• Moral right to complain if you don't vote
    52 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Bobie;36143999]saying that its an error in the political system, not democracy is like arguing that communism is perfect. as long as democracy exists, it will be doomed to fail because of its native flaws. and im not saying i have the best idea for the next form of society, but i'm open minded to new ideas and try to find out as much about the facts as possible, and from what i know a system that isn't heavily opinion based (which is pretty much the foundation of democracy), but instead focused on statistical evidence and factual movements into the bettering of mankind as a whole. instead of politicians bickering with eachother for 4 years, experts from all corners of the sciences, arts, etc could come together and [I]discuss[/I], not argue their views and come to a logical conclusion that would aid EVERYONE on the planet. it is the transition to a post-scarcity environment that is necessary for our world to be bettered, not gimmicky economics or invading countries to remove corrupt leaders. positivity, helpfulness and kindness should be the first and foremost policy of all 'leaders' and if that is not set in stone then we are doomed. but im not arguing that i have the best ideas ever, i'm simply offering my own view on what could be done.[/QUOTE] I'm only saying that your two party system is not a failure or flaw of democracy, as there are plenty of country's with a more-party system. In your statistically based system, who would represent what part of society? How are they chosen? How will this be kept fair? Will the people have a vote in who gets to decide which statistics are worth more money? Who gets to decide which view on bettering the world will be the true one? How would you know if your leaders are truly kind, helpful and positive, and not just putting up a show? And most of all, how would you want to do this while earth is this heavily divided? A government such as you describe would only work if there were no more countries, no more religion (or just one?), and no more money.
[QUOTE=mobrockers2;36144167]I'm only saying that your two party system is not a failure or flaw of democracy, as there are plenty of country's with a more-party system. In your statistically based system, who would represent what part of society? How are they chosen? How will this be kept fair? Will the people have a vote in who gets to decide which statistics are worth more money? Who gets to decide which view on bettering the world will be the true one? How would you know if your leaders are truly kind, helpful and positive, and not just putting up a show? And most of all, how would you want to do this while earth is this heavily divided? A government such as you describe would only work if there were [b]no more countries, no more religion (or just one?), and no more money.[/b][/QUOTE] yes this is a major concept behind a post-scarcity environment. borders and religion are illogical, spiritual faith is fine, and having a sense of community with others of your faith is pretty cool too but having actual organizations dedicated to spreading 'faith' (especially with cases such as oxfam, and religious run charities where third world countries are forced into believing that things like contraception are illegal in god's eyes etc.) is what i could consider quite an evil thing that's allowed to exist. Money is an unusual factor, but by the time that resources are spread and divided so equally and recycled so efficiently, there will no longer be any need whatsoever for money. The idea is that people don't necessarily 'represent' anything, just have input into it. It is kept fair by itself, as i said it is not opinion based and great amounts of credible research will have to be put in, overseen by other credible sources in order for a clear depiction for a course of action to be made. There are no decisions in post scarcity other than the ones that are obvious problems, and with the amount of resources we still have on this planet almost every problem we have is tacklable. and about leaders, once again, it is not based on opinion. it wouldn't matter how much of an asshole someone was or whether they were the nicest person in the world, as long as the science is behind it and the credibility is shown, the decisions are set in motion.
First of all, I don't think morality is even an issue here. It is impossible to state if something is definitely morally right or wrong anyways. There is no universal definition for morality, so there is no way to define anything as universally moral or immoral. Besides that, it isn't the people that decide who wins an election. The groups backing the winner are the deciders of that. Financial backing is almost always the deciding factor in an election. The only times that it isn't the deciding factor, is when the backing of each candidate are essentially the same. And even then, it's decided mostly by which powerful companies or groups are backing the candidate. Nothing is decided by the general populace, so why punish those who understand that by not allowing them to speak negatively about the government they obviously didn't support to begin with? What about not voting could possibly strip away your freedom to speak negatively of the outcome? It's not like the outcome would be different if they voted. And it isn't like their opinion would change if they had voted. They would likely say the same things if they had voted. Why add in that extra step? Also, for what reason should we be forced to make a choice by law? Forcing people to vote seems idiotic. That would simply cause people to make an uninformed decision to avoid punishment. The people voting would just put down a random name. Forcing people to vote wouldn't change the fact that people know nothing about the politics. Either way, I don't think that we should strip away the right to complain about something under any circumstances. I mean, if we don't like something, why should it be wrong to say something about it?
