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Remind HN: Vote

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Re: Remind HN: Vote

#351

Post by jbooth »

jacoblyles wrote: post #346
jbooth wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry that you've been brainwashhed. "Apparently Sen. Feingold believes that it's better to have an ill-informed electorate, and that we shouldn't be able to use our 1st Amendment rights to put a voice to our ideas, " Let me get you on the record here -- you actually think the various "Americans for American Americans" groups are contributing to the debate? You think these groups deserve a voice? Let me re-enact a li…

As a volunteer in a grass roots campaign in the 2007 primaries, Mr. Feingold's unAmerican anti-free speech law was a major pain in our asses as we tried to fight the more established political interests. I am so happy to see that man go. He should retire or get an honest job. Campaign finance laws make it so that candidates supported by passionate minorities cannot be heard. If you are not 1) personally rich or 2) a…

I would love to hear how McCain-Feingold hurt you when it came to "fighting more established political interests".

The inability to throw millions of soft money into the race made it harder to fight the established political interest? Or made it harder to harness established lobbyist interest?

Under McCain-Feingold, candidates can self-fund for any amount, and donations are limited to $2300/head, that's $4600 for married couples. If you can't find 1000 people to support you, you shouldn't be in politics. If you can't find 1000 people to support you but have one guy cutting 10 million dollar checks, you DEFINITELY shouldn't be in politics.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#352

Post by jacoblyles »

jbooth wrote: post #351
jacoblyles wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a volunteer in a grass roots campaign in the 2007 primaries, Mr. Feingold's unAmerican anti-free speech law was a major pain in our asses as we tried to fight the more established political interests. I am so happy to see that man go. He should retire or get an honest job. Campaign finance laws make it so that candidates supported by passionate minorities cannot be heard. If you are not 1) personally rich or 2) a…

I would love to hear how McCain-Feingold hurt you when it came to "fighting more established political interests". The inability to throw millions of soft money into the race made it harder to fight the established political interest? Or made it harder to harness established lobbyist interest? Under McCain-Feingold, candidates can self-fund for any amount, and donations are limited to $2300/head, that's $4600 for mar…

You should read John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty". It makes all my arguments for free political speech for me and in a much more elegant manner.

It is self-evident that if you limit the amount of money that people can spend on advertising their political views that niche candidates and less popular ideas will be hurt the most. Unions can compel donations from their millions of members, your Clintons, Obamas, and McCains of the world get the full support and advertising of the major parties. But offbeat candidates will have their speech capped by McCain-Feingold, unless they are personally rich (Ross Perot).

We had many outside projects (independent advertisements and the like) that couldn't get cash because so many of us had donated our max amount to the campaign (even though few of us were personally rich). There's something weird about being an American and not being allowed to support a candidate because it is against the law. I would much rather have a rough and tumble, wide-open contest in the finest democratic tradition than Democrats and Republicans writing laws about who is allowed to speak.

You seem to want to outlaw outside advertisements because they don't meet your standards for quality. Cool man, cool. I just want you to consider how that position fits within the American liberal tradition.

>" If you can't find 1000 people to support you, you shouldn't be in politics. "

That sounds like an incumbent protection act to me.

We had a few hundred thousand supporters, ended up getting a few million votes! Even found a loophole in McCain-Feingold and set up one venture as a for-profit enterprise (you ever see the "Hillary 2008" t-shirts at airports? Same loophole).

We did okay, considering. But man, I just want my freedom back.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#353

Post by antipaganda »

mahmud wrote: post #15
cletus wrote: post #7

In Australia voting is mandatory. If you're registered to vote and you don't you can get fined. If no one is registered to vote at your address you'll tend to get lots of mail about it (but ultimately, staying off the electoral roll isn't difficult). I used to think this was a bad idea as it forced people to vote who didn't really care. In recent years I've come around to the opposite point of view based pretty much…

I am Yank, Arab and Somali (I hold three passports) and I will soon be an Aussie, via marriage. I have spent a year in Australia. My feeling is that Aussies are not really as political as Americans. American voting is under-informed and has low turn out, but at least the few percentage of electorate that vote actually care . Aussies .. I am not sure if they don't care, or if they're just good at hiding their politica…

Poor bastards in NSW... they've had the same corrupt Labor government for what, fourteen years now? The tragedy is that the opposition don't have to be much better to win, they just have to not fuck a goat on live TV.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#354

Post by Semiapies »

philwelch wrote: post #350
Semiapies wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure all of them were, in fact...

I'm sure a lot of bad politicians were elected by stupid or evil voters (i.e. bad citizens).

Prove it.

Wait, you can't - you can't even identify the "stupid" or "evil" voters except by circularly defining them as "people who voted for bad politicians". For that matter, you can't identify the "good" ones except for "the ones who voted for good politicians".

