I don't vote. Don't believe in voting. Feel that democracy is tantamount to mob rule. But I think I'm going to start voting because...

BUT...this thread isn't to fight about voting vs. non-voting. Prove you know something and tell me about Howard Dean. I've done a meager amount of research but what I've read, I agree with.

Hey, congratulations! Your special key has been shipped and will reach you in four to six weeks.

It's quite a blast so far. I'm talking a LOT LOUDER to people.

Yeah? That was you I was hearing? Mega dittos to you too!

*takes tongue out of cheek*

b. thinking we can only vote for two canidates is what's made you fuckers so cynical in the first place, and gotten us to the point where, yeah, voting for someone else might not make a good goddamn bit of difference.

Who is foisting him upon anyone? And who would want to sell themselves as either of these people? Jesse Ventura and Ted Kennedy would be better examples.

I was telling a couple of high school seniors (they'd be 18 by election time 2004..) who were asking questions about Dean at a local event, listen, if you feel totally disenfranchised & alienated from politics, it's partly because if young people don't vote, politicians have no incentive to be concerned with their issues and interests - so of course they're not talking to you. I will say that Dean doesn't appear to be taking *any* group of voters for granted, including the traditional Democratic base as well as those who hadn't yet participated in the process - and that's how I think he'll win - pollsters are still looking at the electorate from the perspective of likely (i.e. past) Democratic voters, rather than taking into account all the new people who are just registering now & starting to take action, and all the people who sat out the last election because they just didn't get enthused about either candidate.

This is one of the things I admire most about the Dean campaign, actually - it did start at the grassroots and was funded by the grassroots. And if you think about it, if Dean gets elected he'll have to answer to the people who helped get him elected, like anyone does. For so many politicans this means, almost exclusively, party insiders and fundraisers, corporate lobbyists, and other interest groups. I'm not going to pretend Dean won't need some of those and they won't get access, but he doesn't start with them and doesn't depend on them as his base.

And sure, politics is local - and it's also probably going to be very healthy indeed for local politics to have these new networks of activists mobilized & more people engaged, thanks to the Dean campaign. To me, being a total purist and searching for the perfect candidate whose stance on the issues agrees with yours at 100% is kinda not within the spirit of politics - if you want to be totally uncompromising, OK that's your business, but please at least consider doing the rest of us a favor and voting Democrat so the whole country isn't totally screwed.

That said I do agree with Dean on most things (not so much on the death penalty, & possibly on Israel) & admire his record in Vermont, and he seems to be a pragmatic kind of leader who could work with both parties & get things accomplished - such as balancing the budget, expanding health care, repairing relationships with our allies, and yes, being strong on national security - which I worry is being seriously neglected b/c the current foreign policy is directed by ideologues who decided the money should go to invading Iraq.

So yeah, I'm a fan. What else can I say to convince you?

What I love lately is the idea that a candidate should have a "Sister Souljah moment," which seems to basically mean, why don't you try intentionally pissing off a significant part of your base in order to impress everyone with your convictions. (Although I wouldn't mind if Dean stood up and told someone not to disrespect Bush by insulting him *personally* - this kind of behavior is almost totally counterproductive.)

I agree. Politics in a representative democracy (Dan Perry please read "representative democracy" as "republic" so you won't yell at me) is not about finding the candidate who is exactly like you and reflects all of your opinions/attitudes 100%, but about finding the candidate who 1) opinions/attitudes are closest to your views and 2) has the ability to express those opinions/attitudes while still being able to compromise in order to actually represent his/her constituents.

As for Dean himself, as someone who considers himself a progressive Democrat I'm leaning strongly towards supporting him, but I find that 1) there are a few issues on which I disagree with him (this may not actually prevent me from supporting him, see point 1 above), 2) his behavior in the debates I've seen seem to indicate a certain inflexibility bordering on arrogance which I find sorta distasteful (not necessarily a disqualification either) and 3) as someone born and raised in the South, the whole pickup-truck-drivin'-white-males-with-Confederate-flag thing was pretty disgusting (but hey he apologized).

Probably we hashed this out earlier (are you the fellow Maryland native?), I didn't get upset about the pickup truck/flag stereotype, it's a long complicated reason but at the end of the day, I guess I took it as part of a political strategist discourse that doesn't usually get aired in public but which totally creates offensive sterotypes. Dean should've known the force of that particular symbol and not brought it up in a clumsy way.

I was born in Texas, spent most of my life in Kentucky, and have family in both places as well as Alabama and Louisiana. I thought it was embarassing, spectacularly rude, condescending, and ignorant. Fortunately he did apologize, but it took John Edwards making him look like a fool before he got 'round to it (that sort of obstinancy is not an asset in the White House - look at the current "Commander in Chief" for proof!).

i think that below a certain figure, low turn outs are interesting, because with a very low turnout, there is then the potential, a) for much more minor politicians to gain a foothold, and b) a realisation that there is an untapped market for votes out there. by not voting, you are not giving stamp of approval to the status quo.

of course this is also dangerous, because it is precisely this kind of set up that allows fascism a foothold also. extremely low turn outsin by-elections in oldham, burnley etc last summer allowed the BNP to gain seats in local government. and while this is a terrible thing, it is also saying, "look, your status quo is so bad, that parties like this are now getting a look in"

so it can be a difficult choice between voting for the least worse candidate, or contributing to a potential market of untapped votes, that allows something completely different in (unfortunately though, i think a) there is nothing to say that that potential new candidate is going to be very palatable either, and b) i think this can only really happen at the local level anyway)

no, by not voting for the incumbent, you are not giving stamp of approval to the status quo. There's a distinction. Politics is not some sort of vaccuum that miraculously appears out of nowhere with any new election. It is a continuum and by not voting you're just not participating, which is not sending any message other than "I'm not participating" irregardless of intention.

but if you are not in power, then not voting can be seen not as a stamp of approval because there are people not voting for...anything!

i think below a certian point (which has not been reached in the US yet), there is a potential mass market for votes, but i think disenfranchisement has to be much stronger than currently now

i cant see non-participation as a stamp of approval, because they very low participation in oldham, burnley etc allowed a party with a policy of 'repratriation' of all non-whites to gain seats. the lack of votes meant that their figures were enough to get them in

also, 30s germany?

blount, im not saying this is a situation that is happening in america, because despite low turnouts, they are not low enough that this could happen really.

also, i think that politics in america is a 2 party system, because people think it is. it will only be when people stop thinking that that it can be so. it is how it is because people think it is how it is

what i am saying is that in certain scenarios in the past, low turnout=low threshold=extremist entryism.

