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How Much is Your Right to Vote Worth?
Attila Dimedici writes "Two thirds of the students at NYU would give up their right to vote in the next election for a full scholarship. Some would be satisfied with an ipod. A few would be willing to give up the right for the rest of their lives for one million dollars."
Theoretically, if we had candidates that represented us instead of the interests of corporations and special interest groups, our right to vote would be worth a great deal.
However, since our choices are limited to list A of sycophants or list B of sycophants, I'm thinking the college kids have over-valued the vote.
We can't elect anyone worth much to the general population, we can't get them impeached when they break the laws, violate the constitution, torture, engage in warmaking, arrest without probable cause, hold people incommunicado without hearings for extended periods of time, make a huge industry out of imprisoning the population for personal choices about what intoxicants they prefer...
Yes, I'd say an ipod is worth considerably more than a vote is today. It shouldn't be; but here we are.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
How much is my vote worth? I can answer that pretty easily...
Give me enough cash to live on comfortably, buy an island of my own where I won't be bothered, enough to bring people I want to visit there, and of course protect against pirates. Anyone know how much an army of ninjas costs?
Everyone has their price - that's mine.
convert them to a more trustworthy currency and get the fuck out of here.
I'd almost say who wouldn't give up their vote for a big material gain? One vote makes a really small difference, and most votes are basically between a douche and a turd.
I'll only give up voting when they pry the lever from my cold, dead hands!
Seriously, even though corporations have control of our government at the moment, voting is not a right that you can sell or give away.
Vote at the polls, vote by taking action, and vote for yourself as someone who can make our country better.
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
Not sure if people are missing the message. It's not about buying someone's vote, but someone's RIGHT to vote. Not just now, but for all time.
Oh, well... in the past, people have sold not just thier vote (or their right to vote), but their very soul... for much less.
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
Voting is a precious right but it exists, in a practical sense, to give people influence over their government. Viewed that way, swapping the right to vote for anything that gives someone a better ability to influence the government is a smart trade.
How does this work in practice? Large corps have great political influence even though they have no right to vote. What they do have is money. In the real world, then, money applied to the political process is the equivalent of voting.
Given enough money that I am enabled to influence politics via means other than voting, I would consider selling my right to vote a perfectly rational, even patriotic thing to do.
In my case, I'm eligible for early retirement and could be politically active in a variety of ways post-retirement, but my pension wouldn't be big enough to give me enough free time to labor toward political goals. With just enough money to augment my pension I'd be free to pursue tasks other than eking out an existence.
I figure USD$1M would do it, barely. I'd certainly sell my right to vote for USD$5M.
You could have far more influence over the government with that $1,000,000 than you ever will by voting.
Now all we need is to vote in candidates who are willing to enact a retroactive 200% tax on vote selling and we can pay off the national debt.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
If the candidates are equally good (or bad) to someone, it doesn't matter whom he votes. However, if a significant portion of people gives up their right to vote, one cannot reasonably expect the behavior of all the candidates to remain the same.
All this really reveals is priorities:
"Two thirds of the students at NYU would give up their right to vote in the next election for a full scholarship."
Okay, so how about they all vote for a candidate who will deliver a European-style Universal Third Level Education?
Yup...
We'd get a President who could run a successful, large company -- a damn big step up, I'd say.
The problem with your scenario - and the good thing behind the electoral college (which needs to be kept, but revamped so the popular vote in each state proportionally splits the electoral college vote) is that it gives a little more say in the election to the smaller, more rural states. If the electoral college were abolished, ALL the power would be vested and wasted and concentrated in large, concentrated urban areas. The rest of us would get screwed over.
The going rate for the year 2000 election was the $200-300 tax rebate Bush promised. I remember, quite explicitly, a colleague saying "I want $200, I'm voting for Bush."
People don't care about their country, their children's futures, or their own long-term well being. They say they do, but they don't. When it comes down to it, they sell out their souls, their childrens' souls, and their nations souls for a pittance.
