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Remind HN: Vote

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Re: Remind HN: Vote

#211

Post by jdub »

cletus wrote: post #102
RuadhanMc wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australian's by and large are not very ideological. With the exception of the Green's movement, there isn't really another "issues" political group that gets much attention -- or members. Politicians are a bunch of wankers. They wouldn't be politicians if they weren't. I don't mean that in a really bad way, I just mean, being a successful politician takes a certain personality type. If you aren't rough as guts, a bit…

There are ideological divides but we don't seem to have the hot button issues (eg abortion) that the US does. This is I believe because religion does not pay a big part in the Australian political system and our religious institutions don't tend to be hugely politically active. The ALP (Australian Labor Party) are out "Democrats" (in the US sense; we had a Democrats party here that was something else and basically im…

The amusing thing is that in addition to the ideological divide within the Liberal party itself (between true small-L liberals and conservatives), the Liberal and National parties are not obviously ideologically compatible either -- the Nats are basically social conservative agrarian socialists. :-)

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#212

Post by mcantelon »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #207
mcantelon wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you've never taken a class or read a book on economics, please don't vote. ... If you've never taken a class or read a book on political philosophy, please don't vote. If you're an elitist academic that thinks knowledge about how the world works can only be garnered via institutionalized knowledge, please don't vote. If you're willing to recommend that lower classes, made up predominantly of marginalized races, o…

Suppose that I go into the voting booth with a pair of dice, and use them to decide who to vote for. Am I morally correct in this approach? If a voter is reacting emotionally to propaganda, without taking the time to understand the real story, is this much different from rolling dice?

>If a voter is reacting emotionally to propaganda, without taking the time to understand the real story, is this much different from rolling dice?

To understand the "real story", I'd trust someone who had paid attention to what the parties have done over decades, reading news and analysis, over someone who merely read a book on political philosophy at some point.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#213

Post by afterburner »

michaelkeenan wrote: post #6

If you have an obligation to vote, then it's an obligation to make an informed vote. If you haven't attempted to evaluate your decision carefully and can't make an informed vote, please don't vote. Informed voting > not voting > uninformed voting Greg Mankiw has a column on this: http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/11/election-day-approach...

Ideally, sure, but in practice a little knowledge is often a dangerous thing, and people who think they know what they're talking about might have a seriously flawed understanding of the issues and their possible solutions. There are entire fake "think tanks" based on providing this flawed reasoning to those who don't question it enough. How to distinguish between "informed voter" and "brainwashed voter"?

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#214

Post by CWuestefeld »

jozo wrote: post #201
CWuestefeld wrote: post #127

Please, do vote if you understand the issues, and where the candidates stand. But otherwise, please DO NOT VOTE. Just because an idea makes you feel warm and fuzzy doesn't make it right. There are plenty of things in this world that are counter-intuitive, and if you're relying only on your beliefs , there's a good chance you'll get it wrong. If you've never taken a class or read a book on economics, please don't vote…

I think you should vote, even if you don't seem to understand what representation[1] means. You also seem to only refer to liberals, but at the same time you say people shouldn't vote? I thought individual freedom and equal rights was a core principle in liberalism, but I guess you are only counting positive freedom. If you really believe that people shouldn't have a say in elections based on your criteria, you shoul…

You also seem to only refer to liberals,... I thought individual freedom and equal rights was a core principle in liberalism, but I guess you are only counting positive freedom.

Huh? I mentioned JS Mill and Locke, Mises and Hayek. The first two were classical liberals. That's a very different thing than what we label "Liberal" (with a capital "L") today. You'll find individual freedom at the core of their work (e.g., Mill's advocacy for women's suffrage).

Mises and Hayek would, I imagine, also consider themselves as classical liberals, but by their time the definition (in America) of "liberal" was changing (which is why I drew the capital-L distinction above). Both of them wrote extensively about the primacy of the individual.

You reference positive freedom, but the idea itself wasn't coined until the mid-1900s, long after Mill and Locke were dead, and with much of Hayek's career behind him. But I feel safe in saying that none of them would find much of value in the concept of positive freedom.

But my advocacy that you understand something is not the same thing as saying that you must agree with something. Indeed, in order to disagree with an idea, you must first understand what that idea is -- know your enemy, right?

