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Should voting be obligatory?
Yes 22%  22%  [ 10 ]
No 67%  67%  [ 31 ]
Other answer 11%  11%  [ 5 ]
Total votes : 46

Tim_Tex
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25 Jul 2008, 12:36 pm

I prefer having the *right* to vote.


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Phagocyte
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25 Jul 2008, 1:43 pm

Orwell wrote:
Right. We should definitely force every philistine with no interest in political affairs and no ability to actually come to an informed decision to participate in national decision-making. :roll:


I completely agree. What we'll have are people flipping a coin and voting for a candidate on an arbitrary basis simply because they have to.


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slowmutant
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25 Jul 2008, 1:58 pm

Quote:
completely agree. What we'll have are people flipping a coin and voting for a candidate on an arbitrary basis simply because they have to.


No, this woud defeat the purpose of the democratic process altogether.



slowmutant
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25 Jul 2008, 2:00 pm

Hey phagocyte, who you calling a phillistine? :P



CRACK
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25 Jul 2008, 2:50 pm

Vote no

The opinions of those that can't be bothered to do something simple like getting up off their arse and vote SHOULDN'T be taken into account in any democratic system.



twoshots
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25 Jul 2008, 2:52 pm

Phagocyte wrote:
Orwell wrote:
Right. We should definitely force every philistine with no interest in political affairs and no ability to actually come to an informed decision to participate in national decision-making. :roll:


I completely agree. What we'll have are people flipping a coin and voting for a candidate on an arbitrary basis simply because they have to.

If only it were so random we reasonably expect the noise to cancel itself out.

The most insidious aspect of democracy is alive and well: philistines who are bought by demagoguery and its ilk.


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MrMark
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25 Jul 2008, 3:11 pm

CRACK wrote:
Vote no

The opinions of those that can't be bothered to do something simple like getting up off their arse and vote SHOULDN'T be taken into account in any democratic system.

Maybe we should have a referendum on that. :)


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slowmutant
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26 Jul 2008, 2:29 am

That's a capital idea, MrMark! A WP referendum on the importance of voting. :D



Vichy
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30 Jul 2008, 8:52 pm

Voting shouldn't exist. I for one don't shy from abolition of the State. It's entirely imaginary, anyway. Obey 'the government'. Who the hell is 'the government'? Obey the man from my dream. It's all the same BS. Social control through made up concepts.



Speckles
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31 Jul 2008, 12:33 am

Orwell wrote:
@Speckles: All right, well, you're free to disregard anyone's views as you please. We all do so from time to time. I wasn't putting forward the case of voting being pointless in this thread, just trying to show that such a view is at least internally consistent and the only way to refute it is to go after the assumptions it makes, which you addressed by referencing the Obama campaign. Anyways, I did vote in the primaries, and will probably vote in the general election if I can find a candidate that I feel I can support. But I understand that most people do not share my views and would be happier to maintain the status quo, so any activism I would participate in would be geared to somewhat more moderate ends- striving for a balanced budget rather than gutting the federal government, advocating Friedman's NIT idea rather than attempting to dismantle the IRS, etc.


Ahh, sorry for taking so long to respond, my interwebs has been flaky :cry: . Anyways, I just want to add that, in your case at least, not voting would not be enough to make me actually disregard your views, as they have much else to recommend them. It's simply one factor of many that I use to filter.

I was more trying to point out that being disdainful of those who don't vote is also an internally consistent view, even if the efficacy of voting is in question. It's not just people being holier-then-thou, though this definitely the case for some (though the opposite is also true, that some who abstain from voting are just plain apathetic). On an individual level voting can serve as a token of political responsibility and commitment to the local community; this is actually why I would support requiring people to put in a number of volunteer hours to the community in order to earn the right to vote. That would reinforce the association between good citizenship and voting, and encourage those who aren't willing to take the time to properly inform themselves to not vote. Anyone who isn't willing to spend a few hours reading and thinking about the issues probably also isn't willing to spend a few hours working for free.

The point were I feel that voting becomes pointless is when is when you know that the votes are not going to be counted properly or respected. I'm not talking about the level of vote skewing that went on in the 2000 US elections; that at best was a few percentage points, and the slight fraud wouldn't have worked if there had really been a strong preference for one candidate. I'm talking about the second round of voting in Zimbabwe, where it's totally obvious that the game is crooked. But the situation in the US is a far cry from that.


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BallisticMystic
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31 Jul 2008, 12:35 am

I don't vote, but the reason isn't because I have anything against any political system. I am allowed one vote and I vote for the Whole which precludes me from taking sides. I'm also not allowed membership in any organization at the exclusion of others for the same reason. It's kind of like a centering function that keeps me on the straight and narrow path.


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17 Apr 2015, 9:30 am

I don't think voting should be compulsory because the major political parties in the UK have nothing to offer and so in effect I have been disenfranchised not in the forbidding to vote but because the parties don't represent my views and the major ones you cannot put a rizla between them. Labour, Conservatives are the same Lib dems will just sell out to the majority, UKIP is far too right wing and will clobber disabled and non allistic like the Tories and Labour have done. So that is British politics for you and no matter who gets into number 10 Downing Street it will be a psychopath or someone with that kind of personality disorder. :idea: