Gorgonseye on 4/11/2006 at 18:29
Bitching about people who bitch, my head is spinning just from the thought of it.
pavlovscat on 4/11/2006 at 18:40
I wasn't bitching, just making a statement.
Well, OK, maybe I was bitching a little. You guys really shouldn't post these sorts of things for me to see when I've just woken up. I tend towards belligerance in the mornings, but I still stand by what I said. Bitching about something you have no intention of even attempting to change is annoying to me. And, yes, I have tried actively to get more people interested in learning about the issues & voting. So, I'm not just bitching pointlessly. I have at least made many attempts, some successful, to educate people about why they should vote and get them at the polls.
TTK12G3 on 4/11/2006 at 19:04
Quote Posted by Strontium Dog
The one good thing is that these cartoonish Republican attacks just go to show how utterly desperate they are for votes.
This is true. Unfortunately, the people watching those ads probably have no concept of exterior thought, and will take in the information that spouts from them quite easily.
TheGreatGodPan on 4/11/2006 at 20:34
I didn't register to vote. I could blame Bryan Caplan for convincing me of its irrationality, but I honestly wouldn't have done so even if I'd never heard of him. My one vote doesn't matter. The outcome will be exactly the same no matter what I do. I'd rather the Republican and Democratic candidates both lose, but there's no way in hell the Libertarian candidate (if there even is one, I haven't really examined the local races) is going to win. I think the whole mean-attack ads, special interests (I guess my interests aren't special, but those of anyone who isn't me are) and poor personal behavior are red-herrings distracting us from the reality that when politicians do their job in the straight&narrow way and (
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/31/AR2006103101311_pf.html) carry out the will of the people they are still fucking us over every step of the way. Anti-(
http://www.city-journal.org/html/11_3_oh_to_be.html) corruption political campaigns are common among populist authoritarian movements and it often works to fool people into thinking the government can be reformed into benevolence. The result of removing anything that might subvert the government from its noble goals is just to let it more effectively do what it (
http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2006/11/government_pate.html) does best, which is to rob, destroy, imprison and kill. My opinion toward democracy is not quite as negative as that of (
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2006/09/my_latest_paper.html) Mises let alone (
http://www.lewrockwell.com/hoppe/hoppe4.html) Hoppe, but I hold out no hope that we'll someday get decent people in power with the public interest in mind (not believing in a public interest is part of that). It's not the personalities that cause the problem, but the system. There used to be restraints in the system that checked a lot of the shit they pull, but those have been eroded. Would things be better than the alternative if Congress was full of Ron Paul clones? Sure. But unless structural changes are made I would expect policy to continue to get worse, just not as quickly.
pavlovscat on 4/11/2006 at 20:45
One vote may not seem like much, but if enough unsatisfied people believe that, then the possibility of change becomes nearly impossible. If enough people vote against the established order, then maybe we can at least start to repair the system. Call me an optimist. Call me a fool. But I sleep better at night knowing I at least tried. At the very least, my voice was counted.
Agent Monkeysee on 4/11/2006 at 21:32
Quote Posted by TTK12G3
This is true. Unfortunately, the people watching those ads probably have no concept of exterior thought, and will take in the information that spouts from them quite easily.
Everything I've read says that attack ads are universally reviled by voters actually. The problem is, like all advertising, they're not competing to get a message out so much as they are competing to out-shout the competition.
TheGreatGodPan on 4/11/2006 at 21:33
Counted and then ignored. All that matters is which candidate got the plurality, and as long as the gap was larger than one vote yours did not change the outcome. That "sleeping better at night" point reminds me of Caplan's idea of (
http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/ratirnew.doc) rational irrationality.
WingedKagouti on 4/11/2006 at 21:40
Quote Posted by TheGreatGodPan
Counted and then ignored. All that matters is which candidate got the plurality, and as long as the gap was larger than one vote yours did not change the outcome.
If you give up without trying then you
will lose, if you attempt to win then you have a chance of winning.
Of course, if you're dead set on losing then there's not much the rest of us can do for you.
Gorgonseye on 4/11/2006 at 21:44
Think of it this way, if you use the right to vote, you earn the right to bitch.
TheGreatGodPan on 4/11/2006 at 21:46
Quote Posted by Gorgonseye
Think of it this way, if you use the right to vote, you earn the right to bitch.
The first amendment gives me that. Most people did not have the right to vote when it was first adopted. I won't go the (
http://blog.lewrockwell.com/lewrw/archives/004634.html) Galambos route and say "If you vote, don't complain" because complaining is everyone's right.
