This is why when more and more people become dependent on Govt handouts, they keep voting in favor or more handouts. Until one day this nation collapses into nothing. Either they don’t care because they can’t see (or choose not to see) the consequences of going down the path.
Hey STL!
What about they are the leading expert on that particular field that politicians are seeking to reform? To me, knowledge / informed opinion is more important criteria to let someone contribute to the conversation rather than if they voted.
I don’t vote, but I know more about certain issues than those who did vote. And perhaps my utility is to inform more people, since one vote doesn’t make a difference. But word of mouth is an exponential function 
I get the reason why a lot of folks on here don’t vote, and that is certainly your right to chose not to vote, but have any of you ever considered writing in your own name or Mickey Mouse or something? I would think that makes more of a point than just not showing up.
It takes effort to go to the polling center to write in a candidate.
Voting and informing the public aren’t mutually exclusive. I’m not saying if you don’t vote you can’t have an opinion, or loudly voice that opinion. I just don’t want to hear you complain about the political process if you aren’t actively participating in it. I get why people don’t vote, and I understand the ideology behind your vote being a non-vote, so to speak. Realistically it just won’t effect change, in my opinion.
This has long been the libertarian paradox. If we hate government so much, isn’t it sacrilege to participate in it? But if we don’t have libertarians in office and libertarians don’t vote that only ensures guys get voted in that we won’t like. There are tons of libertarians that firmly believe not participating is the way to go…to make your statement by abstaining. Sit back and wait for the collapse. I’d be interested to get Turd’s take on this. My guess is this is where he and I may differ. Again just guessing here, but I think he’s waiting for the system to break so we can hit the reset button. I’d love that, in theory, but I don’t think it’s going to happen, at least not in my lifetime.
So, instead I side with the libertarians that participate in the system, knowing it’s not ideal, to proactively effect change. I don’t want to sit back while my rights are taken away from me, or idiots that shouldn’t even be able to get a fishing license are voted into congress. I vote because I want to do my part to direct policy in such a way that suits my interests.
Then bchad votes and we cancel each other out.
STL, I would vote if I lived in a state that was a swing state. Can’t remember who, but a statistician normalized the power of votes per state. And pf course, swing state votes had much more influence on the outcome.
And I would agree. I wouldn’t say I’m a loud voice of opinions in real life. But I do tend to try to talk in facts and mattter of fact statements and the listener can interpret as they wish. But it tends to at least improve the debates I’m forced to listen to by coworkers who weren’t as informed on that issue before my injection. Especially when it comes to finance topics, international trade, and other stuff that is popular today.
Double post
There are still drug addicts in Singapore despite the harsh laws and very conservative culture within Singapore. Honestly, I don’t think the United States could ever stop illegal immigration either, no government has the power necessary to stop such broad and pervasive social issues like drug abuse and illegal immigration, nor should we be willing to grant them that power.
Sure they could. Just beef up security presence and give security forces the power to arrest, detain, interrogate, and potentially eliminate illegal immigrants and I think we can start seeing reductions.
I think the government can very much eliminate drug use, but people don’t have the stomach to tolerate the methods they will use. This is why I respect Singapore’s view. They have a set of principles and have steadfastly stuck by them.
The issue with illegal immigration is not a lack of ability to enforce - it’s lack of willingness. Large sections of this country are ok with illegal immigrants and the section that aren’t will not advocate harsh and brutal methods. D’s support broad amnesty, and R’s are split between fiscal conservatives whom are ok with it, and social conservatives who haven’t supported it, but some of whom are warming up to it.
Ron Paul brought up a great point IMO. He said allowing immigration is a great thing for America (just look at the early 1900s) if you aren’t a heavy welfare state. If you are, then they come and may end up net costing the system (must provide health care at a hospital even if they can’t pay, for example).
If they totally eliminated the electroral college bullcrap, and went with the popular vote I would vote.
I live in a state where there’s not snowball’s chance in hell the other party would win the state. So ultimately, my vote means nothing.
If by popular vote, everyone’s vote means soemthing.
This is why they need to award electoral votes by congressional district instead of winner take all.
There is a simple solution: allow people to immigrate legally but delay allowing them to be citizens and only restrict welfare programs to only citizens.
The problem with the popular vote is that candidates would only campaign in large cities and ignore states that would not meaningfully contribute to the popular vote. The popular vote also would promote regionalism. A Republican could focus his campaign on the South and a Democrat may focus his campaign on the coasts. I’m not sure there is one “correct” way to reform the electoral college, but the power rests almost completely on the states to do so. For instance, Maine and Nebraska use a Congressional district approach (as Higgmond suggests) instead of a winner-take-all system. I favor a proportional system, such single transferable vote, but a Congressional district approach is better than what we have. A proportional system would reduce wasted votes more than either approaches.
careful dude, you almost sound like a libertarian.
In practice the electoral college and the popular vote have delivered the same result in all but four elections, or roughly once every fifty years, and those elections were typically pretty close in the popular vote. So yes, it’s imperfect, but it’s not the gross corruption of popular sovereignty that would happen if the candidate who won had substantially less than the one who lost.
I do cringe when people use the electoral college count to argue that Obama won in a landslide or won by a wide margin. The vote that counts for that determination is the popular vote, which was much closer. However, I also cringe when republicans confidently announce: “Americans want [whatever I feel like saying]” without any evidence to back up the fact that if it were truly and unquestionably what Americans wanted, it wouldn’t even be a topic of debate.
The “I don’t vote because of the Electoral College” is an even sillier argument than the “I don’t vote because I want to protest the system” argument. If the Electoral College is really the culprit, then don’t vote for President, which is the only office where the electoral college makes a difference. You still have representatives, senators, mayors, assembly people, and state government that is chosen by direct popular votes, so use your power there if that (and not being too lazy to bother) is the real reason not to vote. .
I only vote in CFA society elections. Truly, it is the last bastion of political grace and fairness.
The problem with using past elections to support the continued, unmodified use of the electoral college is that we have no idea how many people didn’t vote because they believed their vote wouldn’t really have mattered. I lived in NJ most of my life and as a republican I knew it didn’t matter if I voted for POTUS or not because except in very rare instances, the democratic candidate was going to win the state and all its electoral votes. I voted anyway, but who knows how many people didn’t bother. If I were a democrat living in TX, I would probably feel the same way. Is it inconceivable to think that if electoral votes were awarded based on winning a congressional district that more people would feel their vote matters and would therefore take the time to go out and vote?
One way to get an indicator of this would be to see how many ballots came in with a vote for their congressman but not for president. If the electoral college had an effect on people feeling their vote doesn’t matter, then they won’t vote for president, but they would vote for congressman, where their votes are “undiluted” by te electoral college process.
I don’t have that data available, but I would guess that the number of people who vote for president but not for their congressional representative is a lot larger than those who vote for their representative but not President, which, if true, would suggest that the electoral college is a pretty small effect. People may feel that their vote doesn’t count for many reasons (including corruption or just the fact that a vote is just one of thousands or millions of other votes), but the electoral college is probably not a significant one in practice - its far more likely to be an intelligent-sounding excuse for general apathy.
Voting is a privilege, not a right. Voicing your opinion is a right, not a privilege.
I disagree. Just look how much participation increases in presidential years and how much it increases when a state is expected to be close. Someone who bothers to make the trip to vote for their congressman is going to vote for president anyway because there is not cost to do so. So the structure of the EC is meaningless to that guy, but it could be very meaningful to the guy who is trying to decide whether to bother going at all.
Also, what would be the harm in assigning EC votes by congressional district or proportional to popular vote? Would either of those be worse than the current system?