The truth is that people get the government they deserve. A shit government elected by lazy, apathetic, and happily clueless citizens who simply don't deserve better.
If they did, they wouldn't elect the people they do. The shit politicians we elect are *obviously* shit politicians. Few try and say they're not going to do that, so they vote for the joke politicians: Ron Paul, Ross Perot, whoever. Instead of sitting there with the politician they actually like and voting for them, even when they know they'll fail. Admitting they voted for someone who lost. Instead, we disconnect and feign apathy, as we've spoiled ourselves in our fantasies about what kind of government we deserve. Why do we get so many shit politicians? The good leaders gave up on the US citizenry, for good reason.
Want proof? How many people pay attention in the primaries, where the good candidates actually show up once in a while?
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
What was the other third thinking ? Seriously I don't think they believe their vote matter or will possibly change anything.... My guess is that democracy represents some kind of religion for them, a cult of the state where each good citizen does his duty by casting his ballot, protecting his precious liberty... in this mindset, their right to vote holds some kind of mystical power. I am glad the two other third don't buy in this naive cult, freedom has always been destroyed through the ballot.
\u262D = \u5350
Federal elections: It doesn't matter who I vote for, the NY electoral votes go to the Democrats.
State elections: It doesn't matter who I vote for, the NY assembly wastes all the money and asks for more.
Local elections: It doesn't matter who I vote for, everything is dictated by the federal and state governments, except how much money my town wastes on doomed projects.
I'd like a Ritter Sport, but would settle for a few Hershey's Kisses.
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
Democracy is an education in every mind.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I think all this shows is what people perceive their vote is really worth. All you can really do with your vote is join an effort to throw the bums out. Maybe the next set of bums will be better, but it's usually only a matter of degrees.
A really interesting experiment would be if we allowed US citizens to sell their citizenship to someone else. The deal is once you sell it, you can never get it back. How much would you take to give up your US citizenship forever? That's when we'd find out how serious people really are. It would also give us an idea how the rest of the world views living here.
Would I sell mine? That's a good question. I'm pretty ashamed of the last seven years of US history and shamed by the 25% still supporting a corrupt, incompetent administration. Seeing Bush in a prison cell next to Cheney and Rove, stand a couple telco execs up against the wall for cooperating with the effort to spy on the American public, purge the FBI and Justice Dept. of anyone who used investigative powers toward political ends...the answer might be different. But I don't see that happening.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Your vote is not worth a lot. That is, your specific, individual vote is worth next to nothing. You can influence all of the elections you would have voted on far more with a million dollars than with a single vote.
Of course, the point is that the right to vote is priceless. And if everyone could exchange their right to vote for cash, then suddenly that million dollars would not buy you any influence.
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
Ron Paul, at least in my opinion, is one of the few decent politicians we have left. He actually says what he believes, and then consistently votes that way. He also takes virtually no money from lobbying groups. He is running for President in 2008 with the Republican party, although his views are much more in-line with the libertarians. Here is a link to his http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Ron_Paul/ views on wikipedia
I'd like to see how many of those college students would give up their other Constitutionally protected right, freedom from slavery. Would they take a million dollars in exchange for becoming a slave for about 40 years, until they turned 65 years old? Ten million?
Rights are inalienable. We can't surrender them, though sometimes we can suffer their infringement. The more temporary the infringement, the more voluntary, the more we can suffer it. But any infringement pressures people in a way that inevitably becomes intolerable, and we don't tolerate it. That's why we create governments to protect those rights. Because not only our rights, but the rights of everyone around us, are infringed only at a much greater cost, even if it can sometimes be postponed.
--
make install -not war
This is like saying if Firefox is broken somewhere then jump into the source and fix it.
On one hand I tend to agree with the statement, but then again running for office (or fixing Firefox) is not for the faint-hearted. Or I suppose you can just say that in life we have winners and losers - deal with it :(
"To me he always sounded like a conservative christian with the ability to think for himself."
LMFAO, oxymoron of the day.