts say otherwise.
Peter J Poole: “Well, picking up that analogy and staggering blindly with it, if everyone had to have a gun, how many of those who currently choose not to would learn some basic firearms safety and how many would turn into dangerous psychopaths? (Digressing stereophonically; I’m from a country where gun ownership is incredibly and increasingly rare so I’m not advocating the right to arm bears. I’d also posit that in some cases giving people votes is a lot more dangerous than giving them guns!)”
False argument there because you leave out a very important option. How many people will just box the gun up and bury it the closet or attic? How many people will just let it rust? I was given all of my wife’s grandfather’s guns, some almost 100 years old, after he only barely knew me because almost all of his children and grandchildren were either apathetic to guns or anti-gun ownership. He was actually told by some of them that if they inherited the guns that the guns would either be boxed up and never used or, from the extreme members of the anti-gun faction in the family, sold off immediately or even turned to scrap metal rather than remain in their home.
Now translate that to mandatory voting. You’re going to make Lou down the street go vote even if he doesn’t want to? Fine. What makes you think he’s going to care enough to make an informed vote if he doesn’t care enough to do so now. Besides, how are you going to enforce it?
Arrest anyone who doesn’t go vote? gee, that’s a hëll of a waste of manpower, money and time.
Maybe fine them for not showing up? All they have to do is start claiming that they had an emergency, they were sick, they had an issue that prevented them from being able to travel or were unavoidably detained by something and contest the fine. How much money and time do you want to tie up in court costs before you decide that mandatory voting is a bad idea. And, yeah, people too lazy to bother registering to vote will be the same sort of idiots to fight through hëll and back to claim that they couldn’t vote on election day. The number of dûmbášš cases I and other cops go to traffic court with where a guy will fight like hëll proves that beyond a shadow of a doubt.
I’m just too happy that Obama won to get too angry about the gay marriage setback. I have faith that an Obama presidency and the internal fighting in the GOP will signal a decline in the influence and power of the Religious Right, so I thing the future looks bright.
Compulsory voting? No, just no. We have it in my country, and I think all it does is to give more power to conservative politicians. Usually the people that can’t be bothered to vote are the ones that would vote to defend the status quo if they were forced to vote.
And man, I’ve read some crazy things in Conservative sites since the Obama election. One of the memes is that Obama has no legitimate mandate because his victory was too slim! Hot dámņ! So what does that means for Bush’s first mandate?
Now the price of gas is going down, and you claim it’s the weak dollar?
Dude, it helps to pay attention to economic news when you want to make economic arguments.
Besides, these clowns who are corporate CEOs these days couldn’t manipulate sex toys worth a dámņ, let alone anything like macroeconomics….
Now the price of gas is going down, and you claim it’s the weak dollar?
Dude, it helps to pay attention to economic news when you want to make economic arguments.
Besides, these clowns who are corporate CEOs these days couldn’t manipulate sex toys worth a dámņ, let alone anything like macroeconomics….
Posted by Jerry Chandler at November 7, 2008 10:42 AM
“Now translate that to mandatory voting. You’re going to make Lou down the street go vote even if he doesn’t want to? Fine. What makes you think he’s going to care enough to make an informed vote if he doesn’t care enough to do so now. Besides, how are you going to enforce it?
Arrest anyone who doesn’t go vote? gee, that’s a hëll of a waste of manpower, money and time.
Maybe fine them for not showing up? All they have to do is start claiming that they had an emergency, they were sick, they had an issue that prevented them from being able to travel or were unavoidably detained by something and contest the fine. How much money and time do you want to tie up in court costs before you decide that mandatory voting is a bad idea. And, yeah, people too lazy to bother registering to vote will be the same sort of idiots to fight through hëll and back to claim that they couldn’t vote on election day. The number of dûmbášš cases I and other cops go to traffic court with where a guy will fight like hëll proves that beyond a shadow of a doubt.”
Jerry, if that’s your view of a significant percentage of another significant percentage of your countrymen, I’m not going to call you on it. There’s an element of changing public opinion so that those who flat out won’t vote are seen as exactly what you say, ie; lazy dûmbáššëš.
The Australian system – I believe, but could be wrong – just says turn up and vote, in a secret ballot, so if they want to write D. Duck in the candidate box they can do so. But there’s a fine for not turning up. And they have something like 96% turnouts with unspoiled ballots. Which I think is worth having.
Rene:
“Compulsory voting? No, just no. We have it in my country, and I think all it does is to give more power to conservative politicians. Usually the people that can’t be bothered to vote are the ones that would vote to defend the status quo if they were forced to vote”
Gronk? So you’re happy to continue passively disenfranchising those who would probably vote differently to yourself? That’s not terribly liberal or democratic, is it? 🙂
Cheers.
Posted by Jerry Chandler at November 7, 2008 10:42 AM
“Now translate that to mandatory voting. You’re going to make Lou down the street go vote even if he doesn’t want to? Fine. What makes you think he’s going to care enough to make an informed vote if he doesn’t care enough to do so now. Besides, how are you going to enforce it?
Arrest anyone who doesn’t go vote? gee, that’s a hëll of a waste of manpower, money and time.
Maybe fine them for not showing up? All they have to do is start claiming that they had an emergency, they were sick, they had an issue that prevented them from being able to travel or were unavoidably detained by something and contest the fine. How much money and time do you want to tie up in court costs before you decide that mandatory voting is a bad idea. And, yeah, people too lazy to bother registering to vote will be the same sort of idiots to fight through hëll and back to claim that they couldn’t vote on election day. The number of dûmbášš cases I and other cops go to traffic court with where a guy will fight like hëll proves that beyond a shadow of a doubt.”
Jerry, if that’s your view of a significant percentage of another significant percentage of your countrymen, I’m not going to call you on it. There’s an element of changing public opinion so that those who flat out won’t vote are seen as exactly what you say, ie; lazy dûmbáššëš.
The Australian system – I believe, but could be wrong – just says turn up and vote, in a secret ballot, so if they want to write D. Duck in the candidate box they can do so. But there’s a fine for not turning up. And they have something like 96% turnouts with unspoiled ballots. Which I think is worth having.
Rene:
“Compulsory voting? No, just no. We have it in my country, and I think all it does is to give more power to conservative politicians. Usually the people that can’t be bothered to vote are the ones that would vote to defend the status quo if they were forced to vote”
Gronk? So you’re happy to continue passively disenfranchising those who would probably vote differently to yourself? That’s not terribly liberal or democratic, is it? 🙂
Cheers.
No one is being forbidden to vote. No one is even being discouraged to vote. How is that disenfranchisement? Actually forcing someone to exercise a right is supposed to be liberal?
Forcing people to vote when common sense tells me most of those uninterested in politics will vote to uphold the status quo, it isn’t being liberal, it’s being crazy.
Okay, let me explain better why I think mandatory voting is evil.
The ones most likely to vote only if forced to are uneducated people. Uneducated people usually are defenders of the status quo.
There is a vicious circle built in right there. Smart politicians associated with the status quo have now a big incentive to keep the people as uneducated as possible.
It’s what happens in my country, Brazil.
Peter J Poole: “Jerry, if that’s your view of a significant percentage of another significant percentage of your countrymen, I’m not going to call you on it. There’s an element of changing public opinion so that those who flat out won’t vote are seen as exactly what you say, ie; lazy dûmbáššëš.”
It’s not merely the laziness or the level of stupidity that’s a factor, Peter, it’s the stubborn nature of the people who are lazy, stupid and/or indifferent. Maybe I’m more pessimistic than some may be because I have cop eyes, but some of the people I deal with really make me think the notion of mandatory voting in America is a bad idea.
I’ll give you a few examples. There’s an idiot who used to work in my patrol area. One day I ended up behind him and saw that his tags had expired the first of that month and we were now three weeks into the month. Now, I’m a nice guy. I pulled him over with the intention of telling him that they had expired and that he should head over to DMV and get them renewed. After all, he was getting off work at four and the DMV ten blocks away closed at five. It should be easy enough to do.
I never got a word out about it. I walked up to his window and he shoved a traffic summons out at me and informed me that I couldn’t write him for the expired tags because he’d already been written for it two weeks earlier. I looked at the summons (other jurisdiction) and asked him why he hadn’t corrected the problem. He informed me that he’d “been busy” and couldn’t be bothered to get around to it. Besides, I couldn’t write him for the tags anyhow.
Okay.
I told him that (#1) there was a very conveniently located DMV right down the road from us, (#2) that expired tags on his license plates could get him a ticket every single day that they were expired and (#3) he really shouldn’t be as aggressive or rude about things with officers because he’d managed to talk himself out of a warning and into a ticket for the tags.
Over dinner I was joking with another officer in my department about this idiot and he stopped me mid-story and pulled out some paperwork from his clipboard. He’d written the moron for the tags one week earlier. He’d gotten the same attitude from the guy as well. Long story short…
Eight weeks later we were in Traffic Court with two tickets each for the guy that we’d written along with several other officers from two other agencies who had all written him for the same offense. Between court costs and fines the guy got jammed up with over $4OO just for our court date. The ticket I saw was dealt with in a different jurisdictional areas court and his driver transcript showed that he had been found guilty of the same offense three times the month prior to our court date. Oh, and he had a Show Cause put out on him because he no showed the court date.
And I could tell you stories of 50 or 60 guys that I’ve dealt with who are just like him. Hëll, I have a friend from two counties over who jokes about the fact that they have one local idiot who refuses to put on his seatbelt because he won’t be told what to do by the government when it comes to what he does with his body and his car. Okay, except the moron has spent the better part of the last four years that my friend has been working for that agency not coming to full stops at stop signs, making right turns on red at marked no right turn on red intersections and other minor driving stupidities. Well, he does things like that draws attention to him on the road, gets pulled over and then gets written for the primary offense and the seat belt. This idiot has been in traffic court so often that even the judges that only fill in occasionally in that jurisdiction know him by first name. And my friend can tell you about 100 guys like this guy that he deals with every month.
Maybe the fact that I’m a cop and forced to deal with morons like this makes me a tad more pessimistic than others about the nature of many of my fellow countrymen, but the fact that every cop I have ever talked to can tell thousands of stories like these about hundreds of their own regular idiots makes me think that I’m less pessimistic than I am realistic. The American mindset sometimes makes us think of and do some amazing things, but it also seems to make some of us some of the dumber members of humanity on the planet.
Americans and mandatory voting is a baaaaaaaad idea and the people forced to vote are going to find ways to mess it up for everybody else just to spite the system.
Rene: Forcing people to vote when common sense tells me most of those uninterested in politics will vote to uphold the status quo, it isn’t being liberal, it’s being crazy.
I get why your common sense says that, but there’s other stuff going on, too.
In the US, we end up with massive effort to get people not to vote. Part of that is slime campaigns that make people have horrible doubts about their candidates. Maybe that hasn’t been very effective this year, but historically they have been and probably will be again. You could say that the people who listen to those ads aren’t very bright or informed, but the people on the other side usually aren’t any better.
In fact, most of the disenfranchisement I’ve seen has been of the more reasonable people in the middle. The crazies on the right and the left vote no matter what. It’s usually the people in the middle who don’t vote because they don’t want to choose between two extreme candidates. If those people were forced to choose the lesser of two evils, I think things would drift more towards the middle.
Rene: Forcing people to vote when common sense tells me most of those uninterested in politics will vote to uphold the status quo, it isn’t being liberal, it’s being crazy.
I get why your common sense says that, but there’s other stuff going on, too.
In the US, we end up with massive effort to get people not to vote. Part of that is slime campaigns that make people have horrible doubts about their candidates. Maybe that hasn’t been very effective this year, but historically they have been and probably will be again. You could say that the people who listen to those ads aren’t very bright or informed, but the people on the other side usually aren’t any better.
In fact, most of the disenfranchisement I’ve seen has been of the more reasonable people in the middle. The crazies on the right and the left vote no matter what. It’s usually the people in the middle who don’t vote because they don’t want to choose between two extreme candidates. If those people were forced to choose the lesser of two evils, I think things would drift more towards the middle.
For now, I would just like to say congratulations to the people who supported the winning ticket.
In all sincerity, Jerome … thank you.
TWL
Jason M. Bryant: “It’s usually the people in the middle who don’t vote because they don’t want to choose between two extreme candidates. If those people were forced to choose the lesser of two evils, I think things would drift more towards the middle.”
Really, that’s how it will work? Okay, I’m going to make you choose an option here. You’re having a heart attack and you get to choose whether you get treated with leeches to get rid of the bad blood in you or you get to choose the treatment of absolutely nothing since whatever happens to the body doesn’t matter so long as the soul is okay.
Hey, maybe I’ll be nice and let you choose from two or three guys you’ve never heard of who may or may not really be any better than the two clowns who are going to let you die.
If I’m controlling your choices and making you choose one no matter what; how is this going to get you drifting towards the middle?
I also saw this election as playing out somewhat like Star Wars.
Granted, if this is then followed by the EU’s history, I can see why the Republicans are worried. It took like 15 years to finally get a peace treaty with the Empire! And then you have to deal with the illegal immigran- er, Yuzahn Vong.