Voting in my state only counts as roughly one eighth of a vote, so even those who don't vote have a right to complain in my opinion.
[QUOTE=Bobie;36143779] lucky to live in a democracy? i'd say we're unlucky that we havent moved on from democracy yet. i dont consider having the choice of only two parties, who put in their own people through undemocratic means very lucky at all.[/QUOTE] It can work both ways. I live in Canada, obviously still a democracy, but it's a little different from your elections when it comes to electing our closest equivalent to "president". I won't explain the whole thing, but a tl;dr is that we have about 5 main parties (NDP, Liberal, Conservative, Bloc, Green). The cool thing about this at first is like "yeah we have some choices up in this heezy, yo! Way more than 2 choices!" but it isn't that great. The Conservative party is the only "really right wing" (to Canadian standards) party and the rest and left/centre parties. So as a result the votes get diluted among the other 4 (although mostly just Liberal and NDP) because the people who lean left get split among the parties, whereas everyone who leans right will just vote Conservative and be done with it. This creates a situation where the Conservatives get a bushell of votes and the leftist parties will get their votes split amongst themselves, so the Conservatives get in. This isn't the worst thing obviously, we could be in a much more terrible position, but more choices isn't necessarily always the best representation of what the people want.
[QUOTE=livelonger12;36116959]Perhaps voting should be mandatory; and perhaps there should also be a fine if which is avoided a prison term should be given. So, should the questionable citizen be socially ridiculed to reinforce the notion that voting is essential to governmental reform? And should voting be mandatory?[/QUOTE] Giving a fine or prison sentence for not voting is a sure way to entice people into doing something, but it's certainly [I]not[/I] going to be voting. Not like that would change anything anyway. People already vote between Shit and The Lesser Shit. Making it mandatory just reinforces that behavior. You'll never fix anything when you settle for a patch to the problem; which is why some people vote by not voting. I've never voted and never will, at least until such a time as I don't have to dishonor myself by choosing between a shitty option and a less shitty option just so people can be happy with [I]something happening[/I]. Even if that something is actually doing fuck all and going in circles rather than standing still and fixing the problem. But it's whatever; that kind of thinking is part of world culture now. The best I can hope for is someone in power fucking up so horribly that everyone decides to stop everything until those in power solve the issue. Although given the worlds tolerance for people fucking things up I have to wonder if there will be anything left to solve by the time someone screws up that bad.
If a slave on a plantation has the right to choose who whips them, can the slave complain about being whipped if he didn't vote?
It's dumb to say you can't complain if you don't vote because what if you didn't support any of the candidates that you were only able to vote for? Especially here in the USA, where you only get two people to vote for president. You telling me that I can't complain if I don't participate in voting for two politicians that I don't like? Why should I support them if I don't want them?
[QUOTE=Phycosymo;36234616]It's dumb to say you can't complain if you don't vote because what if you didn't support any of the candidates that you were only able to vote for? Especially here in the USA, where you only get two people to vote for president. You telling me that I can't complain if I don't participate in voting for two politicians that I don't like? Why should I support them if I don't want them?[/QUOTE] Well this comes back down to a fundamental flaw in how we run elections. Because we use first-past-the-post voting (or winner-take-all voting) we have disproportionate representations of the population and, inevitably, a two-party system, and all the corruption that brings. There are several other voting systems that more proportionally fits the population [I]and[/I] prevents the problems of bipartisan gridlock, But since nobody can agree on anything, and the entire House is filled with people who think the Constitution is a magical piece of paper written on unicorn fleece with a dodo quill by God, Jesus, and Ronald Reagan, well... ...There isn't much hope for a change in how we run elections.