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#355

Post by Andys »

mahmud wrote: post #15
cletus wrote: post #7

In Australia voting is mandatory. If you're registered to vote and you don't you can get fined. If no one is registered to vote at your address you'll tend to get lots of mail about it (but ultimately, staying off the electoral roll isn't difficult). I used to think this was a bad idea as it forced people to vote who didn't really care. In recent years I've come around to the opposite point of view based pretty much…

I am Yank, Arab and Somali (I hold three passports) and I will soon be an Aussie, via marriage. I have spent a year in Australia. My feeling is that Aussies are not really as political as Americans. American voting is under-informed and has low turn out, but at least the few percentage of electorate that vote actually care . Aussies .. I am not sure if they don't care, or if they're just good at hiding their politica…

Side note: While showing up and getting your name marked off on election day is compulsory in Australia, actually voting properly is not. It is perfectly OK (though frowned upon) to get your form and put it straight into the box, which is counted as an "informal" vote, the same as if you had written in the wrong space on the ballot form.

The recent election was a very close race between the two major parties, and also had one of the highest % of informal votes in recent history, which is some measure of the unhappiness of voters with the choices they were given.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#356

Post by rue »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #288
Jun8 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree with you, nothing should be removed off the table without a rational discussion about possible merits. My philosophy is: everything should be discussed, nothing should be off-limits due to PC, or hurting a group's sensibilities. In this regard, controversial subjects such as gay marriage rights, right of Islam women to cover their heads in Europe (not much of an issue in the US), the injustice of affi…

Thanks for the measured response. how do we determine the value: who should be allowed to vote To be clear, I believe that everyone should be allowed to vote. I'd go so far as to say that even felons should be allowed to, for fear that the legal system could otherwise be used as a tool to stifle electoral dissent. My suggestion that some people not cast a vote is intended to be entirely personal, as a matter of consc…

A voluntary system would not be viable precisely because of your caveat. It would likely not prevent any truly poorly informed from voting: at worst, some moderately-to-highly informed folks would make the wrong decision and abstain instead, further skewing representation.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#357

Post by Semiapies »

tjr wrote: post #340
Semiapies wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

waves goodbye to the goalposts as they fly off Why would those 1000 votes all be for B? They could be for A. They could be evenly split between them. Most likely, they'd be proportionally split similarly to the original vote. You're looking at partisans' rhetoric used to motivate their supporters and mistaking it for logic.

If they are all for A, or split evenly between them, or proportionally split similar to the original vote, then these additional votes would change nothing. If they all (or enough of them) are for B, then they could change the outcome. Knowing nothing else, there's really no way to say for sure what would happen, but if they don't vote, then they certainly will not change the outcome.

And you can always hold out faith that they'll vote the way you want them to.

Which is what you can see in the comments of this thread: hope that if more people voted, things would shift more left-wing, more right-wing, more centrist, etc.

Pure wishful thinking, nothing more.

(And the opposite side of the coin is shown by people bridling at suggestions that fewer people should vote and identifying such arguments as covert attempts to undermine their preferred political team...)

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#359

Post by tjr »

Semiapies wrote: post #357
tjr wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they are all for A, or split evenly between them, or proportionally split similar to the original vote, then these additional votes would change nothing. If they all (or enough of them) are for B, then they could change the outcome. Knowing nothing else, there's really no way to say for sure what would happen, but if they don't vote, then they certainly will not change the outcome.

And you can always hold out faith that they'll vote the way you want them to. Which is what you can see in the comments of this thread: hope that if more people voted, things would shift more left-wing, more right-wing, more centrist, etc. Pure wishful thinking, nothing more. (And the opposite side of the coin is shown by people bridling at suggestions that fewer people should vote and identifying such arguments as c…

I guess I don't understand what you're claiming. In the above example discussion, I was claiming that if an extra 1000 people who wouldn't have voted went ahead and did vote, then, depending on how they voted, either their extra votes would make a difference, or they would not make a difference. There is a possibility either way (even if the possibility of making a difference is smaller).

On those grounds, I do not see voting as a pointless, worthless activity; your vote added to the votes of others might be the deciding factor in who gets elected.

The bigger picture is, does it matter who gets elected? As you bring out in another thread, most of the major candidates "opposing" each other are actually very similar in what they stand for. Voting one in or the other probably won't make a huge difference. I guess if you want to claim that no matter if we vote or not, the government isn't going to be much different, that's probably fair.

To make more of an impact than voting, citizens may need to get involved as candidates and really try to change things, but in order for that to work, people would need to vote for them, which means, people would need to vote, rather than not vote.

So I guess, to be clear, I claim that your vote, along with the votes of others, can effect the outcome of the election. The outcome of the election may or may not effect the outcome of the government, but that's another matter entirely.

I for one am open to hearing suggestions on what we can do to improve the government beyond voting, or running for office (success at which requires people to vote).

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