Jerry, if two things are both useless or are equaly bad, then it doesn’t matter whether people vote for them or not, since they’re equal. So your example is fine, but it doesn’t actually show things getting worse from required voting.
Not everything in every election will be equal. If choice the lesser of two evils when it’s possible, that’s better than just hoping things work out.
“Australia – and about 20 other countries – have compulsory voting. Any Aussies in the room care to comment?”
I have been here the whole time!!:-)
The novel WARDAY has a scathing passage where the protagonists – survivors of a ‘limited’ nuclear exchange are travelling across the US by steam train – much of the electronics having been fried by the multiple EMPs. They encounter a very angry fellow and in the ensuing conversation learn that he’s from up in Canada which has been similarly screwed. “But I’ll bet you didn’t stop to think of that, did you? You had your little war, and the fact that it would affect people outside your borders really didn’t enter into it for you, did it?”
I mention this because the bit I’m responding to shows the same arrogant lack of understanding.
Canada’s biggest city, Toronto, is increasingly having problems with gun violence and killings.
I’ll cop to being occasionally arrogant. It’s not my best character trait, but if I’m going to be completely honest I have to admit it’s there sometimes. But I absolutely deny the “lack of understanding.” I understand fine. I just don’t even remotely agree with you for several reasons.
1) There’s a logical problem there, both in the novel and in your argument. It implies that a more rational America would have acted differently had it thought about the international repercussions. It’s particularly stupid in the novel. (Set aside the fact that the novel starts with a Soviet attack on the US, and assume momentarily that the Canadian character is right and the US did in fact decide to have our little war.) Imagine the President meeting with the National Security Council:
“And in conclusion, Mr. President,” said the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, “we should be able to survive with a limited exchange of nuclear weapons. However, we suspect we’ll lose a couple of cities, maybe 2-3 million American lives, and the economy will be completely frelled by the EMP.”
“Well, I guess that as nuclear wars go, that’s better than some of the alternatives. Go forward with the plan.”
“But sirs!” interjected the Secretary of State, “Canada will also suffer from the EMP.”
“Oh šhìŧ!” said the President. “I guess we better not do it then. Losing millions of our people in a war is bad enough, but if it will hurt Canada too…”
The gun violence example is almost as bad. If we really thought that the availability of firearms inexorably led to deaths, we’d have enough incentive to change our behavior based on the impact on us; I really don’t see the impact overseas being the tipping point in our decision making. If anything, the history of the last century is the opposite of what you suggest: Americans tend to interpose ourselves between other nations and harm. We gave up on isolationism a long time ago.
2) Following up that last bit, we don’t necessarily think that legal gun availability increases crime. You’re assuming the truth of one side in a decades-old and ongoing political debate. The homicide rate in the US dropped like a rock in the 1990s around the time that some US firearms laws were allowed to lapse. This coincided with an overall drop in the crime rate. Other factors influence crime rates. Just ask the Swiss, who are armed to the teeth. Gun laws may have a significant impact on homicide rates. So might the death penalty. Neither theory has been proven (nor, probably, can they be).
3) In the grand scheme of things, Canada’s gun control legislation is not particularly strict. I reject your premise. Handguns were required to be registered starting in 1934. It doesn’t seem to be the case that they were particularly hard to get compared to, say, the UK. Long guns appear to be fairly readily available. And as best I can tell, the latest round of gun laws are largely (and deliberately) unenforced anyway.
4) Normatively, I think the impact of our domestic policies on other countries should be a factor in our decision-making, but fundamentally it’s our business how we want to manage our business. I think there are occasions where nations have a right to gripe about other countries’ domestic policies. I think drug policies are one standard example; drug cartels across the globe are premised on international trade. Maybe Canada has a similarly legitimate gripe about guns, although the export market isn’t really the whole point of the US small arms industry in the same way that it is for drugs. Canada would be an exception though; I wouldn’t expect someone in, say, Estonia to have a reason to get wound up over the US Second Amendment.
Maybe the fact that I’m a cop and forced to deal with morons like this makes me a tad more pessimistic than others about the nature of many of my fellow countrymen, but the fact that every cop I have ever talked to can tell thousands of stories like these about hundreds of their own regular idiots makes me think that I’m less pessimistic than I am realistic.
I can assure you that it isn’t just limited to your jurisdiction either. My standing theory about the difference between district court and superior court (general district court vs circuit court, if I correctly recall where you are) is that people are sent to district court because they do something stupid and superior court because they do something really bad.
The novel WARDAY has a scathing passage where the protagonists – survivors of a ‘limited’ nuclear exchange are travelling across the US by steam train – much of the electronics having been fried by the multiple EMPs. They encounter a very angry fellow and in the ensuing conversation learn that he’s from up in Canada which has been similarly screwed. “But I’ll bet you didn’t stop to think of that, did you? You had your little war, and the fact that it would affect people outside your borders really didn’t enter into it for you, did it?”
I mention this because the bit I’m responding to shows the same arrogant lack of understanding.
Canada’s biggest city, Toronto, is increasingly having problems with gun violence and killings.
I’ll cop to being occasionally arrogant. It’s not my best character trait, but if I’m going to be completely honest I have to admit it’s there sometimes. But I absolutely deny the “lack of understanding.” I understand fine. I just don’t even remotely agree with you for several reasons.
1) There’s a logical problem there, both in the novel and in your argument. It implies that a more rational America would have acted differently had it thought about the international repercussions. It’s particularly stupid in the novel. (Set aside the fact that the novel starts with a Soviet attack on the US, and assume momentarily that the Canadian character is right and the US did in fact decide to have our little war.) Imagine the President meeting with the National Security Council:
“And in conclusion, Mr. President,” said the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, “we should be able to survive with a limited exchange of nuclear weapons. However, we suspect we’ll lose a couple of cities, maybe 2-3 million American lives, and the economy will be completely frelled by the EMP.”
“Well, I guess that as nuclear wars go, that’s better than some of the alternatives. Go forward with the plan.”
“But sirs!” interjected the Secretary of State, “Canada will also suffer from the EMP.”
“Oh šhìŧ!” said the President. “I guess we better not do it then. Losing millions of our people in a war is bad enough, but if it will hurt Canada too…”
The gun violence example is almost as bad. If we really thought that the availability of firearms inexorably led to deaths, we’d have enough incentive to change our behavior based on the impact on us; I really don’t see the impact overseas being the tipping point in our decision making. If anything, the history of the last century is the opposite of what you suggest: Americans tend to interpose ourselves between other nations and harm. We gave up on isolationism a long time ago.
2) Following up that last bit, we don’t necessarily think that legal gun availability increases crime. You’re assuming the truth of one side in a decades-old and ongoing political debate. The homicide rate in the US dropped like a rock in the 1990s around the time that some US firearms laws were allowed to lapse. This coincided with an overall drop in the crime rate. Other factors influence crime rates. Just ask the Swiss, who are armed to the teeth. Gun laws may have a significant impact on homicide rates. So might the death penalty. Neither theory has been proven (nor, probably, can they be).
3) In the grand scheme of things, Canada’s gun control legislation is not particularly strict. I reject your premise. Handguns were required to be registered starting in 1934. It doesn’t seem to be the case that they were particularly hard to get compared to, say, the UK. Long guns appear to be fairly readily available. And as best I can tell, the latest round of gun laws are largely (and deliberately) unenforced anyway.
4) Normatively, I think the impact of our domestic policies on other countries should be a factor in our decision-making, but fundamentally it’s our business how we want to manage our business. I think there are occasions where nations have a right to gripe about other countries’ domestic policies. I think drug policies are one standard example; drug cartels across the globe are premised on international trade. Maybe Canada has a similarly legitimate gripe about guns, although the export market isn’t really the whole point of the US small arms industry in the same way that it is for drugs. Canada would be an exception though; I wouldn’t expect someone in, say, Estonia to have a reason to get wound up over the US Second Amendment.
Maybe the fact that I’m a cop and forced to deal with morons like this makes me a tad more pessimistic than others about the nature of many of my fellow countrymen, but the fact that every cop I have ever talked to can tell thousands of stories like these about hundreds of their own regular idiots makes me think that I’m less pessimistic than I am realistic.
I can assure you that it isn’t just limited to your jurisdiction either. My standing theory about the difference between district court and superior court (general district court vs circuit court, if I correctly recall where you are) is that people are sent to district court because they do something stupid and superior court because they do something really bad.
“Not everything in every election will be equal. If choice the lesser of two evils when it’s possible, that’s better than just hoping things work out.”
No it isn’t. Believe it or not, not voting can be a better option than voting for the lesser of two evils. There are people who sometimes don’t vote at all rather than voting for the lesser of two evils and that can send a clearer message to their elected officials than being forced to vote for someone that they don’t like a little less than the guy they don’t like a whole lot.
We had a local election choice where I greatly disliked both people running. By not voting for either of them (and the vote totals in that election were low as hëll, so others felt as I did) people said a lot more than they could have by being forced to give a landslide win to the lesser of two evils.
Besides, you didn’t answer the question as to how forcing people to vote would get us to have some drift towards the middle. Actually, you’ve somewhat defeated your own case. You’ve just said that people who are forced to vote would vote for the lesser of two evils. If you know that, what makes you think that the political parties don’t know that?
The political parties are going to float candidates of the exact same quality that they do now because they’ll know that, just like now, the base will vote for them, the partisans will vote for them and they’ll just try to scare the middle ground into voting against the other guy. Your best outcome is an election that looks the same percentage-wise as our elections do now just with higher voter numbers.
The worst case outcome? Mr. & Mrs. I Don’t Care walk into the voting booth and just pick the first name on each contest’s options or just poke at the names on the screen randomly. Why should they care who wins? A lot of people who don’t vote now claim that it doesn’t matter who you vote for in our system anyhow since the ultimate outcome will always be the same.
These people are going to suddenly decide that they have to become informed and knowledgeable voters because they’re being told that they have to vote or face fines and punishment? No, they’re going to go in and just randomly pick names on the ballot or, amongst the really bullheaded moron faction, pick the worst options out of spite in hopes that the forced vote law goes away.
I still don’t see how not voting makes anything better. Sure, you’ve got some kind of moral victory that the vote count was so low, but does that actually affect anything? If the two candidates are both bad, then you’re getting a bad candidate whether the vote count is 100% or 1%. Moral victories that don’t actually change anything don’t really mean much to me.
Besides, I’m not saying that everyone has to vote on everything on the ballot. I’m talking about the requirement of making people go to the polling place and vote in general. If they leave the “choice between the equal of two evil” options blank and actually vote on the “choice between the lesser of two equals,” that seems like a win to me. A pretty minor win, sure, but incremental improvement is still improvement.
Also, I’m not sure I get the notion that people who are forced to vote will not know more than if they aren’t forced to vote. Most kids don’t really want to take tests, but they’ll study harder if one is coming up. Most people will look something up if they get warning that their boss is about to ask them about it. I can see that some people would not bother to learn anything if voting was mandatory, but I don’t buy that everyone would ignore everything around.
I still don’t see how not voting makes anything better. Sure, you’ve got some kind of moral victory that the vote count was so low, but does that actually affect anything? If the two candidates are both bad, then you’re getting a bad candidate whether the vote count is 100% or 1%. Moral victories that don’t actually change anything don’t really mean much to me.
Besides, I’m not saying that everyone has to vote on everything on the ballot. I’m talking about the requirement of making people go to the polling place and vote in general. If they leave the “choice between the equal of two evil” options blank and actually vote on the “choice between the lesser of two equals,” that seems like a win to me. A pretty minor win, sure, but incremental improvement is still improvement.
Also, I’m not sure I get the notion that people who are forced to vote will not know more than if they aren’t forced to vote. Most kids don’t really want to take tests, but they’ll study harder if one is coming up. Most people will look something up if they get warning that their boss is about to ask them about it. I can see that some people would not bother to learn anything if voting was mandatory, but I don’t buy that everyone would ignore everything around.
Luigi, with all the posts and excitement and all I totally missed your announcement of your work on the Dynamo 5 project. Congratulations!
Luigi, with all the posts and excitement and all I totally missed your announcement of your work on the Dynamo 5 project. Congratulations!
Jerry, Re your last post
With all due respect: what utter rubbish.
Jerry, Re your last post
With all due respect: what utter rubbish.
David – The police here have stopped truckloads of illegal weapons being smuggled into Canada from the U.S.. If drugs are anything to go by, they are missing the majority of them. I find it rather difficult to believe that there wouldn’t be fewer shootings in Toronto if those weapons weren’t making it up here. And, yes, the laws here are indeed quite a bit tougher. Thorough background checks, acquisitin certificates, ownership, license, and, at any point in the process, the applicant can be denied. He can even have his ownership revoked for little or no cause at any point.
Jason M. Bryant: “I still don’t see how not voting makes anything better. Sure, you’ve got some kind of moral victory that the vote count was so low, but does that actually affect anything? If the two candidates are both bad, then you’re getting a bad candidate whether the vote count is 100% or 1%. Moral victories that don’t actually change anything don’t really mean much to me.”
