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Remind HN: Vote

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Re: Remind HN: Vote

#321

Post by dkl »

protomyth wrote: post #312
dkl wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/22685.html shows it to not be #2 but close to the top. And I think the point is still valid that CA could balance their budget if we had that nice ratio.

That source doesn't have figures after 2005 and doesn't break it down by area. The skew is the population figure versus infrastructure and defense. I would imagine that the continued flooding will change the figure also. California needs to get ahold of its pensions, no one can fix that but themselves.

I agree about the pensions. 100%. My point was about the comparison between ND and CA.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#322

Post by Semiapies »

tjr wrote: post #279
firemanx wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I support the idea of people educating themselves (and I would also recommend the reading list you provided), who can guarantee 100% that they are free from propaganda or brainwashing? Especially given the vast amount of information everyone is confronted with every day. We are emotional creatures, each susceptible to misdirection by those who intended it (or perhaps even worse, by those we trust who don't inte…

Advocating that people take themselves out of the pool because they may not understand the entire situation would eliminate every possible voter. It'd eliminate all of the candidates, too...

Feature, not bug.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#323

Post by InclinedPlane »

Semiapies wrote: post #313
InclinedPlane wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who could possibly trot out the "a single vote doesn't matter, so whatevs" argument is either ignorant or hasn't been paying attention to the numerous high-profile extremely close elections in the last several years (2000 presidential election, 2008 Minnesota Senate race).

In reality, those are considered remarkable because elections that are so close are extremely rare .

Many local elections can be very close.

Regardless, if you don't want to vote, that's fine. That just gives my vote more weight.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#324

Post by Semiapies »

RiderOfGiraffes wrote: post #10
tomjen3 wrote: post #5

> Remember that you don't vote to make a difference, you vote because it's your obligation to do so. Really? Its my obligation to help the rest of the people pretend we live in a democracy?

If more people voted, if fewer people like you held an attitude like that, then you wouldn't have to pretend.

If more people genuflected to the civic religion and thought the right thoughts, a miracle would happen.

Honest.

(Not really.)

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#325

Post by Semiapies »

frobozz wrote: post #3

If you vote for a losing candidate, then you can complain that your voice has not been heard. If you vote for a winning candidate, then you can complain when they break their promises. If you don't vote, you have nothing to complain about but your own laziness.

I thought voting was "to make my voice heard" in the first place.

Alternative: If you don't vote, you fail to validate the enthusiasm of people who support one mostly-interchangeable political team or the other largely out of simple social identification.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#326

Post by tjr »

Semiapies wrote: post #317
tjr wrote: post #131

I once heard a story. It may be a cliche, it may be an old, tired, worn-out tale, but it marked my thinking. A village was planning a feast. All of the residents were asked to bring a bottle of wine, each of which would be mixed together in a large vat for everyone to partake of. One of the residents reasoned that a single bottle wouldn't make a difference, and so brought a bottle of water instead. When it came time…

Find an election for a significant, contested office that gets no votes, and we can worry about this parable.

It doesn't have to be an election with no votes. Just an election whose outcome could be changed by the votes of people who believe their votes don't matter. An election with 5500 votes for A and 5000 for B could be turned with 1000 more votes for B.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#327

Post by tjr »

Semiapies wrote: post #309
devmonk wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are a Libertarian, you should find and write-in your candidates, not stay home. If there is no known candidate, you should write in "Libertarian", if there is a space to do so. And if there is no Libertarian on the ballot, you should learn as much as you can about the candidates and vote for the ones that best match your set of values. Odds are that you lean either more towards the liberal social values side o…

"If you are a Libertarian, you should find and write-in your candidates, not stay home" Actually, the LP is very good at getting on ballots, so write-ins are usually unnecessary for those who want to vote for them. However, can you put together a cogent argument why he should go to all that trouble just so you can skim over the section in the results showing that the Libertarian Party candidate for Congress got a han…

http://www.coopersmallergovernment.com/why-should-i-vote-for...

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#328

Post by Semiapies »

tjr wrote: post #66
mkr-hn wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't vote and have a good reason for it, you have every right to complain.

I would dare say that most people in the US who don't vote do not have good reasons for not doing so.

I'd say the same for those who vote.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#329

Post by Semiapies »

dkl wrote: post #268
protomyth wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your source? If you count defense spending (CA didn't want the ICBM silos), 2 air force bases, and interstate highway, yeah. We are on the border, have a low population, and are a truck route (I94 and Hwy2). Having 600,000 people will skew a lot of stats. Counting the reservations in that number might be a little deceptive. Also, do we count the ongoing flooding? If the gov would clear an outlet or just let us move a…

http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/22685.html shows it to not be #2 but close to the top. And I think the point is still valid that CA could balance their budget if we had that nice ratio.

Federal money spent within a state (especially military) doesn't usually interact with the State budget. It's like saying you just can't be in debt - your employer is making a profit.

That's what just gets me about people exhorting everyone to vote when even such a supposedly well-informed group as HN has only the vaguest idea of how this country actually works.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#330

Post by jbooth »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #195
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…

That's both a red herring and a straw man. It's a straw man because not only does McCain-Feingold forbid behavior like you illustrate, but also perfectly reasonable advocacy. So the NRA can't say "don't vote for Mr. X because he's against the 2nd Amendment". Pro-choice people can't say "don't vote for Mr. Z because he's voted for blah blah". These are precisely the types of speech that the 1st Amendment was intended…

My objection is not content-based, the content is irrelevant, as long as it has some grainy black and white footage and zero regard for the truth.
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