Also, telling people that not voting sends a "message" is bullshit and irresponsible, so in that sense charltonlido and I am NOT in agreement.

also, not sure what berating the public for not voting is going to achieve. people need to be encouraged to vote, not told off.

I still don't think that a small turnout means that there is a consistent or coherent voice produced by those who don't vote. I'd say that the BNP winning in low-turnout elections actually diminishes the plausibility of that argument, in a sense.

so the message is not a coherent or even conscious one, but to a smaller party it says this: "concentrate on the 6". in a racially divided very poor town where most of the people arent even going to vote, how hard can it be to do that?

but it is only facilitated by the non-participation of the 94. so, while it is only the votes of the 6 that count, its only because the 94 didnt. the 94 will probably get something they didnt want, and, yes, they only have themselves to blame, but thats the message they sent. the message was: they didnt matter

aaargh! no. im saying their message wasnt relevant. their message was: "our views dont matter, we dont exist, concentrate on those that will vote "

but, as anthony says, not voting (for whatever reason, especially if for no reason) also sends out its own message, that of disenfranchisement, of disillusionment with what is on offer etc

and

by not voting, you are not giving stamp of approval to the status quo

neither of which really support your position now.

so, the message is unfocussed, subconscious, unintentional often. it facilitates a new landscape where someone can get in who could never have got in otherwise. or, to put it another way, noise can be as much a message as signal. perhaps the word 'message' is not helping us here. but its something that anyone looking for votes can read

i think this can then lead to the following. ok, so people arent voting, so what can we hook them on, what are we going to sell them if we want to get in? and thats where people like the bnp, or the greens, or independents come in, ok, i dont need to sell this to like 40% of the electorate, 6 is enough! thats the message: that if people arent voting, you dont need so many of them to get in! you can upset the status quo, kick over the applecart, because you only need a few of them. but then also, major parties can look at this situation and say, hang on, the lack of votes here is letting these new fellers in, what are we going to do about it?

stencil: THIS IS NOT A COHERENT CONSCIOUS INTENTIONAL MESSAGE! they dont write it down on a piece of paper and wave it in the air!

i apologise if i appear to have conflated a potential personal choice with the actions of the public in general. i did mean to link them, but not to suggest they were in effect the same

as they have thought for 200+ years, during which time no third party Presidential candidate has garnered more than 46 electoral votes. today, all but two members of Congress belong to one of the two parties, and neither of the exceptions belongs to a major third party. exactly how will this change? (and why would we want it to?)

you: can not vote as a statement if you choose to do so. intentional
non-voting public: unconscious incoherent absence. unintentional

and that making a personal choice adds to this confusion and helps the facilitation of something else coming in. though that might not be something you like

really i am saying that non-participation also has its own effects beyond approval for status quo. or that it, by no means, merely means the continuation of the status quo, but in many instances, as documented above, facilitates the entryism of much smaller parties that would neve have got in if there had been full voter turnout

because the 2 major parties believe in capitalism and a global policeman role and operate within a shared framework with only minor differences.

something would have to change drastically. for the last 70 years, turnout in a presidential election has not gone above ~62% or below ~45%.

because the 2 major parties believe in capitalism and a global policeman role and operate within a shared framework with only minor differences.

neither major party can be defined as institutionally believing in a "global policeman role," although it is possible that majorities of the Congressional representatives of each party so believe (I doubt this).

as for believing in "capitalism," whatever that is, you would be hard-pressed to find a tiny percentage of Americans who do not.

but before i go, i am well aware of the disagreements between the 2 parties over what that global policeman role should actually be, but in effect, you only have to look at american participation in global wars over the last 50 years to see that, no matter what level the involvement, there is still involvement, even when isolationism has been professed.

I don't find it odd, just reflective of differences of intention!

From an English perspective, the two US parties DO look quite similar, but I suspect this is as much to do with the differences being different than the actual magnitude of separation.

riiight. when return make sense. all of these wars except maybe bosnia and kosovo are utterly different. can you tell me how bombing yugoslavia and preciptiting worse ethnic cleansing (from a very very murky starting point) even compares to getting rid of hitler? or how the latter has anything to do with taking over the french colonial interest in vietnam?

well that ended well.

I'm all for administering tests - not those pesky 'racist' IQ tests the liberals are always complaining about - but tests on the issues at hand. Prerequisites for concerned citizens.

Yet another thread begging for my mighty phallus.
-- Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, November 26, 2003 11:34 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark Link

riiight. when return make sense. all of these wars except maybe bosnia and kosovo are utterly different. can you tell me how bombing yugoslavia and preciptiting worse ethnic cleansing (from a very very murky starting point) even compares to getting rid of hitler? or how the latter has anything to do with taking over the french colonial interest in vietnam?

-- enrique (Enrique), Thursday, November 27, 2003 5:21 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark Link

^^^ on the wrong side of history

oh, phew max – I thought you meant that until I read someone else said it first. o_O