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How Much is Your Right to Vote Worth?

Posted by samzenpus on from the how-much-are-you-offering dept.

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."

19 of 857 comments (clear)

  1. Frankly... by fyngyrz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How Much is Your Right to Vote Worth?

    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.
    1. Re:Frankly... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yes, I'd say an ipod is worth considerably more than a vote is today. It shouldn't be; but here we are. Well it costs about $100 million to run for President which makes each vote (considering turnout and a roughly even split) worth about $1-$2. You can't just start giving away iPods for votes with only a $100 million budget. Well, except in Ohio.
    2. Re:Frankly... by nschubach · · Score: 5, Insightful

      According to our forefathers, the right to vote is worth your life. My how times have slipped. But I do agree. I can't blame the voter when you have the choices you have today.

      --
      Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
    3. Re:Frankly... by Noonian+Soong · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The article didn't surprise me much either. I think many people feel the same way you do. Many people don't use their right to vote, so they actually give it up for free, so why not give it up for an iPod?

      But I think giving up your right to vote is disgusting. Living in a democracy is a privlege. I think it's part of our duty as citizens to be informed, be active and also vote. I know it's hard sometimes to find the right party to vote for but even when you cannot agree with anyone, there's always the possibility to take a more active role yourself. This might be becoming a politician yourself or joining an organization that influences politics. Even if you think the system itself is deficient, you could always try to change the system.

      But many people are not interested anymore. They are uninformed, inactive and don't vote. This way, politicians who do not care about the public good, get away with bad decisions. But I often notice that those people who complain the most, are the ones that don't vote.

      Sometimes I also think it might be a good idea to send people who don't vote on a vacation into a dictatorship. Just for a few weeks or so. But that is of course illegal and I don't really want it to become legal. Still, sometimes I think that sending people away for some time might help them realize what chances they actually have and how they have wasted them so far.

      --
      The strength of a civilization is not measured by its ability to fight wars, but rather by its ability to prevent them.
    4. Re:Frankly... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Looking a gift horse in the mouth anyone? anyone? I don't think you fully appreciate the value of such an opportunity provided to you by our government at ridiculously low long term interest rates.

      Loan slavery? Strange twist in generation perception. No one says you have to buy this new car, when saving $200 for a tune-up on the old car will do just fine, or you fix it yourself. No one says you have to buy this new house, when the kids can double bunk in one room. And, no one says college is a right. Moreover, work 2 jobs and reap the benefits of serving in the Army to finance your way through college, like I did.

      And at 0 to 8% on car to home loans, respectively, your complaining? No. The problem is you expect to have everything else everyone else has. Yes, the X and millenial gen kids never had it so good. It's unfortunate they never realized just how hard it can be, financing your way through life by their own sweat and blood. You think student loans are your shackle and chains? If you take the time, you might see yourself in the mirror wielding the whip in your own hand.

      Loan slavery? Heh. You're a slave to your own devices.

    5. Re:Frankly... by 10101001+10101001 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I know it's hard sometimes to find the right party to vote for ...

      There are pro-life Democrats and pro-choice Republicans. Perhaps the problem is too many people voting for the "right party" instead of the "right person"?

      --
      Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
    6. Re:Frankly... by sm62704 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Looking a gift horse in the mouth anyone?

      Gift horse? Nobody gave me anything.

      I don't think you fully appreciate the value of such an opportunity provided to you by our government at ridiculously low long term interest rates.

      The government isn't loaning the money, the banks are, and they extract their usury. The Student Loans benefit the banks far more than they do the students. Student loans aren't a gift from government to students, they're a gift from government to bankers.

      No one says you have to buy this new house, when the kids can double bunk in one room.

      Nobody ever gave me a first house. My choices are to take out a mortgage or pay rent. Nobody "said" I had to buy the house I'm buying, but it's a hell of a lot better than renting. At least it will be mine in the unlikely event I live to be 85.

      Shelter is a necessity, especially in cold climates. Duh.

      And, no one says college is a right.