Actually it did change things. Someone finally ran on one of the major party tickets but didn’t run to the fringe. Part of why he chose to run and part of what he based his campaign on was the number of voters who seemed to have tuned out and stopped voting for the local election. He ran as much more of a centrist Democrat, won his election with a high voter turn out and ran unopposed for a couple of elections after that one. Had people simply voted for the lesser of two evils there would never have been a sign that people were getting fed up with the style of candidates that had been running and the impact and statement of many returning voters would never have been seen.
Not voting can mean something.
”Also, I’m not sure I get the notion that people who are forced to vote will not know more than if they aren’t forced to vote. Most kids don’t really want to take tests, but they’ll study harder if one is coming up. Most people will look something up if they get warning that their boss is about to ask them about it.”
Most kids want to pass their grade level and their tests and most workers don’t want to look stupid or lazy in front of their boss. Most people that don’t vote and don’t care about voting usually have no problem telling people that they don’t vote and don’t care about voting. Using your school analogy; the people that just don’t care are the kids who don’t care enough to study, fail their tests, get held back until they’re finally moved forward based on age or some other dumb reason and then drop out when they reach the age where they can legally do so.
Hëll, Jason, kids are required by law to go to school. Doesn’t stop a lot of them from ditching classes on a regular bases. Go talk to a truancy officer or juvenile intake officer some time. And do you know what happens when you force a lot of these kids back into the regular school system? They lash out and cause problems for everyone who wants to be there.
” I can see that some people would not bother to learn anything if voting was mandatory, but I don’t buy that everyone would ignore everything around.”
I never said that all of them would ignore everything around them. I said many of them just won’t care. I know a lot of people who don’t vote at all because they think that it doesn’t make one bit of difference at all who gets into office and they think that’s truer the farther away from the local level you get.
My wife’s best friend is in her late 30s and has never voted in her life. I’ve been in conversations with her about the importance of voting sometimes and the need to occasionally swallow the dislike and vote for the lesser of two evils. She just keeps saying that it doesn’t matter. I’ve used the last eight years of presidential politics as an example reasons to vote. How does she reply? 9/11 would have happened no matter who was in office, If we hadn’t gotten into Iraq we would have gotten in some other war like we always do and the economy would have tanked no matter who was in power since most of the politicians in Washington are crooks and liars. Her POV is that voting every four years changes nothing but the names, the faces and the scandals.
Do you honestly believe that she and the millions of Americans like her are going to suddenly see the light, make themselves concerned, educated voters and actually start caring about the process just because someone said that the had to do it now or they would face fines and penalties? Hëll no they won’t. They’ll go in, they’ll vote for the first name they see, they’ll go home and they’ll tell you that, rather than they didn’t vote at all, that they really couldn’t tell you which guy they voted for.
You can’t make people care about something that they don’t care about or dislike completely by threatening them with punishment. You also don’t serve the greater good by forcing someone who is indifferent to the process to become a part of the process.
Besides, the more I think about it the more I think it’s a none issue anyhow. A law that forces you into the voting booth would probably be struck down as unconstitutional by the SCOTUS after being challenged in its first years of existence.
Megan: “With all due respect: what utter rubbish.”
Megan, I like you. You’re usually a fairly smart poster and you’re better than just throwing a bomb and leaving. If it is utter rubbish then explain where and why what I’m saying is utter rubbish.
Jason M. Bryant: “I still don’t see how not voting makes anything better. Sure, you’ve got some kind of moral victory that the vote count was so low, but does that actually affect anything? If the two candidates are both bad, then you’re getting a bad candidate whether the vote count is 100% or 1%. Moral victories that don’t actually change anything don’t really mean much to me.”
Actually it did change things. Someone finally ran on one of the major party tickets but didn’t run to the fringe. Part of why he chose to run and part of what he based his campaign on was the number of voters who seemed to have tuned out and stopped voting for the local election. He ran as much more of a centrist Democrat, won his election with a high voter turn out and ran unopposed for a couple of elections after that one. Had people simply voted for the lesser of two evils there would never have been a sign that people were getting fed up with the style of candidates that had been running and the impact and statement of many returning voters would never have been seen.
Not voting can mean something.
”Also, I’m not sure I get the notion that people who are forced to vote will not know more than if they aren’t forced to vote. Most kids don’t really want to take tests, but they’ll study harder if one is coming up. Most people will look something up if they get warning that their boss is about to ask them about it.”
Most kids want to pass their grade level and their tests and most workers don’t want to look stupid or lazy in front of their boss. Most people that don’t vote and don’t care about voting usually have no problem telling people that they don’t vote and don’t care about voting. Using your school analogy; the people that just don’t care are the kids who don’t care enough to study, fail their tests, get held back until they’re finally moved forward based on age or some other dumb reason and then drop out when they reach the age where they can legally do so.
Hëll, Jason, kids are required by law to go to school. Doesn’t stop a lot of them from ditching classes on a regular bases. Go talk to a truancy officer or juvenile intake officer some time. And do you know what happens when you force a lot of these kids back into the regular school system? They lash out and cause problems for everyone who wants to be there.
” I can see that some people would not bother to learn anything if voting was mandatory, but I don’t buy that everyone would ignore everything around.”
I never said that all of them would ignore everything around them. I said many of them just won’t care. I know a lot of people who don’t vote at all because they think that it doesn’t make one bit of difference at all who gets into office and they think that’s truer the farther away from the local level you get.
My wife’s best friend is in her late 30s and has never voted in her life. I’ve been in conversations with her about the importance of voting sometimes and the need to occasionally swallow the dislike and vote for the lesser of two evils. She just keeps saying that it doesn’t matter. I’ve used the last eight years of presidential politics as an example reasons to vote. How does she reply? 9/11 would have happened no matter who was in office, If we hadn’t gotten into Iraq we would have gotten in some other war like we always do and the economy would have tanked no matter who was in power since most of the politicians in Washington are crooks and liars. Her POV is that voting every four years changes nothing but the names, the faces and the scandals.
Do you honestly believe that she and the millions of Americans like her are going to suddenly see the light, make themselves concerned, educated voters and actually start caring about the process just because someone said that the had to do it now or they would face fines and penalties? Hëll no they won’t. They’ll go in, they’ll vote for the first name they see, they’ll go home and they’ll tell you that, rather than they didn’t vote at all, that they really couldn’t tell you which guy they voted for.
You can’t make people care about something that they don’t care about or dislike completely by threatening them with punishment. You also don’t serve the greater good by forcing someone who is indifferent to the process to become a part of the process.
Besides, the more I think about it the more I think it’s a none issue anyhow. A law that forces you into the voting booth would probably be struck down as unconstitutional by the SCOTUS after being challenged in its first years of existence.
Megan: “With all due respect: what utter rubbish.”
Megan, I like you. You’re usually a fairly smart poster and you’re better than just throwing a bomb and leaving. If it is utter rubbish then explain where and why what I’m saying is utter rubbish.
Jason –
Maybe you are right, and mandatory voting would be different in the US. But we just don’t have a good experience with mandatory voting here in Brazil.
The north and northeast of my country is made of the poorer states, where lack of education and poor living conditions are the norm. And those people consistently have voted for conservative politicians that exploit their lack of education, while cynically perpetuating the conditions that cause the poverty in the first place.
There is a slang term for these people that would roughly translate as “political cattle”. Since voting is mandatory, all that a shrewd politician needs is a mass of poorly educated peasants that would be susceptible to a conservative populist (think Sarah Palin, but much worse) that will do little to actually improve living conditions while making some token gestures of love, and they’ll always vote on conservative populists.
Mandatory voting also means a LOT of people voting on candidates just because they’re handsome or charismatic or cool. A lot more than what currently happens in the US. If you’re forced to vote, but not really interested in the issues, then you vote in the guy that is cooler or the guy that is cuter.
Megan, I like you. You’re usually a fairly smart poster and you’re better than just throwing a bomb and leaving. If it is utter rubbish then explain where and why what I’m saying is utter rubbish.
What a hypocrite. You mastered running from fights you felt free to start. Switching between frothing-mouthed cyber-bully and the pretense of an erudite wonk doesn’t make you better than a frothing-mouthed cyber-bully. It makes you two-faced. More than a bit of a liar.
Megan, I like you. You’re usually a fairly smart poster and you’re better than just throwing a bomb and leaving. If it is utter rubbish then explain where and why what I’m saying is utter rubbish.
What a hypocrite. You mastered running from fights you felt free to start. Switching between frothing-mouthed cyber-bully and the pretense of an erudite wonk doesn’t make you better than a frothing-mouthed cyber-bully. It makes you two-faced. More than a bit of a liar.
He can even have his ownership revoked for little or no cause at any point.
So we have a model of fairness from our friends to the North. Anyway, I agree that Canadian gun laws are stricter than ours (otherwise there’d be no need to smuggle). But compared to the UK, it’s Dodge City, and the Tories appear to be actively nullifying the long gun registration requirements. Plus, according to the RCMP there are over seven million registered firearms in Canada, to go along with who knows how many undocumented long guns. It’s not at all clear that the available arsenal has any significant effect on murder rates. The homicide rates in the UK and Canada are comparable despite having very different firearm laws. A greater percentage of Canadian homicides (vs. British homicides) involve guns, but their presence doesn’t seem to be driving the number of murders up; the data just as readily support the theory that murderers use whatever tools they have available. Intuitively, I agree that having more powerful tools available probably has some effect on the number of murders, but it isn’t the case that gun crime is spreading like influenza across our common border. In any event, that was really almost tangential to my main points, which are that we’re not wantonly exposing other countries to horrible risks, and that by and large people in other countries have no business telling us who to vote for or how to structure our society.
No matter who you vote for and under what system, you’re going to end up with a politician.
“Not voting can mean something.”
Yeah, that you’re happy to sit on the sidelines, able to say “don’t blame me, I didn’t vote.”
If you are so unhappy with the calibre of politicians in your electorate/s – join the party you prefer or even run as an Independent starting at the Local level – get in and make changes.
Finally, I’ve come to the conclusion Jerry, that it’s like trying to explain the colour blue to someone blind from birth. We have no common ground to work from.
Megan: “No matter who you vote for and under what system, you’re going to end up with a politician.”
I can agree with that.
“If you are so unhappy with the calibre of politicians in your electorate/s – join the party you prefer or even run as an Independent starting at the Local level – get in and make changes.”
I can agree with that. I’ve even actually done the first bit in there and worked hard for a candidate before. Never run though. Wouldn’t work out too well. Trust me on that one.
Finally, I’ve come to the conclusion Jerry, that it’s like trying to explain the colour blue to someone blind from birth. We have no common ground to work from.
Wow.
So, to recap, I personally believe that voting is important and should be done, but I know a number of people who will not vote, don’t care about the process and think that voting is a pointless and futile waste of time and I don’t think that forcing them to vote will change their attitudes or be a particularly good idea for them or the process. And because I believe this last part we have no common ground here and explaining why you think what I said was utter rubbish rather than just saying it is would be like explaining a color to someone who has been blind since birth.
Oooooooookay.
Megan: “No matter who you vote for and under what system, you’re going to end up with a politician.”
I can agree with that.
“If you are so unhappy with the calibre of politicians in your electorate/s – join the party you prefer or even run as an Independent starting at the Local level – get in and make changes.”
I can agree with that. I’ve even actually done the first bit in there and worked hard for a candidate before. Never run though. Wouldn’t work out too well. Trust me on that one.
Finally, I’ve come to the conclusion Jerry, that it’s like trying to explain the colour blue to someone blind from birth. We have no common ground to work from.
Wow.
So, to recap, I personally believe that voting is important and should be done, but I know a number of people who will not vote, don’t care about the process and think that voting is a pointless and futile waste of time and I don’t think that forcing them to vote will change their attitudes or be a particularly good idea for them or the process. And because I believe this last part we have no common ground here and explaining why you think what I said was utter rubbish rather than just saying it is would be like explaining a color to someone who has been blind since birth.
Oooooooookay.
“Do you honestly believe that she and the millions of Americans like her are going to suddenly see the light, make themselves concerned, educated voters and actually start caring about the process just because someone said that the had to do it now or they would face fines and penalties? Hëll no they won’t.”
So you’re either saying that people who have to vote are either sheep or ignorant? Yes?
Maybe this is a cultural thing then? If like me, you’ve grown up where compulsory voting has been to “norm” for 80+ years, there is no “suddenly seeing the light”. It’s just the way it is. Maybe in places where you have to vote, the populace is more involved? I don’t know. Maybe, because the pollies do not have to encourage people to go out to vote (we have to anyway) campaigning may have a different approach. I haven’t lived under your system. I don’t know to what degree political discussions form a part of everyday life there.
“Do you honestly believe that she and the millions of Americans like her are going to suddenly see the light, make themselves concerned, educated voters and actually start caring about the process just because someone said that the had to do it now or they would face fines and penalties? Hëll no they won’t.”
So you’re either saying that people who have to vote are either sheep or ignorant? Yes?
