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eBay The Vote
Internet Voting writes "Voters in Argentina's upcoming presidential election have found an interesting solution to their political apathy: eBay. 'New and unused' votes are being posted from $0.30 to $95. Electoral authorities say they're powerless to stop it. 'Argentine electoral authorities say they can do little to stop the practice because it falls into a legal vacuum. One of the voters, Martin Minue, a doctor from the northern province of Rioja, told a newspaper it was his way to protest against useless politicians. Mr Minue, 33, told the Clarin paper he felt powerless to change the country's situation. The doctor, who works in the city of Chilecito, posted his vote on an auction website with a price tag of 20 pesos (US$6).'"
This year's spending by candidates in the Presidential election is going to be something like 2 billion dollars. For that kind of money, the political parties could just give everyone in the USA $10, and quit wasting everyone's time with stupid commercials. Those people who are politically active don't need to see them, and those people who are not don't give a poo, so, why bother?
This is my sig.
"Not entirely...politicians buying votes with promises of increased welfare benefits, "free" healthcare, increased Social Security benefits, and a higher minimum wage should count a WHOLE FUCKING LOT."
FYP.
> In a democracy, you ... have the right to democratically select a dictatorship.
But in a republic, we DON'T have the right to democratically select a dictatorship. We've got a political abstraction layer known as the system of "checks and balances," and one of its functions is to protect the system (not the government, mind you, but the system) from the citizens. After all, we don't just have our own generation to think about; we can fail ourselves, but the heirs to our mistakes at least need some chance to recover.
--I'm so big, my sig has its own sig.
-- See?
people who don't vote, and people who sell their vote, are more responsible for the sorry state of the world than any elected official ever could be. if you don't vote, or you sell your vote, you are the source of evil and corruption and suffering in this world, no one else
I disagree.
If, for instance, you live in a region where the vast majority of the citizens continually vote for some corrupt politician, then there really is nothing you can do to fix it. You're in a minority, and the majority wants the corrupt politician in power. So what harm is there in selling your vote, or not voting? Of course, this is a hypothetical scenario, but I believe it's valid.
Not voting at all is a bad idea, however, if the overall voter turn-out is low, because then you have far more chance to make a difference. But if the turn-out is very high, and it's all against you, then there's really very little point to voting, other than trying to show support for an unpopular choice. Your best course of action is to either ignore politics and learn to live with it somehow, or pack up and move to greener pastures, where the fellow citizens aren't so stupid.
You're right when you say that "a government is no better than its citizens". When a country like, for instance, Mexico, has utterly corrupt politicians and everyone is dirt poor while a few people are extremely wealthy, and the country's rich resources go unexploited, the fault ultimately lies at the feet of the people. One way or another, they have the power to change things, and they're too lazy or fearful to do so.
There's a huge difference between buying votes with money and buying votes with promises.
Yes, because the promises are worthless.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
By that definition there are no "true democracies," and few people would want to live in one, as it wouldn't be very compatible with individual freedom.
Yes and no. You're right, but you haven't gone far enough. At least in the Democratic party, the place things get started is in the precinct caucus, where everyone gets together and submits suggestions, that get collated into party statements. (I understand it works differently on the Republican side...) When I was running caucuses, a lot of the time a grand total of a dozen people would show up, out of 2000 people who were nominally political enough to have registered and been kept on the voter registration rolls. If a handful of single-issue cranks showed up, they would absolutely swamp the caucus. If an organization encouraged its members to do this across a county or part of the state, it absolutely affected the result, in terms of who was running, what the party planks were, you name it. It's really no different than the Microsoft/OOXML thing: if you can mobilize a very few people in a large number of places, you can have an *enormous* effect on the entire system.
back to the subject at hand: want to have a part in how things are running? Spend 4 hours, once every two years, at your precinct caucus. Get two friends to do the same, and you can make a difference. Heck, get four friends to show up and vote you as the precinct representative, and take your message to the county level. My mom was a state caucus representative a bunch of times, because she knew a lot of people locally, and she took her pro-abortion, pro-civil-liberties, pro-free-speech message to the state Republicans and made a lot of unwelcome noise. More power to people like that, I say. If the people running this train don't hear dissent, they push the throttle down further, and the entire country is tied to the tracks.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Great, one of those. Man, I could spend an hour going off on you, but I'll just try to stick to the high points.
First of all, it's not YOUR money. Why? Because the US government, in its (lack of) infinite wisdom, has been spending far more than you've been paying it on your behalf. And I hate to burst your bubble, but that's the agreement that you sign onto by having income in this country. As a result, you have a massive debt that's getting bigger and bigger every day, and yet here you are, complaining that you want to pay less and less back.
Second of all, when you have such a massive debt, having a budget surplus is a good thing; it's what allows you to pay that debt off. If you have a credit card with a huge balance, don't you think that it's a good thing if you have a little left over each month to pay towards the balance? According to your logic, the answer is no, you should at most break even each month.
Third of all, if you're paying 33% of your income, then you must be extremely wealthy and extremely stupid. The marginal rate of 33% only applies if you make over $97,925 a year. If your total income tax is 33%, do you have any clue what that makes your income? $694,850. And the kicker? That's before any deductions are taken into account. I'm having a hard time believing that you actually make $694,850. If you do, more power to you, but I don't have any sympathy for your righteous indignation.
Fourth of all, your Fair Tax comment deserves its own full comment, but let's take at least a few pot shots at it: