You're forgetting one very important factor here, debt. Taxes aren't an accurate measurement of government growth. Government spending really defines the scope of Uncle Sam. Not what they collect. According to our debt history, the government is on a long-term trend reaching levels only once before in the history of this country. The only thing the government does is yell "We can provide more!" at the expense of future generations' pocketbook. Even in the face of the largest recession/depression, the government will continue to grow. Even when the GDP plateaus or shrinks.
Hey, the US is only 19 on the Corruption Perceptions Index. We must be doing something right! But really, I love this debate. Everyone loves to talk about voting as a fundamental civic duty. Well here is a little bit of information for everyone out there: voting is not a civic duty. It's the last part of your civic duty. Participate in the selection of the candidate. Help to form policy. Inform the government of the issues that are present in your community that you require them to address. Then vote on these things. That's fulfilling your 'civic duty.' Of course, if we were doing that, we'd have no time to be doing other fun things, like our jobs. So we have divided up the labor of policing government and given it to (surprise) the government. America is not a democracy or a republic, it's a bureaucracy that keeps our shit running relatively smoothly so we are free to likewise run around doing mostly whatever it is we want to do. People get all up in arms when they think they don't have a say in the voting process. The only trouble is that there is very little value in voting in federal processes, because it's all been predetermined for you. The government has given you your representatives. Ignore the fact that they probably don't represent you very well, just check the D or the R. The government has told you what your problems are, now how would you like the government to fix them? Just kidding, they already know how, but they thought you might like to play along at home. Don't get me wrong, I don't find this an inherently wrong system. Not everyone can be educated about politics all the time, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, and nothing wrong with abstaining if you don't know anything about the vote. What I find wrong is people giving you a lecture about it when they understand very little about the political process and think that following the news is enough to make them an "informed voter." Good, now that you're informed you will realize that the only way to influence change in government is to become a part of government. Enjoy your newfound career as a campaign coordinator and let me know when your candidate gets elected (but god help you if they're not Democrat or Republican).
For this to hold true you are talking about an uneven distribuition of voters. For Kerry to get another 121,000 votes he would have needed another few mllion voters to come out. As said before I actually believe in compulsary voting, but the point made by JPProctor that voting on the grounds of policy is a waste of time does hold true.
I have to agree with Beefy Phil, I do not vote because I am not going to give my tacit approval to a system which necessarily (at this point) does not, nor will not, represent my interests. I don't want to get all political here (but a bit unavoidable given the subject) but the fact of the matter is I want smaller, much smaller, government. There has not been a presidential, nor local (to NJ) candidate since the Roosevelt administration that has reduced the size of government. As such, until someone actually comes up with a plan to reduce the size of the sprawling government - and the associated ills that come with government acting as the major economic actor in the marketplace - I'm not voting. Give me someone worth voting for, and you'll get my vote.
I work in a military-based, categorically conservative field. A lot of funding that keeps my job new, exciting, challenging, and rewarding is largely based on who's approving what at the highest levels of the US government. But I don't give a fucking fuck, because the ineptitude across elected officials, largely speaking, makes me want to revert back to primordial man, poop in my hand, and fling it at things. I vote, sure. But typically for things that directly affect me. For example, I love the Chesapeake Bay. If you love the Chesapeake Bay and have initiatives for it, you'll likely get my vote. My wife votes. As a teacher, she is primarily concerned with local education philosophies and implementation thereof. If you can see, these are what I like to call "small scale" issues, in which you may actually see your vote put into action. Two of recent note were the rock fish revitalization bill and menhaden protection act (and may be some shit for education, not sure). Point being, once I grew up and realized that there is no way you can help the whole world (and trust me, you can't) you have to bound yourself to what you can affect; this is independent of your politics or religion. It's about your neighbors, your family, and your friends and building relationships that are manageable, symbiotic, and worth-fucking-while-yer-here. Therefore, don't count on any politician or vote to save YOU and YOUR situation. Save your fucking self, be a good friend, be a good neighbor, and realize that you can transcend the situation and free freedom within your own sphere of influence.
Look - if you really care about changing the world you live in, go out and do something tangible. Burn down an abortion clinic, murder Brian Williams, host a massive barnyard orgy, etc. Don't just vote for a douchebag politician and delude yourself into thinking you somehow affected the course of human history. You didn't. In the scheme of things, voting for a douchebag - whether he wins or loses - is really about as significant as clicking "like" on someone's Facebook status. Thread closed.