Maybe this is a cultural thing then? If like me, you’ve grown up where compulsory voting has been to “norm” for 80+ years, there is no “suddenly seeing the light”. It’s just the way it is. Maybe in places where you have to vote, the populace is more involved? I don’t know. Maybe, because the pollies do not have to encourage people to go out to vote (we have to anyway) campaigning may have a different approach. I haven’t lived under your system. I don’t know to what degree political discussions form a part of everyday life there.
I’m a little late to the ‘compulsory voting’ party, but I’d like to put in my two cents here.
I’m against it for a couple of reasons. One, freedom. Freedom to do a thing must include freedom not to do that thing. Much like freedom of religion. Two, not voting IS a vote! You’re voting for ‘none of the above’ by not voting.
“So you’re either saying that people who have to vote are either sheep or ignorant? Yes?”
Hëll no that’s not what I’m saying, Megan. I would be following politics and the news and voting no matter what because I like to know what’s going on and what I’m voting for. I’d just view being required by the state to vote as a pointless law. You address enough points here intelligently enough that you’re likely the type who would not want to be making dumb or uninformed choices that are as important as that as well.
But you and I are not my wife’s friend who doesn’t think voting never means a thing. You and I are not the guy I work with who thinks that a Republican is just a Democrat with a different animal on his party logo. You and I are not one of my supervisors who has the warped logic of declaring that anyone who votes has no right to complain about politics because they allowed themselves to be a part of the process. If you made compulsory voting the law of the land in America you would just have those three and many others like them ticked off at being forced to vote by the government and doing the least amount of anything involved with the process to get through it and done with it.
You’re looking at it from the view of someone who has grown up under that system, but I’m looking at it from the view of knowing people that are almost proud of the fact that they won’t “waste the time” to ever vote. I’m looking at it from the view of someone who deals with petulant attitudes of people every day who refuse to wear seat belts, helmets when on a bike or a motorcycle or go outside to smoke a cigarette because “the law” has no right to restrict their personal freedom of choice.
Australia has had this system since 1924 (or 1915 depending on where start the count from) and even Australia still has its problems. I’ve read or listened to reports where members of the Australian Electoral Commission have talked about growing issues of donkey votes and informal votes, the problems caused by those with little interest in politics being forced to the polls and the resources that must be allocated to determine whether those who failed to vote have “valid and sufficient” reasons. That’s in a country where this system has been in place for generations. How do you think the very pigheaded in America would react if you suddenly told them that the next election was going to have legally mandated voting imposed on them?
Jeez… Just think about what the ACLU would be saying. They’d have it challenged in court on day one and have it tied up in legal wrangling for years.
“Maybe this is a cultural thing then?”
Pretty much, yeah. Americans are a stubborn lot who have the type of individualist personality and independent spirit that sometimes actually lives up to the nicer stereotypes that exist about us. The downside of that individualist personality and independent spirit is that we often live down to the worst stereotypes about us as well. I honestly believe that the people who can’t be bothered to vote or actually flat out refuse to vote now would only look at a compulsory voting law as an infringement of their rights and as the government overstepping its bounds and fight against it even if it was far simpler to just pay attention to the news a little more and vote every so often. And a part of that fight in many cases would be just screwing the process up out of spite.
Wouldn’t a “None of the above” category be lovely? Vote “No Confidence” in both candidates and send the parties back to find someone better? So we don’t get a scenario of Dole vs. Quayle, or Palin v. Nader, or something equally abysmal. Sometimes having to choose between the lesser of two evils is still slitting your own throat.
Wouldn’t a “None of the above” category be lovely? Vote “No Confidence” in both candidates and send the parties back to find someone better? So we don’t get a scenario of Dole vs. Quayle, or Palin v. Nader, or something equally abysmal. Sometimes having to choose between the lesser of two evils is still slitting your own throat.
Interesting feedback from a nummber of people, so thanks for that.
Jerry, you’re right, some idiots will always be idiots, but I don’t have a problem with them being highlighted as idiots. There has to be some number – however small – who are just lazy and will respond positively to encouragement. Just because some people ignore or abuse traffic laws doesn’t mean you should repeal the traffic laws.
Rene, I deliberately spoke of “passive” disenfranchisement, in the sense of allowing/encouraging people to not vote because you believe they’d support the status quo.
If the majority of people in a country genuinely do support the status quo, then surely the status quo is what the country should get? (Personally, I prefer the Rolling Stones, but part of any democracy is surely that sometimes you lose the vote and have to live with what the other guy wants)
There also seems to be a vibe here that those who don’t vote are sometimes too dumb to be voting anyway… That’s vaguely worrying, because it’s back to the ‘some are more equal than others’ argument from a previous thread.
Personally, I think people should vote, and should be encouraged to do so both by positive social attitudes – voting should be like jury service, it’s a civic responsibility and you’re a hero for democracy if you do and a bad, bad person if you don’t – and by negative penalty of getting fined if you don’t.
I’m not saying that makes for a perfect system, I do think that it makes for a better one if you look at the overall numbers.
Finally, I don’t buy the ‘not voting is a vote’ argument. Not voting says “I don’t care” and that’s all it says, and I’m from the generation where if you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem.
If you do detest all the candidates equally, then yes, go to the polls and write “None of the above” on the dámņ ballot paper!
Cheers.
Interesting feedback from a nummber of people, so thanks for that.
Jerry, you’re right, some idiots will always be idiots, but I don’t have a problem with them being highlighted as idiots. There has to be some number – however small – who are just lazy and will respond positively to encouragement. Just because some people ignore or abuse traffic laws doesn’t mean you should repeal the traffic laws.
Rene, I deliberately spoke of “passive” disenfranchisement, in the sense of allowing/encouraging people to not vote because you believe they’d support the status quo.
If the majority of people in a country genuinely do support the status quo, then surely the status quo is what the country should get? (Personally, I prefer the Rolling Stones, but part of any democracy is surely that sometimes you lose the vote and have to live with what the other guy wants)
There also seems to be a vibe here that those who don’t vote are sometimes too dumb to be voting anyway… That’s vaguely worrying, because it’s back to the ‘some are more equal than others’ argument from a previous thread.
Personally, I think people should vote, and should be encouraged to do so both by positive social attitudes – voting should be like jury service, it’s a civic responsibility and you’re a hero for democracy if you do and a bad, bad person if you don’t – and by negative penalty of getting fined if you don’t.
I’m not saying that makes for a perfect system, I do think that it makes for a better one if you look at the overall numbers.
Finally, I don’t buy the ‘not voting is a vote’ argument. Not voting says “I don’t care” and that’s all it says, and I’m from the generation where if you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem.
If you do detest all the candidates equally, then yes, go to the polls and write “None of the above” on the dámņ ballot paper!
Cheers.
Jerry, a question:
If ballots were also changed to include a “None of the Above” option, would that change your opinion of making voting compulsory? I think both you and Megan are awfully intelligent posters ’round these parts, and I’d like to find some way to bridge the gap.
I agree with you that what we ideally want is for everyone to vote and to be informed, and there’s no way to make the latter compulsory. Most of your examples, though, are of people with the “a pox on both their houses” mindset, and I’m wondering if the NotA option would do that, particularly if there was some consequence to NotA getting a plurality of votes.
TWL
Jerry, a question:
If ballots were also changed to include a “None of the Above” option, would that change your opinion of making voting compulsory? I think both you and Megan are awfully intelligent posters ’round these parts, and I’d like to find some way to bridge the gap.
I agree with you that what we ideally want is for everyone to vote and to be informed, and there’s no way to make the latter compulsory. Most of your examples, though, are of people with the “a pox on both their houses” mindset, and I’m wondering if the NotA option would do that, particularly if there was some consequence to NotA getting a plurality of votes.
TWL
Peter –
People are not equal. People should have the same rights, yes. But they’re not equal. I don’t think all of the no-shows are too dumb to vote. Some are too cynical, some just don’t feel strongly about any issues.
In the end, it boils down to: How can they be prepared to vote when they can’t even be bothered to spend the mininal effort required to vote?
I have no problem with people defending the status quo, as long as that is an informed decision. But if that is just a reflex action by lazy, clueless people? Nope. And I’m doubly worried when there are laws and lots of effort to force people to vote, while there is no parallel effort to improve education, as is the case in my country. It is a vicious circle to perpetuate bad politicians.
The only way for an anti-status quo politician to win in such countries is to adopt a populist rethoric that appeals to the lower instincts of the masses. It’s what Hugo Chavez has done, for instance.
I am all for positive reinforcement of the civic spirit, campaigns to make people aware of how important it is to vote, etc. But nothing mandatory.
And I don’t want to appear as if I’m saying right-wingers are dumb, or something. In countries where society’s structures are leftist, like Communist China, the sheep is likely to vote to perpetuate the status quo too.
• 
Dennis V wrote: Hey AJ, where do you get your news from? It can’t be very credible since these idiot white supremacists have been in jail and are facing charges of plotting to kill a presidental candidate (among other charges). Sorry to burst your Bush hating bubble.
No, Dennis, I’m talking about the FIRST, far more credible, assassination attempt in Denver. Y’know? Where two “meth heads” were caught having traveled to Denver with a high powered rifle, talking about shooting Obama during his acceptance speech? Wow, they say it didn’t get much coverage and this goes to show they’re right. Here’s a link for you’re edification: http://firedoglake.com/2008/09/18/can-bushs-justice-department-do-its-job-when-it-comes-to-protecting-barack-obama/
I don’t know if this is considered a “left-wing” source by you, but this is the first summary of the facts I could lay my hands on. I heard all the basics off of the mainstream media. It’s almost as though the prosecuters were switched through time and space … the white supremists were the ones who were actually talking through their hats.
2) Roger Tang wrote: And the relative strength of the dollar has absolutely nothing to do with it, either, right? (regarding the fall in gas prices)
OK, like McCain, I don’t claim to be an expert on the economy. But I do pay attention to the news, and have the decidedly non-Republican ability to take two conflicting statements and judge that one of them must be false. When the price of gas was going up, the media and pundits were blaming the weak dollar (and Chinese demand, also). Now the price of gas is going down, and you claim it’s the weak dollar? That’s right up there with my Republican friends who breathlessly inform me of the statements of Obama’s religious leader, REV. Wright, and then a few months later come up to me and tell me he’s a muslim. Excuse me? Didn’t you just tell me he was going to a Christian church?
Or my all-time favorite, Sadaam has WMD and we have to go in there and get them. Excuse me? If he has WMD, and we tell him we’re attacking his homeland to take him out, will he not at the very least use the WMD on our advancing troops? Is this not the very reason that we’ve never invaded a country that has WMD before, no matter how despicable they are? Oh, wait, Bush is going to go ahead and send our troops into this meatgrinder? Then he’s either 1) looking for an excuse to use nukes on Iraq (the threat of which wouldn’t deter a country that’s being invaded anyway — they got nothing to lose) or 2) he knows that Sadaam doesn’t have WMD in the first place. You don’t have to be Spock to use simple logic. (BTW, I’m open to a credible attack on this logic, since I think it’s flawless but I obviously think I’m smarter than most people. “Maybe the Bush administration had secret knowledge that caused them to invade” doesn’t count, since the people who postulate that can’t come up with a hypothetical fact that would justify sending our troops to certain doom.)
AJ said: “No, Dennis, I’m talking about the FIRST, far more credible, assassination attempt in Denver. Y’know? Where two “meth heads” were caught having traveled to Denver with a high powered rifle, talking about shooting Obama during his acceptance speech? Wow, they say it didn’t get much coverage and this goes to show they’re right.”
Okay, I recall hearing about that one on cable news. It it was investigated by the FBI and the Secret Service but they couldn’t find any evidence that they were actually out to kill Obama, so what else is there to report? Had they foudn anything more I’m sure it would have been reported in the news (like the one I mentioned). The government takes these things very seriously and I don’t buy that Bush and the DOJ would ignore this.
As for that link you provided, I’ve never heard of this site before, but judging by the headline they gave it, “Bush DOJ Doesn’t Even Pretend To Take Threats To Obama Seriously” (not to mention the other titles I looked at on the site)… so, yes, this is definitely a far Left Wing site which is very anti-Republican / anti-Bush. It lack any credibility in my book and the example I provided in my previous post proves their paronoid conspiracy theory is bunk.
> 2) If you don’t live here, why do you care what our gun laws are?
The novel WARDAY has a scathing passage where the protagonists – survivors of a ‘limited’ nuclear exchange are travelling across the US by steam train – much of the electronics having been fried by the multiple EMPs. They encounter a very angry fellow and in the ensuing conversation learn that he’s from up in Canada which has been similarly screwed. “But I’ll bet you didn’t stop to think of that, did you? You had your little war, and the fact that it would affect people outside your borders really didn’t enter into it for you, did it?”
I mention this because the bit I’m responding to shows the same arrogant lack of understanding.
Canada’s biggest city, Toronto, is increasingly having problems with gun violence and killings. Nowhere near the scale of some U.S. cities, but still worrisome compared to the norm up here. But how can this be? Guns are strictly regulated up here, especially hand guns which have been almost impossible to obtain since 1934.
Ah, but we live next door to the U.S. where it is much simpler to get guns, and, guess what? It’s easy for the crooks to just smuggle them up here and use them as they wish. And that’s why we care about your laws.