I won't go so far as to say you lose your moral right to complain but especially in a multi-party system like we have, it will definitely get you ridiculed to some extent.
so long as you are taking some form of political action, it should be morally correct. I would include protesting as a way to fix it, even though you may not vote. movements are more powerful than votes anyway.
quite frankly, when the candidates are all the same there is no point in voting, so its bullshit to tell me i can't complain about the many things that are wrong today. i think this explains voting pretty nicely: [img]http://www.paperstreetbrigade.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/yhst-74742418910237_2065_43934034.jpg[/img]
I feel that all voting is is an illusion that you'll be able to make a difference in anything.
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I think anyone is entitled to complain about whatever they want to complain about. Whether or not we listen to their complaints is a different story, however. Besides not everyone who complains about the system and yet didn't vote is an idiot. Some people aren't eligible to vote yet, despite having valid complaints. Others did their homework, found none of the candidates were worth voting for, and thus didn't waste their vote on someone they believed would fuck us all over. Still others don't trust the voting system(I fall into this one most) and don't vote on the basis that they don't see their vote making any difference.
In my opinion if you didn't vote in an election and then you bitch and moan about how you hate who got power and what they're doing then you deserve a slap, you had your chance to actually try and make a difference but you didn't and then you rest on your laurels and whine away instead of trying to get something done about the problem.
In my opinion I think that even if you dont vote then you have a right to complain. If you like lets say you like [insert political party here] but dont vote for them, then they loose, then you cant complain. If you hate all of the political partys you have a right to complain. I got in an arguement with a teacher about it and she shut up after I told her that mabye the reason people dont vote is that the choice is being stabbed in the back, or being shot in the face.
If there isn't a problem until after voting, you can't tell people to shut up for not voting to fix the problem at the time they could have, because at the time they could have voted, there wasn't a problem/reason to vote. Only an ignorant dick would make an argument like that.
Of course you have the right to complain, sure. But if you didn't vote because of ignorance or laziness and then criticize a politician that you could have voted against, then you're sort of an idiot. Though on the other hand if you abstain because you feel both of the candidates are a joke (which is a very realistic scenario) then I guess it doesn't matter much as either of the candidates would be worth complaining about.
It's a logical fallacy to say "don't complain if you don't vote". If I were to say "Barack Obama failed to fulfill the campaign promise of shutting down Guantanamo Bay", whether or not I voted doesn't actually change the fact that Obama didn't do this. Saying "Barack Obama is too neoliberal to effectively rescue the economy", shouldn't be discounted because I didn't vote. Attacking the views I have for something I did or didn't do is Ad Hominem.
[QUOTE=prooboo;36371159]It's a logical fallacy to say "don't complain if you don't vote". If I were to say "Barack Obama failed to fulfill the campaign promise of shutting down Guantanamo Bay", whether or not I voted doesn't actually change the fact that Obama didn't do this. Saying "Barack Obama is too neoliberal to effectively rescue the economy", shouldn't be discounted because I didn't vote. Attacking the views I have for something I did or didn't do is Ad Hominem.[/QUOTE] It depends entirely on how and what you're complaining about.
To those who say that in the USA there are only two choices, you are severely misinformed. Yes, there are only two popular choices, and only those two choices really have a chance of winning, but that attitude is the reason other parties haven't gained popularity. Some of us have no hope in this fucked up system, that's why we don't vote. [editline]22nd June 2012[/editline] So yeah, of course you have the right to complain even if you don't vote.
I don't think there's such thing as a right to complain in the first place. Complaining is saying something is bad, why shouldn't you be able to state the truth (or whatever you think is the truth) regardless of whether you did something to change it or not?
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