How do you do what you do, yet have such a poor command of this concept? The only explanation possible is that your parents drilled the importance of voting into you so early that you were unable to form an independent adult opinion. You know, like Judaism. Have you ever tried to get 121,000 people to do something without offering them a tangible, non-contingent carrot or stick? Do you think that the determinative statistic is that it's only 1% of the state population, rather than 121,000 people who each have to be induced to vote (or abstain) in a single direction? I'm not sure how strong your quantitative background is, but at a sample of about 3500, the normal distribution tends to level off. A "few thousand" is a lot of fucking people. How do you want me to argue your complex alternate-reality scenario? Would Kerry liberals necessarily create different law that Bush conservatives? Better or worse for the voters? Where are We the People left with the Kerry-McCain winner as our president? Those are rhetorical questions, with the only possible answer being that it probably would provide the same costs and benefits, on balance, as the actual reality. Shit, dude, I don't know if I would have been more disappointed had you jumped on the "earn your right to complain" bandwagon.
Voter turnout is extremely low because in the long run, it doesn't really matter who is voted in. Anyone who thinks that there is an actual difference between Democrats and Republicans is a fool. The only tangible difference is the speed at which our rights and control of our lives are eroded away. Very, very rarely has any egregious violation of American Rights ever been revoked. Take the patriot act. It was put in by Republicans to extreme howling and caterwauling by Democrats much akin to a testicle-stapler accident. But the moment that Democrats take power they did not repeal it, but in fact made it permanent. Or for the opposite, take the Assault Weapons ban by the Democrats. The moment republicans had control they did NOT repeal it, but instead let it expire. The good majority of stands taken by Republicans or Democrats aren't made out of beliefs, but are made to be the opposite of what the other party has said. Those that do actually vote are mostly driven by the desire to fuck the other people out of as much loot as possible. Take the recent US Census Commercials. Not once is the Actual Constitutional Purpose of accurately representing the population ever given. Instead it talks about filling the form in so that you can get as much money / loot as possible. The political system mainly exists to enrich the lives of the Oligarchy. Sometime ask yourself how the Congressmen, Senators and Presidents, on a relatively meager salary, can become so outrageously rich. If you can't tell, I'm a bit of an anarchist. I could go on for days, but I'll hold off making this post 20 pages long.
Why is everyone talking about Ohio in 2004 when the 2000 election came down to a few hundred votes in Florida? I know there were a myriad of other factors but Jesus the recounts came down to the wire.
Focus: Do you vote? Do you think it's an important role as a citizen? Alt. Focus: Does voting truly matter? I'm a little older than most on the board. I was born and raised in America. I vote. I vote because it is a privilege that I have living in one of the greatest countries of all time. I'm not going to make believe that my vote is going to decide anything critical or life and death. But, there is still hope that it does on some level. I served a little over four years in the Marine Corps, as a grunt. I didn't go to college after high school. At the time, there was no way that I was going to sit down in a classroom and listen to some old hippie yabber about the way things should be. I decided to do it by myself. (I've since been to college and I'm glad that I went when I was older.) Things that I've learned and paid for are all the more important to me. I was able to do these things, because of where I was born. The freedom to do whatever the hell, you can type, say and do what you want, when you want . That's what being an American is all about. People are mad because we've let the government become too large. And you can say "Wait a minute, I didn't do this!" You would be correct, you didn't. We did. America's done it to itself and it's fucked up, everyone knows this. What can we do to fix this? And, I say 'we' because it's going to take all of us to do it. And you know that the only way to do that. Of course, voting is a pain in the ass. And of course, no one wants to do jury duty. I've done it, it sucked ass. Would you want to trust your fate to twelve knuckleheads who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty? I would. Call it dumb or optimistic, it's probably a little bit of both. Maybe that's what makes us Americans? Dumb optimism. Rant over, bring the red dots you commie fags.
I probably know as little about politics/government/etc. as anyone here, so I'm sorry if this is stupid. What I'm wondering is this: Of course your single vote isn't going to decide an election, but what the fuck do you expect? Do you want your vote to count for 20% of everything? With tens or hundreds of millions of people in a country, how else can everybody get "their say"? There seem to be many many other problems with the system, but I don't see how voting itself is pointless. (Ideally) it shows what the majority of people want. If you're in the minority, obviously you're not going to get it your way - that's just how it is. Ok, I'll go back to my colouring books now.