Another example of the U.S. not stopping to think (or care) that they are having a negative effect beyond their borders.
I said:
Until we get compulsory voting – which I’m in favour of
Posted by Bill Mulligan at November 6, 2008 10:54 AM
“Good grief, why??? Why not insist on everyone having a gun as well? Anyone who doesn’t care enough to vote, I say, thank you for not voting. Encourage your friends not to vote as well.
Compulsory anything is something that should be done only when the outcome makes it desirable. Forcing people to vote doesn’t in anyway seem to me to be more likely to give us better politicians and quite possibly lead to worse ones”
Well, picking up that analogy and staggering blindly with it, if everyone had to have a gun, how many of those who currently choose not to would learn some basic firearms safety and how many would turn into dangerous psychopaths? (Digressing stereophonically; I’m from a country where gun ownership is incredibly and increasingly rare so I’m not advocating the right to arm bears. I’d also posit that in some cases giving people votes is a lot more dangerous than giving them guns!)
Mandatory voting kills off the arguments about having or not having a mandate. Hopefully it makes more people engage the little grey cells on the issues (Hopefully. Maybe. Friday is my optimism day). Politicians have to fool more of the people more of the time, they can’t rely on apathy to carry the day after they’ve gotten the interest groups on board.
Australia – and about 20 other countries – have compulsory voting. Any Aussies in the room care to comment?
Cheers.
AJ: “When the price of gas was going up, the media and pundits were blaming the weak dollar (and Chinese demand, also). Now the price of gas is going down, and you claim it’s the weak dollar? That’s right up there with my Republican friends who breathlessly inform me of the statements of Obama’s religious leader, REV. Wright, and then a few months later come up to me and tell me he’s a muslim. Excuse me? Didn’t you just tell me he was going to a Christian church? (followed by babble, burble, useless off point trivia, Obama, Wright, WMDs, Saddam, invasion of Iraq, etc.)”
You really should (1) read what people say rather than what you think they’re saying and (2) look up information that you’re unsure of before taking someone to task over it. Roger referenced the relative strength of the dollar only. He never said anything about a “weak dollar” in his comment. Back in September the American Dollar actually started gaining strength when compared to the British Pound and other currency. It has, for a number of reason involving other countries economic situations, actually been reacquiring value in the last two plus months. As the dollar became stronger, it took less dollars to by a barrel of oil and it thus took less dollars to by a gallon of gas.
As for the rest of that paragraph’s rant… What exactly does it have to do with the strength of the dollar or the price of gas again???
AJ: “No, Dennis, I’m talking about the FIRST, far more credible, assassination attempt in Denver. Y’know? Where two “meth heads” were caught having traveled to Denver with a high powered rifle, talking about shooting Obama during his acceptance speech? Wow, they say it didn’t get much coverage and this goes to show they’re right.”
From that wildly Conservative website The Huffington Post:
Obama Assassination Plot Investigated, No Credible Threat Found (***UPDATE 8/26, 6:30 PM***)
“Following the press conference, the Associated Press reports that the men were no “true” threat to Obama.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/25/obama-assassination-plot_n_121293.html
From that notoriously anti-Obama news organization known as MSNBC:
Officials: Gun suspects no threat to Obama (updated 9:40 p.m. ET, Tues., Aug. 26, 2008)
“DENVER – A group of suspected drug users arrested in Denver over the weekend with methamphetamine, guns and bulletproof vests made racist threats against Barack Obama but posed no true danger to the presidential candidate, federal authorities said Tuesday.
Obama will be in Denver this week accepting the Democratic nomination.
The three men — all high on methamphetamine when arrested — are the subject of an assassination investigation but so far, authorities say, it appears that they had no capacity to carry out any attack on Obama.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26398461/
From some tiny “local” newspaper that no one has ever heard of called USA Today:
Feds: Colo. gun suspects were no threat to Obama (Posted 8/26/2008 2:39 PM)
“DENVER — Three men who authorities initially feared were plotting to assassinate Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention are facing only gun charges — signaling they never posed a real threat.
A federal law enforcement official in Denver said the three men and a woman also arrested on Sunday are not expected to be charged with making threatening statements, conspiracy or other national security-related crimes.”
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2008-08-26-52330391_x.htm
From CBS 4 in Denver:
Plot to Kill Obama: Shoot From High Vantage Point (Aug 25, 2008 11:59 am US/Mountain )
“Officials with the U.S. Attorney’s office in Denver said they do not believe there is a credible threat to Obama or the convention.
“It’s premature to say that it was a valid threat or that these folks have the ability to carry it out,” said a U.S. government official familiar with the investigation. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.
U.S. Attorney Troy Eid said the case was under investigation.
“We’re absolutely confident there is no credible threat to the candidate, the Democratic National Convention, or the people of Colorado,” Eid said in a prepared statement.”
cbs4denver.com/investigates/assisination.plot.obama.2.802827.html
If you Google it, AJ, you’ll even get hits for The Guardian in the UK as well as about 25,700 hits. The threat was not credible. You can claim it was, but the facts say otherwise.
Peter J Poole: “Well, picking up that analogy and staggering blindly with it, if everyone had to have a gun, how many of those who currently choose not to would learn some basic firearms safety and how many would turn into dangerous psychopaths? (Digressing stereophonically; I’m from a country where gun ownership is incredibly and increasingly rare so I’m not advocating the right to arm bears. I’d also posit that in some cases giving people votes is a lot more dangerous than giving them guns!)”
False argument there because you leave out a very important option. How many people will just box the gun up and bury it the closet or attic? How many people will just let it rust? I was given all of my wife’s grandfather’s guns, some almost 100 years old, after he only barely knew me because almost all of his children and grandchildren were either apathetic to guns or anti-gun ownership. He was actually told by some of them that if they inherited the guns that the guns would either be boxed up and never used or, from the extreme members of the anti-gun faction in the family, sold off immediately or even turned to scrap metal rather than remain in their home.
Now translate that to mandatory voting. You’re going to make Lou down the street go vote even if he doesn’t want to? Fine. What makes you think he’s going to care enough to make an informed vote if he doesn’t care enough to do so now. Besides, how are you going to enforce it?
Arrest anyone who doesn’t go vote? gee, that’s a hëll of a waste of manpower, money and time.
Maybe fine them for not showing up? All they have to do is start claiming that they had an emergency, they were sick, they had an issue that prevented them from being able to travel or were unavoidably detained by something and contest the fine. How much money and time do you want to tie up in court costs before you decide that mandatory voting is a bad idea. And, yeah, people too lazy to bother registering to vote will be the same sort of idiots to fight through hëll and back to claim that they couldn’t vote on election day. The number of dûmbášš cases I and other cops go to traffic court with where a guy will fight like hëll proves that beyond a shadow of a doubt.
I’m just too happy that Obama won to get too angry about the gay marriage setback. I have faith that an Obama presidency and the internal fighting in the GOP will signal a decline in the influence and power of the Religious Right, so I thing the future looks bright.
Compulsory voting? No, just no. We have it in my country, and I think all it does is to give more power to conservative politicians. Usually the people that can’t be bothered to vote are the ones that would vote to defend the status quo if they were forced to vote.
And man, I’ve read some crazy things in Conservative sites since the Obama election. One of the memes is that Obama has no legitimate mandate because his victory was too slim! Hot dámņ! So what does that means for Bush’s first mandate?
Now the price of gas is going down, and you claim it’s the weak dollar?
Dude, it helps to pay attention to economic news when you want to make economic arguments.
Besides, these clowns who are corporate CEOs these days couldn’t manipulate sex toys worth a dámņ, let alone anything like macroeconomics….
Now the price of gas is going down, and you claim it’s the weak dollar?
Dude, it helps to pay attention to economic news when you want to make economic arguments.
Besides, these clowns who are corporate CEOs these days couldn’t manipulate sex toys worth a dámņ, let alone anything like macroeconomics….
Posted by Jerry Chandler at November 7, 2008 10:42 AM
“Now translate that to mandatory voting. You’re going to make Lou down the street go vote even if he doesn’t want to? Fine. What makes you think he’s going to care enough to make an informed vote if he doesn’t care enough to do so now. Besides, how are you going to enforce it?
Arrest anyone who doesn’t go vote? gee, that’s a hëll of a waste of manpower, money and time.
Maybe fine them for not showing up? All they have to do is start claiming that they had an emergency, they were sick, they had an issue that prevented them from being able to travel or were unavoidably detained by something and contest the fine. How much money and time do you want to tie up in court costs before you decide that mandatory voting is a bad idea. And, yeah, people too lazy to bother registering to vote will be the same sort of idiots to fight through hëll and back to claim that they couldn’t vote on election day. The number of dûmbášš cases I and other cops go to traffic court with where a guy will fight like hëll proves that beyond a shadow of a doubt.”
Jerry, if that’s your view of a significant percentage of another significant percentage of your countrymen, I’m not going to call you on it. There’s an element of changing public opinion so that those who flat out won’t vote are seen as exactly what you say, ie; lazy dûmbáššëš.
The Australian system – I believe, but could be wrong – just says turn up and vote, in a secret ballot, so if they want to write D. Duck in the candidate box they can do so. But there’s a fine for not turning up. And they have something like 96% turnouts with unspoiled ballots. Which I think is worth having.
Rene:
“Compulsory voting? No, just no. We have it in my country, and I think all it does is to give more power to conservative politicians. Usually the people that can’t be bothered to vote are the ones that would vote to defend the status quo if they were forced to vote”
Gronk? So you’re happy to continue passively disenfranchising those who would probably vote differently to yourself? That’s not terribly liberal or democratic, is it? 🙂
Cheers.
Posted by Jerry Chandler at November 7, 2008 10:42 AM
“Now translate that to mandatory voting. You’re going to make Lou down the street go vote even if he doesn’t want to? Fine. What makes you think he’s going to care enough to make an informed vote if he doesn’t care enough to do so now. Besides, how are you going to enforce it?
Arrest anyone who doesn’t go vote? gee, that’s a hëll of a waste of manpower, money and time.
Maybe fine them for not showing up? All they have to do is start claiming that they had an emergency, they were sick, they had an issue that prevented them from being able to travel or were unavoidably detained by something and contest the fine. How much money and time do you want to tie up in court costs before you decide that mandatory voting is a bad idea. And, yeah, people too lazy to bother registering to vote will be the same sort of idiots to fight through hëll and back to claim that they couldn’t vote on election day. The number of dûmbášš cases I and other cops go to traffic court with where a guy will fight like hëll proves that beyond a shadow of a doubt.”
Jerry, if that’s your view of a significant percentage of another significant percentage of your countrymen, I’m not going to call you on it. There’s an element of changing public opinion so that those who flat out won’t vote are seen as exactly what you say, ie; lazy dûmbáššëš.
The Australian system – I believe, but could be wrong – just says turn up and vote, in a secret ballot, so if they want to write D. Duck in the candidate box they can do so. But there’s a fine for not turning up. And they have something like 96% turnouts with unspoiled ballots. Which I think is worth having.
Rene:
“Compulsory voting? No, just no. We have it in my country, and I think all it does is to give more power to conservative politicians. Usually the people that can’t be bothered to vote are the ones that would vote to defend the status quo if they were forced to vote”
Gronk? So you’re happy to continue passively disenfranchising those who would probably vote differently to yourself? That’s not terribly liberal or democratic, is it? 🙂
Cheers.
No one is being forbidden to vote. No one is even being discouraged to vote. How is that disenfranchisement? Actually forcing someone to exercise a right is supposed to be liberal?
Forcing people to vote when common sense tells me most of those uninterested in politics will vote to uphold the status quo, it isn’t being liberal, it’s being crazy.
Okay, let me explain better why I think mandatory voting is evil.
The ones most likely to vote only if forced to are uneducated people. Uneducated people usually are defenders of the status quo.
There is a vicious circle built in right there. Smart politicians associated with the status quo have now a big incentive to keep the people as uneducated as possible.
It’s what happens in my country, Brazil.
Peter J Poole: “Jerry, if that’s your view of a significant percentage of another significant percentage of your countrymen, I’m not going to call you on it. There’s an element of changing public opinion so that those who flat out won’t vote are seen as exactly what you say, ie; lazy dûmbáššëš.”
It’s not merely the laziness or the level of stupidity that’s a factor, Peter, it’s the stubborn nature of the people who are lazy, stupid and/or indifferent. Maybe I’m more pessimistic than some may be because I have cop eyes, but some of the people I deal with really make me think the notion of mandatory voting in America is a bad idea.
I’ll give you a few examples. There’s an idiot who used to work in my patrol area. One day I ended up behind him and saw that his tags had expired the first of that month and we were now three weeks into the month. Now, I’m a nice guy. I pulled him over with the intention of telling him that they had expired and that he should head over to DMV and get them renewed. After all, he was getting off work at four and the DMV ten blocks away closed at five. It should be easy enough to do.
I never got a word out about it. I walked up to his window and he shoved a traffic summons out at me and informed me that I couldn’t write him for the expired tags because he’d already been written for it two weeks earlier. I looked at the summons (other jurisdiction) and asked him why he hadn’t corrected the problem. He informed me that he’d “been busy” and couldn’t be bothered to get around to it. Besides, I couldn’t write him for the tags anyhow.