As I've said elsewhere in this thread, the government backs up its policies with force and violence, ultimately. Thus, advocating a policy is, in the end, a threat of violence against those who disagree. If you're going to do that, you better be damned sure that your ideas are correct.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#215

Post by alain94040 »

philwelch wrote: post #115
jdub wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus, we vote on Saturday. Weekday voting is incredibly disenfranchising.

I voted on Saturday, too. Some of the more enlightened states in the US allow voting by mail.

I have never figured out how voting by mail is possible. The case I'm interested in, a classic, is the husband dictacting to his wife who to vote for.

When you vote by mail in the comfort of your home, how do you guarantee that no such tampering happened?

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#216

Post by zephyrfalcon »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #127

Please, do vote if you understand the issues, and where the candidates stand. But otherwise, please DO NOT VOTE. Just because an idea makes you feel warm and fuzzy doesn't make it right. There are plenty of things in this world that are counter-intuitive, and if you're relying only on your beliefs , there's a good chance you'll get it wrong. If you've never taken a class or read a book on economics, please don't vote…

I guess not many people get to vote, using this system...

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#217

Post by aaronbrethorst »

shinkansen wrote: post #153
philwelch wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I voted on Saturday, too. Some of the more enlightened states in the US allow voting by mail.

In fact some States (e.g. WA was like this) only allow voting by mail. Potentially disenfranchising perhaps; how do I vote if I'm homeless?

Pierce county in WA still has polling places. It's Oregon that is entirely vote-by-mail.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#218

Post by afterburner »

jasonkester wrote: post #75

Is there anything particularly worth voting for in this election? I tend to not bother voting for issues that don't concern me. And frankly, the vast majority of issues that people get all excited about don't bother me one way or another. I'm happy to pay a little more or a little less tax on various things, see schools built in one area and prisons not built in another. Go nuts with it all, and if it really effects…

You're not just voting on issues, you're voting for a representative. If the party you agree with doesn't have the votes in Congress, whatever ends up happening in the next 2-6 years will be less likely to be resolved the way you like (or at all). And in fact things may get worse from your point of view.

It's not a referendum. You're imparting political power on the party you vote for, relevant to anything that comes up in Congress in the next 2-6 years.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#219

Post by afterburner »

jasonkester wrote: post #110
daskrachen wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you claim that there is nothing of interest in the topics that are voted on. How do you know that if you don't concern yourself with them? You can either be ignorant or informed. Not both at the same time. Claiming that everything is boring by way of being ignorant of everything is dishonest. I am not saying that current affairs are interesting, but I would prefer people to be honestly ignorant to simply being arr…

How about this: Of the topics being voted on that people have gone out of their way to promote, or that the media have covered, none of them struck my curiosity to the point where I feel compelled to dig further into them. I asked here, on the off chance that somebody has one that they think the HN audience might care about.

Congress votes on the budget, and all new laws or modifications to existing laws. You don't care if any of that gets effed up in ways you don't agree with?

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#220

Post by CWuestefeld »

mcantelon wrote: post #212
CWuestefeld wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose that I go into the voting booth with a pair of dice, and use them to decide who to vote for. Am I morally correct in this approach? If a voter is reacting emotionally to propaganda, without taking the time to understand the real story, is this much different from rolling dice?

>If a voter is reacting emotionally to propaganda, without taking the time to understand the real story, is this much different from rolling dice? To understand the "real story", I'd trust someone who had paid attention to what the parties have done over decades, reading news and analysis, over someone who merely read a book on political philosophy at some point.

My list wasn't meant to be exhaustive. Of course you're right, that an understanding of history and who the actors are is important as well.

However, to prefer that point of view is to exclude other possibilities outside of the status quo.

For example, the Republicans were pretty new back in the mid-1800's, with Abraham Lincoln being the first Republican elected president. If my vote were based on past performance of the parties, I'd only have considered Democrats and Whigs.

And if you're following along, you'll notice that the President credited with freeing the slaves was a Republican. How did that happen? Over time, the positions of the American parties have changed quite drastically. In the early 1900s, it was the Democrats who were backing big business. but the civil rights movement shuffled things significantly. Similarly, the (American) definition of "liberal" has changed significantly since the late 1800s. Back then, a liberal's ideas would correspond more closely to today's Libertarians or perhaps a small-government Republican.

My point here is that history can only have limited utility. First, by definition, it excludes new ideas. Second, the parts of the players shift so that long-term comparisons become problematic.

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