Out of curiosity- how many other people have looked into parties outside of the two majors? I'm aware of the "not voting for the third party because it hurts my second favorite" mentality, but if you don't give fuck-all about any of the candidates, why not make your point by showing support for voting outside of the two party system? I'm not sure how I feel about any of the current third parties right now (that's another discussion entirely), but I do think that until the point is made that a third party can be a viable contender (not saying they'd win, just that their points would put them in contention), we're not going to end up with someone branching outside the financially advantageous two party system. That being said, I voted within that system in the past election. Didn't vote in the one previous, although I wanted to, because I was unexpectedly out of my home state on election day.
But it's not a privilege. A privilege is something you earn and then work to keep. All you have to do to vote in this country is be born here and not die before age 18. You don't have to suffer for it, you don't have to sacrifice for it, you can just do it. And because they can just do it, it means less to people, which is why they're not as angry as they should be that their contribution to an allegedly representative democracy means as little as it does. You should be angrier than anyone. You did your part. You put in four years worth of hard work in a military branch that most people (myself included) would not be able to hack. You have a sense of what it means to fight for a set of ideals, and they are that much more dear to you as a result. Maybe that's the answer. 'Starship Troopers' style. You win your right to vote when you prove that you're willing to serve for it. You wouldn't have to make people pick up a weapon, either. It wouldn't require that. People have a funny habit of ascribing value to things for which they've had to sacrifice time and effort. See how they react to the corruption of a right they spent 18-24 months of their young lives earning.
Does anyone remember this loveable nut? I remember voting for him. He was crazy/smart enough to do some changes. <a class="postlink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Perot" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Perot</a> United States presidential election, 1992 * Bill Clinton/Al Gore (D) - 44,909,806 (43.0%) and 370 electoral votes (32 states and D.C. carried) * George H. W. Bush/Dan Quayle (R) (Inc.) - 39,104,550 (37.4%) and 168 electoral votes (18 states carried) * Ross Perot/James Stockdale (I) - 19,743,821 (18.9%) and 0 electoral votes * Andre Marrou/Nancy Lord (L) - 290,087 (0.3%) and 0 electoral votes
The Founders actually had a system that made sense. Land Owners were the only people who could vote. The Land Owners were also the leading taxpayers. As it currently stands, 47% of the American people pay NOTHING in taxes. Roughly 60% of the American People get a net benefit from the Government. Like Ben Franklin said, "The Republic will last until the people realize that they can vote themselves the money." How can we expect the entitlement system to end when the majority keeps voting it for themselves? I personally believe that to get a Vote in the US system, you should put more into the system than you get out. You would have to pay more in taxes than the rebates and benefits you would get back.
That's utterly awful. You live in a country where every man and woman is equal, all men are citizens and therefore have a right to the running of the country. If you had your way, only the rich could vote and what then would happen to workers rights?
So you mean they don't even pay sales taxes? Man, I wish I could get by on not buying anything, ever. But yeah, you're right, the founders had a system that made sense: black people were worth 3/5ths of the white man and could be held as property. Oh, and women couldn't vote, either. Metric fuck-tons of sense, that system was.
What definition of "net benefit" are you using? Ideally, somewhere close to 100% of the American people would get a net benefit from the government, using my definition. How exactly are we going to itemize the benefits conferred by the government? Are we going to itemize road usage, the ability to consume food without undue risk of death? How much is not dying of smallpox* worth to you? How do you calculate the cost of rights-protection, civil protection, military protection? What's the value of living in a society where everyone has a legal right to basic education? *Joint effort, it wasn't 100% any one government's work, there was a significant collaboration between many involved people, but governments did do a large amount of the heavy lifting or funding for heavy lifting.
In Australia, as someone above noted, voting is compulsory. Technically, you can get fined if you're over 18 and are not registered to vote/don't vote. It's usually threatened, but quite often not enforced because not everyone is capable of bringing themselves to vote for the lesser of evils (and Australians are world famous for apathy). What I don't agree with is the "one person, one vote" mantra. We are all created equal, but from there there's opportunity to improve or fuck up. So I would propose something like the following: All citizens get one vote (unless you're in jail, in which case you've demonstrated you don't want to take part in lawful society) If you have a job: +1 vote If you employ people: +1 vote If you personally pay more than $X in tax: +1 vote for every increment of $X. If you haven't been convicted of a misdemeanour in the last 10 years (including traffic): +1 vote If you're a farmer: +1 vote If you own real property: +1 vote If you are/have been a member of the armed forces: +1 vote So, in other words, the more you contribute to society, the more say you have. A complete nightmare to administrate and thoroughly unworkable practically, but I think that would smarten things up a little.