Okay.
I told him that (#1) there was a very conveniently located DMV right down the road from us, (#2) that expired tags on his license plates could get him a ticket every single day that they were expired and (#3) he really shouldn’t be as aggressive or rude about things with officers because he’d managed to talk himself out of a warning and into a ticket for the tags.
Over dinner I was joking with another officer in my department about this idiot and he stopped me mid-story and pulled out some paperwork from his clipboard. He’d written the moron for the tags one week earlier. He’d gotten the same attitude from the guy as well. Long story short…
Eight weeks later we were in Traffic Court with two tickets each for the guy that we’d written along with several other officers from two other agencies who had all written him for the same offense. Between court costs and fines the guy got jammed up with over $4OO just for our court date. The ticket I saw was dealt with in a different jurisdictional areas court and his driver transcript showed that he had been found guilty of the same offense three times the month prior to our court date. Oh, and he had a Show Cause put out on him because he no showed the court date.
And I could tell you stories of 50 or 60 guys that I’ve dealt with who are just like him. Hëll, I have a friend from two counties over who jokes about the fact that they have one local idiot who refuses to put on his seatbelt because he won’t be told what to do by the government when it comes to what he does with his body and his car. Okay, except the moron has spent the better part of the last four years that my friend has been working for that agency not coming to full stops at stop signs, making right turns on red at marked no right turn on red intersections and other minor driving stupidities. Well, he does things like that draws attention to him on the road, gets pulled over and then gets written for the primary offense and the seat belt. This idiot has been in traffic court so often that even the judges that only fill in occasionally in that jurisdiction know him by first name. And my friend can tell you about 100 guys like this guy that he deals with every month.
Maybe the fact that I’m a cop and forced to deal with morons like this makes me a tad more pessimistic than others about the nature of many of my fellow countrymen, but the fact that every cop I have ever talked to can tell thousands of stories like these about hundreds of their own regular idiots makes me think that I’m less pessimistic than I am realistic. The American mindset sometimes makes us think of and do some amazing things, but it also seems to make some of us some of the dumber members of humanity on the planet.
Americans and mandatory voting is a baaaaaaaad idea and the people forced to vote are going to find ways to mess it up for everybody else just to spite the system.
Rene: Forcing people to vote when common sense tells me most of those uninterested in politics will vote to uphold the status quo, it isn’t being liberal, it’s being crazy.
I get why your common sense says that, but there’s other stuff going on, too.
In the US, we end up with massive effort to get people not to vote. Part of that is slime campaigns that make people have horrible doubts about their candidates. Maybe that hasn’t been very effective this year, but historically they have been and probably will be again. You could say that the people who listen to those ads aren’t very bright or informed, but the people on the other side usually aren’t any better.
In fact, most of the disenfranchisement I’ve seen has been of the more reasonable people in the middle. The crazies on the right and the left vote no matter what. It’s usually the people in the middle who don’t vote because they don’t want to choose between two extreme candidates. If those people were forced to choose the lesser of two evils, I think things would drift more towards the middle.
Rene: Forcing people to vote when common sense tells me most of those uninterested in politics will vote to uphold the status quo, it isn’t being liberal, it’s being crazy.
I get why your common sense says that, but there’s other stuff going on, too.
In the US, we end up with massive effort to get people not to vote. Part of that is slime campaigns that make people have horrible doubts about their candidates. Maybe that hasn’t been very effective this year, but historically they have been and probably will be again. You could say that the people who listen to those ads aren’t very bright or informed, but the people on the other side usually aren’t any better.
In fact, most of the disenfranchisement I’ve seen has been of the more reasonable people in the middle. The crazies on the right and the left vote no matter what. It’s usually the people in the middle who don’t vote because they don’t want to choose between two extreme candidates. If those people were forced to choose the lesser of two evils, I think things would drift more towards the middle.
For now, I would just like to say congratulations to the people who supported the winning ticket.
In all sincerity, Jerome … thank you.
TWL
Jason M. Bryant: “It’s usually the people in the middle who don’t vote because they don’t want to choose between two extreme candidates. If those people were forced to choose the lesser of two evils, I think things would drift more towards the middle.”
Really, that’s how it will work? Okay, I’m going to make you choose an option here. You’re having a heart attack and you get to choose whether you get treated with leeches to get rid of the bad blood in you or you get to choose the treatment of absolutely nothing since whatever happens to the body doesn’t matter so long as the soul is okay.
Hey, maybe I’ll be nice and let you choose from two or three guys you’ve never heard of who may or may not really be any better than the two clowns who are going to let you die.
If I’m controlling your choices and making you choose one no matter what; how is this going to get you drifting towards the middle?
I also saw this election as playing out somewhat like Star Wars.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucKvfP0faMA
Granted, if this is then followed by the EU’s history, I can see why the Republicans are worried. It took like 15 years to finally get a peace treaty with the Empire! And then you have to deal with the illegal immigran- er, Yuzahn Vong.
Jerry, if two things are both useless or are equaly bad, then it doesn’t matter whether people vote for them or not, since they’re equal. So your example is fine, but it doesn’t actually show things getting worse from required voting.
Not everything in every election will be equal. If choice the lesser of two evils when it’s possible, that’s better than just hoping things work out.
“Australia – and about 20 other countries – have compulsory voting. Any Aussies in the room care to comment?”
I have been here the whole time!!:-)
The novel WARDAY has a scathing passage where the protagonists – survivors of a ‘limited’ nuclear exchange are travelling across the US by steam train – much of the electronics having been fried by the multiple EMPs. They encounter a very angry fellow and in the ensuing conversation learn that he’s from up in Canada which has been similarly screwed. “But I’ll bet you didn’t stop to think of that, did you? You had your little war, and the fact that it would affect people outside your borders really didn’t enter into it for you, did it?”
I mention this because the bit I’m responding to shows the same arrogant lack of understanding.
Canada’s biggest city, Toronto, is increasingly having problems with gun violence and killings.
I’ll cop to being occasionally arrogant. It’s not my best character trait, but if I’m going to be completely honest I have to admit it’s there sometimes. But I absolutely deny the “lack of understanding.” I understand fine. I just don’t even remotely agree with you for several reasons.
1) There’s a logical problem there, both in the novel and in your argument. It implies that a more rational America would have acted differently had it thought about the international repercussions. It’s particularly stupid in the novel. (Set aside the fact that the novel starts with a Soviet attack on the US, and assume momentarily that the Canadian character is right and the US did in fact decide to have our little war.) Imagine the President meeting with the National Security Council:
“And in conclusion, Mr. President,” said the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, “we should be able to survive with a limited exchange of nuclear weapons. However, we suspect we’ll lose a couple of cities, maybe 2-3 million American lives, and the economy will be completely frelled by the EMP.”
“Well, I guess that as nuclear wars go, that’s better than some of the alternatives. Go forward with the plan.”
“But sirs!” interjected the Secretary of State, “Canada will also suffer from the EMP.”
“Oh šhìŧ!” said the President. “I guess we better not do it then. Losing millions of our people in a war is bad enough, but if it will hurt Canada too…”
The gun violence example is almost as bad. If we really thought that the availability of firearms inexorably led to deaths, we’d have enough incentive to change our behavior based on the impact on us; I really don’t see the impact overseas being the tipping point in our decision making. If anything, the history of the last century is the opposite of what you suggest: Americans tend to interpose ourselves between other nations and harm. We gave up on isolationism a long time ago.
2) Following up that last bit, we don’t necessarily think that legal gun availability increases crime. You’re assuming the truth of one side in a decades-old and ongoing political debate. The homicide rate in the US dropped like a rock in the 1990s around the time that some US firearms laws were allowed to lapse. This coincided with an overall drop in the crime rate. Other factors influence crime rates. Just ask the Swiss, who are armed to the teeth. Gun laws may have a significant impact on homicide rates. So might the death penalty. Neither theory has been proven (nor, probably, can they be).
3) In the grand scheme of things, Canada’s gun control legislation is not particularly strict. I reject your premise. Handguns were required to be registered starting in 1934. It doesn’t seem to be the case that they were particularly hard to get compared to, say, the UK. Long guns appear to be fairly readily available. And as best I can tell, the latest round of gun laws are largely (and deliberately) unenforced anyway.
4) Normatively, I think the impact of our domestic policies on other countries should be a factor in our decision-making, but fundamentally it’s our business how we want to manage our business. I think there are occasions where nations have a right to gripe about other countries’ domestic policies. I think drug policies are one standard example; drug cartels across the globe are premised on international trade. Maybe Canada has a similarly legitimate gripe about guns, although the export market isn’t really the whole point of the US small arms industry in the same way that it is for drugs. Canada would be an exception though; I wouldn’t expect someone in, say, Estonia to have a reason to get wound up over the US Second Amendment.
Maybe the fact that I’m a cop and forced to deal with morons like this makes me a tad more pessimistic than others about the nature of many of my fellow countrymen, but the fact that every cop I have ever talked to can tell thousands of stories like these about hundreds of their own regular idiots makes me think that I’m less pessimistic than I am realistic.
I can assure you that it isn’t just limited to your jurisdiction either. My standing theory about the difference between district court and superior court (general district court vs circuit court, if I correctly recall where you are) is that people are sent to district court because they do something stupid and superior court because they do something really bad.
The novel WARDAY has a scathing passage where the protagonists – survivors of a ‘limited’ nuclear exchange are travelling across the US by steam train – much of the electronics having been fried by the multiple EMPs. They encounter a very angry fellow and in the ensuing conversation learn that he’s from up in Canada which has been similarly screwed. “But I’ll bet you didn’t stop to think of that, did you? You had your little war, and the fact that it would affect people outside your borders really didn’t enter into it for you, did it?”
I mention this because the bit I’m responding to shows the same arrogant lack of understanding.
Canada’s biggest city, Toronto, is increasingly having problems with gun violence and killings.
I’ll cop to being occasionally arrogant. It’s not my best character trait, but if I’m going to be completely honest I have to admit it’s there sometimes. But I absolutely deny the “lack of understanding.” I understand fine. I just don’t even remotely agree with you for several reasons.
1) There’s a logical problem there, both in the novel and in your argument. It implies that a more rational America would have acted differently had it thought about the international repercussions. It’s particularly stupid in the novel. (Set aside the fact that the novel starts with a Soviet attack on the US, and assume momentarily that the Canadian character is right and the US did in fact decide to have our little war.) Imagine the President meeting with the National Security Council:
“And in conclusion, Mr. President,” said the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, “we should be able to survive with a limited exchange of nuclear weapons. However, we suspect we’ll lose a couple of cities, maybe 2-3 million American lives, and the economy will be completely frelled by the EMP.”
“Well, I guess that as nuclear wars go, that’s better than some of the alternatives. Go forward with the plan.”
“But sirs!” interjected the Secretary of State, “Canada will also suffer from the EMP.”
“Oh šhìŧ!” said the President. “I guess we better not do it then. Losing millions of our people in a war is bad enough, but if it will hurt Canada too…”
The gun violence example is almost as bad. If we really thought that the availability of firearms inexorably led to deaths, we’d have enough incentive to change our behavior based on the impact on us; I really don’t see the impact overseas being the tipping point in our decision making. If anything, the history of the last century is the opposite of what you suggest: Americans tend to interpose ourselves between other nations and harm. We gave up on isolationism a long time ago.
2) Following up that last bit, we don’t necessarily think that legal gun availability increases crime. You’re assuming the truth of one side in a decades-old and ongoing political debate. The homicide rate in the US dropped like a rock in the 1990s around the time that some US firearms laws were allowed to lapse. This coincided with an overall drop in the crime rate. Other factors influence crime rates. Just ask the Swiss, who are armed to the teeth. Gun laws may have a significant impact on homicide rates. So might the death penalty. Neither theory has been proven (nor, probably, can they be).
3) In the grand scheme of things, Canada’s gun control legislation is not particularly strict. I reject your premise. Handguns were required to be registered starting in 1934. It doesn’t seem to be the case that they were particularly hard to get compared to, say, the UK. Long guns appear to be fairly readily available. And as best I can tell, the latest round of gun laws are largely (and deliberately) unenforced anyway.
4) Normatively, I think the impact of our domestic policies on other countries should be a factor in our decision-making, but fundamentally it’s our business how we want to manage our business. I think there are occasions where nations have a right to gripe about other countries’ domestic policies. I think drug policies are one standard example; drug cartels across the globe are premised on international trade. Maybe Canada has a similarly legitimate gripe about guns, although the export market isn’t really the whole point of the US small arms industry in the same way that it is for drugs. Canada would be an exception though; I wouldn’t expect someone in, say, Estonia to have a reason to get wound up over the US Second Amendment.
Maybe the fact that I’m a cop and forced to deal with morons like this makes me a tad more pessimistic than others about the nature of many of my fellow countrymen, but the fact that every cop I have ever talked to can tell thousands of stories like these about hundreds of their own regular idiots makes me think that I’m less pessimistic than I am realistic.
I can assure you that it isn’t just limited to your jurisdiction either. My standing theory about the difference between district court and superior court (general district court vs circuit court, if I correctly recall where you are) is that people are sent to district court because they do something stupid and superior court because they do something really bad.
“Not everything in every election will be equal. If choice the lesser of two evils when it’s possible, that’s better than just hoping things work out.”
No it isn’t. Believe it or not, not voting can be a better option than voting for the lesser of two evils. There are people who sometimes don’t vote at all rather than voting for the lesser of two evils and that can send a clearer message to their elected officials than being forced to vote for someone that they don’t like a little less than the guy they don’t like a whole lot.
We had a local election choice where I greatly disliked both people running. By not voting for either of them (and the vote totals in that election were low as hëll, so others felt as I did) people said a lot more than they could have by being forced to give a landslide win to the lesser of two evils.
Besides, you didn’t answer the question as to how forcing people to vote would get us to have some drift towards the middle. Actually, you’ve somewhat defeated your own case. You’ve just said that people who are forced to vote would vote for the lesser of two evils. If you know that, what makes you think that the political parties don’t know that?
The political parties are going to float candidates of the exact same quality that they do now because they’ll know that, just like now, the base will vote for them, the partisans will vote for them and they’ll just try to scare the middle ground into voting against the other guy. Your best outcome is an election that looks the same percentage-wise as our elections do now just with higher voter numbers.
The worst case outcome? Mr. & Mrs. I Don’t Care walk into the voting booth and just pick the first name on each contest’s options or just poke at the names on the screen randomly. Why should they care who wins? A lot of people who don’t vote now claim that it doesn’t matter who you vote for in our system anyhow since the ultimate outcome will always be the same.
These people are going to suddenly decide that they have to become informed and knowledgeable voters because they’re being told that they have to vote or face fines and punishment? No, they’re going to go in and just randomly pick names on the ballot or, amongst the really bullheaded moron faction, pick the worst options out of spite in hopes that the forced vote law goes away.
I still don’t see how not voting makes anything better. Sure, you’ve got some kind of moral victory that the vote count was so low, but does that actually affect anything? If the two candidates are both bad, then you’re getting a bad candidate whether the vote count is 100% or 1%. Moral victories that don’t actually change anything don’t really mean much to me.
Besides, I’m not saying that everyone has to vote on everything on the ballot. I’m talking about the requirement of making people go to the polling place and vote in general. If they leave the “choice between the equal of two evil” options blank and actually vote on the “choice between the lesser of two equals,” that seems like a win to me. A pretty minor win, sure, but incremental improvement is still improvement.
Also, I’m not sure I get the notion that people who are forced to vote will not know more than if they aren’t forced to vote. Most kids don’t really want to take tests, but they’ll study harder if one is coming up. Most people will look something up if they get warning that their boss is about to ask them about it. I can see that some people would not bother to learn anything if voting was mandatory, but I don’t buy that everyone would ignore everything around.
I still don’t see how not voting makes anything better. Sure, you’ve got some kind of moral victory that the vote count was so low, but does that actually affect anything? If the two candidates are both bad, then you’re getting a bad candidate whether the vote count is 100% or 1%. Moral victories that don’t actually change anything don’t really mean much to me.
Besides, I’m not saying that everyone has to vote on everything on the ballot. I’m talking about the requirement of making people go to the polling place and vote in general. If they leave the “choice between the equal of two evil” options blank and actually vote on the “choice between the lesser of two equals,” that seems like a win to me. A pretty minor win, sure, but incremental improvement is still improvement.
Also, I’m not sure I get the notion that people who are forced to vote will not know more than if they aren’t forced to vote. Most kids don’t really want to take tests, but they’ll study harder if one is coming up. Most people will look something up if they get warning that their boss is about to ask them about it. I can see that some people would not bother to learn anything if voting was mandatory, but I don’t buy that everyone would ignore everything around.
Luigi, with all the posts and excitement and all I totally missed your announcement of your work on the Dynamo 5 project. Congratulations!
Luigi, with all the posts and excitement and all I totally missed your announcement of your work on the Dynamo 5 project. Congratulations!
Jerry, Re your last post
With all due respect: what utter rubbish.
Jerry, Re your last post
With all due respect: what utter rubbish.
David – The police here have stopped truckloads of illegal weapons being smuggled into Canada from the U.S.. If drugs are anything to go by, they are missing the majority of them. I find it rather difficult to believe that there wouldn’t be fewer shootings in Toronto if those weapons weren’t making it up here. And, yes, the laws here are indeed quite a bit tougher. Thorough background checks, acquisitin certificates, ownership, license, and, at any point in the process, the applicant can be denied. He can even have his ownership revoked for little or no cause at any point.
Jason M. Bryant: “I still don’t see how not voting makes anything better. Sure, you’ve got some kind of moral victory that the vote count was so low, but does that actually affect anything? If the two candidates are both bad, then you’re getting a bad candidate whether the vote count is 100% or 1%. Moral victories that don’t actually change anything don’t really mean much to me.”
Actually it did change things. Someone finally ran on one of the major party tickets but didn’t run to the fringe. Part of why he chose to run and part of what he based his campaign on was the number of voters who seemed to have tuned out and stopped voting for the local election. He ran as much more of a centrist Democrat, won his election with a high voter turn out and ran unopposed for a couple of elections after that one. Had people simply voted for the lesser of two evils there would never have been a sign that people were getting fed up with the style of candidates that had been running and the impact and statement of many returning voters would never have been seen.
Not voting can mean something.
”Also, I’m not sure I get the notion that people who are forced to vote will not know more than if they aren’t forced to vote. Most kids don’t really want to take tests, but they’ll study harder if one is coming up. Most people will look something up if they get warning that their boss is about to ask them about it.”
Most kids want to pass their grade level and their tests and most workers don’t want to look stupid or lazy in front of their boss. Most people that don’t vote and don’t care about voting usually have no problem telling people that they don’t vote and don’t care about voting. Using your school analogy; the people that just don’t care are the kids who don’t care enough to study, fail their tests, get held back until they’re finally moved forward based on age or some other dumb reason and then drop out when they reach the age where they can legally do so.
Hëll, Jason, kids are required by law to go to school. Doesn’t stop a lot of them from ditching classes on a regular bases. Go talk to a truancy officer or juvenile intake officer some time. And do you know what happens when you force a lot of these kids back into the regular school system? They lash out and cause problems for everyone who wants to be there.
” I can see that some people would not bother to learn anything if voting was mandatory, but I don’t buy that everyone would ignore everything around.”
I never said that all of them would ignore everything around them. I said many of them just won’t care. I know a lot of people who don’t vote at all because they think that it doesn’t make one bit of difference at all who gets into office and they think that’s truer the farther away from the local level you get.
My wife’s best friend is in her late 30s and has never voted in her life. I’ve been in conversations with her about the importance of voting sometimes and the need to occasionally swallow the dislike and vote for the lesser of two evils. She just keeps saying that it doesn’t matter. I’ve used the last eight years of presidential politics as an example reasons to vote. How does she reply? 9/11 would have happened no matter who was in office, If we hadn’t gotten into Iraq we would have gotten in some other war like we always do and the economy would have tanked no matter who was in power since most of the politicians in Washington are crooks and liars. Her POV is that voting every four years changes nothing but the names, the faces and the scandals.
Do you honestly believe that she and the millions of Americans like her are going to suddenly see the light, make themselves concerned, educated voters and actually start caring about the process just because someone said that the had to do it now or they would face fines and penalties? Hëll no they won’t. They’ll go in, they’ll vote for the first name they see, they’ll go home and they’ll tell you that, rather than they didn’t vote at all, that they really couldn’t tell you which guy they voted for.
You can’t make people care about something that they don’t care about or dislike completely by threatening them with punishment. You also don’t serve the greater good by forcing someone who is indifferent to the process to become a part of the process.
Besides, the more I think about it the more I think it’s a none issue anyhow. A law that forces you into the voting booth would probably be struck down as unconstitutional by the SCOTUS after being challenged in its first years of existence.
Megan: “With all due respect: what utter rubbish.”
Megan, I like you. You’re usually a fairly smart poster and you’re better than just throwing a bomb and leaving. If it is utter rubbish then explain where and why what I’m saying is utter rubbish.
Jason M. Bryant: “I still don’t see how not voting makes anything better. Sure, you’ve got some kind of moral victory that the vote count was so low, but does that actually affect anything? If the two candidates are both bad, then you’re getting a bad candidate whether the vote count is 100% or 1%. Moral victories that don’t actually change anything don’t really mean much to me.”
Actually it did change things. Someone finally ran on one of the major party tickets but didn’t run to the fringe. Part of why he chose to run and part of what he based his campaign on was the number of voters who seemed to have tuned out and stopped voting for the local election. He ran as much more of a centrist Democrat, won his election with a high voter turn out and ran unopposed for a couple of elections after that one. Had people simply voted for the lesser of two evils there would never have been a sign that people were getting fed up with the style of candidates that had been running and the impact and statement of many returning voters would never have been seen.
Not voting can mean something.
”Also, I’m not sure I get the notion that people who are forced to vote will not know more than if they aren’t forced to vote. Most kids don’t really want to take tests, but they’ll study harder if one is coming up. Most people will look something up if they get warning that their boss is about to ask them about it.”
Most kids want to pass their grade level and their tests and most workers don’t want to look stupid or lazy in front of their boss. Most people that don’t vote and don’t care about voting usually have no problem telling people that they don’t vote and don’t care about voting. Using your school analogy; the people that just don’t care are the kids who don’t care enough to study, fail their tests, get held back until they’re finally moved forward based on age or some other dumb reason and then drop out when they reach the age where they can legally do so.
Hëll, Jason, kids are required by law to go to school. Doesn’t stop a lot of them from ditching classes on a regular bases. Go talk to a truancy officer or juvenile intake officer some time. And do you know what happens when you force a lot of these kids back into the regular school system? They lash out and cause problems for everyone who wants to be there.
” I can see that some people would not bother to learn anything if voting was mandatory, but I don’t buy that everyone would ignore everything around.”
I never said that all of them would ignore everything around them. I said many of them just won’t care. I know a lot of people who don’t vote at all because they think that it doesn’t make one bit of difference at all who gets into office and they think that’s truer the farther away from the local level you get.
My wife’s best friend is in her late 30s and has never voted in her life. I’ve been in conversations with her about the importance of voting sometimes and the need to occasionally swallow the dislike and vote for the lesser of two evils. She just keeps saying that it doesn’t matter. I’ve used the last eight years of presidential politics as an example reasons to vote. How does she reply? 9/11 would have happened no matter who was in office, If we hadn’t gotten into Iraq we would have gotten in some other war like we always do and the economy would have tanked no matter who was in power since most of the politicians in Washington are crooks and liars. Her POV is that voting every four years changes nothing but the names, the faces and the scandals.
Do you honestly believe that she and the millions of Americans like her are going to suddenly see the light, make themselves concerned, educated voters and actually start caring about the process just because someone said that the had to do it now or they would face fines and penalties? Hëll no they won’t. They’ll go in, they’ll vote for the first name they see, they’ll go home and they’ll tell you that, rather than they didn’t vote at all, that they really couldn’t tell you which guy they voted for.
You can’t make people care about something that they don’t care about or dislike completely by threatening them with punishment. You also don’t serve the greater good by forcing someone who is indifferent to the process to become a part of the process.
Besides, the more I think about it the more I think it’s a none issue anyhow. A law that forces you into the voting booth would probably be struck down as unconstitutional by the SCOTUS after being challenged in its first years of existence.
Megan: “With all due respect: what utter rubbish.”
Megan, I like you. You’re usually a fairly smart poster and you’re better than just throwing a bomb and leaving. If it is utter rubbish then explain where and why what I’m saying is utter rubbish.
Jason –
Maybe you are right, and mandatory voting would be different in the US. But we just don’t have a good experience with mandatory voting here in Brazil.
The north and northeast of my country is made of the poorer states, where lack of education and poor living conditions are the norm. And those people consistently have voted for conservative politicians that exploit their lack of education, while cynically perpetuating the conditions that cause the poverty in the first place.
There is a slang term for these people that would roughly translate as “political cattle”. Since voting is mandatory, all that a shrewd politician needs is a mass of poorly educated peasants that would be susceptible to a conservative populist (think Sarah Palin, but much worse) that will do little to actually improve living conditions while making some token gestures of love, and they’ll always vote on conservative populists.
Mandatory voting also means a LOT of people voting on candidates just because they’re handsome or charismatic or cool. A lot more than what currently happens in the US. If you’re forced to vote, but not really interested in the issues, then you vote in the guy that is cooler or the guy that is cuter.
What a hypocrite. You mastered running from fights you felt free to start. Switching between frothing-mouthed cyber-bully and the pretense of an erudite wonk doesn’t make you better than a frothing-mouthed cyber-bully. It makes you two-faced. More than a bit of a liar.
What a hypocrite. You mastered running from fights you felt free to start. Switching between frothing-mouthed cyber-bully and the pretense of an erudite wonk doesn’t make you better than a frothing-mouthed cyber-bully. It makes you two-faced. More than a bit of a liar.
He can even have his ownership revoked for little or no cause at any point.
So we have a model of fairness from our friends to the North. Anyway, I agree that Canadian gun laws are stricter than ours (otherwise there’d be no need to smuggle). But compared to the UK, it’s Dodge City, and the Tories appear to be actively nullifying the long gun registration requirements. Plus, according to the RCMP there are over seven million registered firearms in Canada, to go along with who knows how many undocumented long guns. It’s not at all clear that the available arsenal has any significant effect on murder rates. The homicide rates in the UK and Canada are comparable despite having very different firearm laws. A greater percentage of Canadian homicides (vs. British homicides) involve guns, but their presence doesn’t seem to be driving the number of murders up; the data just as readily support the theory that murderers use whatever tools they have available. Intuitively, I agree that having more powerful tools available probably has some effect on the number of murders, but it isn’t the case that gun crime is spreading like influenza across our common border. In any event, that was really almost tangential to my main points, which are that we’re not wantonly exposing other countries to horrible risks, and that by and large people in other countries have no business telling us who to vote for or how to structure our society.
No matter who you vote for and under what system, you’re going to end up with a politician.
“Not voting can mean something.”
Yeah, that you’re happy to sit on the sidelines, able to say “don’t blame me, I didn’t vote.”
If you are so unhappy with the calibre of politicians in your electorate/s – join the party you prefer or even run as an Independent starting at the Local level – get in and make changes.
Finally, I’ve come to the conclusion Jerry, that it’s like trying to explain the colour blue to someone blind from birth. We have no common ground to work from.
Megan: “No matter who you vote for and under what system, you’re going to end up with a politician.”
I can agree with that.
“If you are so unhappy with the calibre of politicians in your electorate/s – join the party you prefer or even run as an Independent starting at the Local level – get in and make changes.”
I can agree with that. I’ve even actually done the first bit in there and worked hard for a candidate before. Never run though. Wouldn’t work out too well. Trust me on that one.
Finally, I’ve come to the conclusion Jerry, that it’s like trying to explain the colour blue to someone blind from birth. We have no common ground to work from.
Wow.
So, to recap, I personally believe that voting is important and should be done, but I know a number of people who will not vote, don’t care about the process and think that voting is a pointless and futile waste of time and I don’t think that forcing them to vote will change their attitudes or be a particularly good idea for them or the process. And because I believe this last part we have no common ground here and explaining why you think what I said was utter rubbish rather than just saying it is would be like explaining a color to someone who has been blind since birth.
Oooooooookay.
Megan: “No matter who you vote for and under what system, you’re going to end up with a politician.”
I can agree with that.
“If you are so unhappy with the calibre of politicians in your electorate/s – join the party you prefer or even run as an Independent starting at the Local level – get in and make changes.”
I can agree with that. I’ve even actually done the first bit in there and worked hard for a candidate before. Never run though. Wouldn’t work out too well. Trust me on that one.
Finally, I’ve come to the conclusion Jerry, that it’s like trying to explain the colour blue to someone blind from birth. We have no common ground to work from.
Wow.
So, to recap, I personally believe that voting is important and should be done, but I know a number of people who will not vote, don’t care about the process and think that voting is a pointless and futile waste of time and I don’t think that forcing them to vote will change their attitudes or be a particularly good idea for them or the process. And because I believe this last part we have no common ground here and explaining why you think what I said was utter rubbish rather than just saying it is would be like explaining a color to someone who has been blind since birth.
Oooooooookay.
“Do you honestly believe that she and the millions of Americans like her are going to suddenly see the light, make themselves concerned, educated voters and actually start caring about the process just because someone said that the had to do it now or they would face fines and penalties? Hëll no they won’t.”
So you’re either saying that people who have to vote are either sheep or ignorant? Yes?
Maybe this is a cultural thing then? If like me, you’ve grown up where compulsory voting has been to “norm” for 80+ years, there is no “suddenly seeing the light”. It’s just the way it is. Maybe in places where you have to vote, the populace is more involved? I don’t know. Maybe, because the pollies do not have to encourage people to go out to vote (we have to anyway) campaigning may have a different approach. I haven’t lived under your system. I don’t know to what degree political discussions form a part of everyday life there.
“Do you honestly believe that she and the millions of Americans like her are going to suddenly see the light, make themselves concerned, educated voters and actually start caring about the process just because someone said that the had to do it now or they would face fines and penalties? Hëll no they won’t.”
So you’re either saying that people who have to vote are either sheep or ignorant? Yes?
Maybe this is a cultural thing then? If like me, you’ve grown up where compulsory voting has been to “norm” for 80+ years, there is no “suddenly seeing the light”. It’s just the way it is. Maybe in places where you have to vote, the populace is more involved? I don’t know. Maybe, because the pollies do not have to encourage people to go out to vote (we have to anyway) campaigning may have a different approach. I haven’t lived under your system. I don’t know to what degree political discussions form a part of everyday life there.
I’m a little late to the ‘compulsory voting’ party, but I’d like to put in my two cents here.
I’m against it for a couple of reasons. One, freedom. Freedom to do a thing must include freedom not to do that thing. Much like freedom of religion. Two, not voting IS a vote! You’re voting for ‘none of the above’ by not voting.
“So you’re either saying that people who have to vote are either sheep or ignorant? Yes?”
Hëll no that’s not what I’m saying, Megan. I would be following politics and the news and voting no matter what because I like to know what’s going on and what I’m voting for. I’d just view being required by the state to vote as a pointless law. You address enough points here intelligently enough that you’re likely the type who would not want to be making dumb or uninformed choices that are as important as that as well.
But you and I are not my wife’s friend who doesn’t think voting never means a thing. You and I are not the guy I work with who thinks that a Republican is just a Democrat with a different animal on his party logo. You and I are not one of my supervisors who has the warped logic of declaring that anyone who votes has no right to complain about politics because they allowed themselves to be a part of the process. If you made compulsory voting the law of the land in America you would just have those three and many others like them ticked off at being forced to vote by the government and doing the least amount of anything involved with the process to get through it and done with it.
You’re looking at it from the view of someone who has grown up under that system, but I’m looking at it from the view of knowing people that are almost proud of the fact that they won’t “waste the time” to ever vote. I’m looking at it from the view of someone who deals with petulant attitudes of people every day who refuse to wear seat belts, helmets when on a bike or a motorcycle or go outside to smoke a cigarette because “the law” has no right to restrict their personal freedom of choice.
Australia has had this system since 1924 (or 1915 depending on where start the count from) and even Australia still has its problems. I’ve read or listened to reports where members of the Australian Electoral Commission have talked about growing issues of donkey votes and informal votes, the problems caused by those with little interest in politics being forced to the polls and the resources that must be allocated to determine whether those who failed to vote have “valid and sufficient” reasons. That’s in a country where this system has been in place for generations. How do you think the very pigheaded in America would react if you suddenly told them that the next election was going to have legally mandated voting imposed on them?
Jeez… Just think about what the ACLU would be saying. They’d have it challenged in court on day one and have it tied up in legal wrangling for years.
“Maybe this is a cultural thing then?”
Pretty much, yeah. Americans are a stubborn lot who have the type of individualist personality and independent spirit that sometimes actually lives up to the nicer stereotypes that exist about us. The downside of that individualist personality and independent spirit is that we often live down to the worst stereotypes about us as well. I honestly believe that the people who can’t be bothered to vote or actually flat out refuse to vote now would only look at a compulsory voting law as an infringement of their rights and as the government overstepping its bounds and fight against it even if it was far simpler to just pay attention to the news a little more and vote every so often. And a part of that fight in many cases would be just screwing the process up out of spite.
Wouldn’t a “None of the above” category be lovely? Vote “No Confidence” in both candidates and send the parties back to find someone better? So we don’t get a scenario of Dole vs. Quayle, or Palin v. Nader, or something equally abysmal. Sometimes having to choose between the lesser of two evils is still slitting your own throat.
Wouldn’t a “None of the above” category be lovely? Vote “No Confidence” in both candidates and send the parties back to find someone better? So we don’t get a scenario of Dole vs. Quayle, or Palin v. Nader, or something equally abysmal. Sometimes having to choose between the lesser of two evils is still slitting your own throat.
Interesting feedback from a nummber of people, so thanks for that.
Jerry, you’re right, some idiots will always be idiots, but I don’t have a problem with them being highlighted as idiots. There has to be some number – however small – who are just lazy and will respond positively to encouragement. Just because some people ignore or abuse traffic laws doesn’t mean you should repeal the traffic laws.
Rene, I deliberately spoke of “passive” disenfranchisement, in the sense of allowing/encouraging people to not vote because you believe they’d support the status quo.
If the majority of people in a country genuinely do support the status quo, then surely the status quo is what the country should get? (Personally, I prefer the Rolling Stones, but part of any democracy is surely that sometimes you lose the vote and have to live with what the other guy wants)
There also seems to be a vibe here that those who don’t vote are sometimes too dumb to be voting anyway… That’s vaguely worrying, because it’s back to the ‘some are more equal than others’ argument from a previous thread.
Personally, I think people should vote, and should be encouraged to do so both by positive social attitudes – voting should be like jury service, it’s a civic responsibility and you’re a hero for democracy if you do and a bad, bad person if you don’t – and by negative penalty of getting fined if you don’t.
I’m not saying that makes for a perfect system, I do think that it makes for a better one if you look at the overall numbers.
Finally, I don’t buy the ‘not voting is a vote’ argument. Not voting says “I don’t care” and that’s all it says, and I’m from the generation where if you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem.
If you do detest all the candidates equally, then yes, go to the polls and write “None of the above” on the dámņ ballot paper!
Cheers.
Interesting feedback from a nummber of people, so thanks for that.
Jerry, you’re right, some idiots will always be idiots, but I don’t have a problem with them being highlighted as idiots. There has to be some number – however small – who are just lazy and will respond positively to encouragement. Just because some people ignore or abuse traffic laws doesn’t mean you should repeal the traffic laws.
Rene, I deliberately spoke of “passive” disenfranchisement, in the sense of allowing/encouraging people to not vote because you believe they’d support the status quo.
If the majority of people in a country genuinely do support the status quo, then surely the status quo is what the country should get? (Personally, I prefer the Rolling Stones, but part of any democracy is surely that sometimes you lose the vote and have to live with what the other guy wants)
There also seems to be a vibe here that those who don’t vote are sometimes too dumb to be voting anyway… That’s vaguely worrying, because it’s back to the ‘some are more equal than others’ argument from a previous thread.
Personally, I think people should vote, and should be encouraged to do so both by positive social attitudes – voting should be like jury service, it’s a civic responsibility and you’re a hero for democracy if you do and a bad, bad person if you don’t – and by negative penalty of getting fined if you don’t.
I’m not saying that makes for a perfect system, I do think that it makes for a better one if you look at the overall numbers.
Finally, I don’t buy the ‘not voting is a vote’ argument. Not voting says “I don’t care” and that’s all it says, and I’m from the generation where if you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem.
If you do detest all the candidates equally, then yes, go to the polls and write “None of the above” on the dámņ ballot paper!
Cheers.
Jerry, a question:
If ballots were also changed to include a “None of the Above” option, would that change your opinion of making voting compulsory? I think both you and Megan are awfully intelligent posters ’round these parts, and I’d like to find some way to bridge the gap.
I agree with you that what we ideally want is for everyone to vote and to be informed, and there’s no way to make the latter compulsory. Most of your examples, though, are of people with the “a pox on both their houses” mindset, and I’m wondering if the NotA option would do that, particularly if there was some consequence to NotA getting a plurality of votes.
TWL
Jerry, a question:
If ballots were also changed to include a “None of the Above” option, would that change your opinion of making voting compulsory? I think both you and Megan are awfully intelligent posters ’round these parts, and I’d like to find some way to bridge the gap.
I agree with you that what we ideally want is for everyone to vote and to be informed, and there’s no way to make the latter compulsory. Most of your examples, though, are of people with the “a pox on both their houses” mindset, and I’m wondering if the NotA option would do that, particularly if there was some consequence to NotA getting a plurality of votes.
TWL
Peter –
People are not equal. People should have the same rights, yes. But they’re not equal. I don’t think all of the no-shows are too dumb to vote. Some are too cynical, some just don’t feel strongly about any issues.
In the end, it boils down to: How can they be prepared to vote when they can’t even be bothered to spend the mininal effort required to vote?
I have no problem with people defending the status quo, as long as that is an informed decision. But if that is just a reflex action by lazy, clueless people? Nope. And I’m doubly worried when there are laws and lots of effort to force people to vote, while there is no parallel effort to improve education, as is the case in my country. It is a vicious circle to perpetuate bad politicians.
The only way for an anti-status quo politician to win in such countries is to adopt a populist rethoric that appeals to the lower instincts of the masses. It’s what Hugo Chavez has done, for instance.
I am all for positive reinforcement of the civic spirit, campaigns to make people aware of how important it is to vote, etc. But nothing mandatory.
And I don’t want to appear as if I’m saying right-wingers are dumb, or something. In countries where society’s structures are leftist, like Communist China, the sheep is likely to vote to perpetuate the status quo too.