      I say it should be. High school has been a right for generations, ever since a high school education was mandatory for work. Now that college is mandatory (all the factory jobs are overseas thanks to our corporate slaveowners) it SHOULD be a right.

      Moreover, work 2 jobs and reap the benefits of serving in the Army to finance your way through college, like I did.

      I did too, as well as taking out student loans, but we shouldn't have had to.

      And at 0 to 8% on car to home loans, respectively, your complaining?

      Yes. Nobody is giving 0% on a mortgage, and they go far higher than 8%. If you're Christian, Muslim or Jew, look up "usury" in your bible. You'll find it's a worse sin than homosexuality. According tho those three religions, all the bankers will burn in hell. I hope you're not a Christian banker!

      Loan slavery? Heh. You're a slave to your own devices.

      No, you have to eat, you have to have a warm place to live, you have to have transportation. You can't live off the fat of the land in your log cabin, shooting rabbits and deer for food. That life was long gone well before I was born, and I'm a geezer. You're a slave to the corporation you work for. Sure you can quit - and become a slave to d different corporation.

      Unless you want to sell drugs or steal or something. Capitalism demands capital, and the only way to get capital is to have capital. A capitalist without capital is a fool.

      -mcgrew

      --
      mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
    7. Re:Frankly... by Elemenope · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Candidates "like that" have beaten the party machinery several times in history. In all honesty, I think it more likely that we will see an Obama v. Huckabee or Obama v. Paul race. And not for nothing, but Obama is not the run-of-the-mill candidate either. This is a guy who wants to approach foreign policy through *gasp* diplomacy (only Paul agrees with him on this radical idea), and he's a guy whose talking about setting up all federal depts and agencies with live blogs and online minutes of meetings and you know, dragging the federal government kicking and screaming into the 21st century. None of the other candidates have talked about anything like that.

      Even with good choices among the "electable" popular candidates, the fact that you fuckers (collectively, that is, not directed at parent) still are whining about how nothing can ever change and that your vote doesn't matter is a group-think kood-aid moment of Apple computer proportions. The only way we will see Hillary v. Giuliani is if jokers like you guys not only don't vote in the primaries but also consistently spout about how everything is so god-damned hopeless.

      --
      All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
    8. Re:Frankly... by Forge · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Wrong premise. An election campaign is different from vote buying. It's more like candidate selling. I.e. convince the voter to spend his currency (vote) on your product (candidate).

      There is of course another possibility. According to this clip. A significant number of collage students will give up the vote for no charge at all.

      I have to stop here and put on my male-chauvinist-pig's armour and wait for the feminist onslaught.

      --
      --= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
    9. Re:Frankly... by Grym · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Logically, you're not capable of voting if you're dead - your statement is patriotic but makes no sense.

      I realize that some of you have been led to believe that self-interest is all that matters in this world (in which case no amount of human dignity would be worth dying for), but the truth is a representative, accountable government is something worth dying for. The only semi-reliable way to achieve this end has been through the institution of democratic governments. Your vote, while perhaps meaningless to you and maybe even meaningless to the outcome of an election, is a powerful symbol of your heritage as a free, represented citizen.

      that the American Revolution was economic more than philosophical - these are *seriously* inconvenient historical facts.

      Yeah, yeah. You're not the only one that knows about Charles A. Beard's An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States--get over yourself.

      Regardless, the fact remains that there were legitimate grievances against the British Empire. And, besides, doesn't taxation carry both an economic and philosophical component? Furthermore, aren't all exploitative arrangements like colonialism, by definition, immoral? To say that 25,000 American civilians-turned-revolutionaries gave up their lives because they envisioned only an economic benefit would be ridiculous. Furthermore, if Beard's thesis is correct, (i.e. that the founders were just a bunch of fatcats trying to structure the government in a way that only benefited themselves), why would they even bother seriously considering abolishing the institution of slavery? How could such a purely philosophical ideal serve to benefit any of them economically?

      Obviously this whole topic is to be hyperbolic, the point is we're supposed to ignore that $1 million dollars will make a much larger differences to our lives than whether or not we vote

      How much would that one million dollars (or any amount of money, for that matter) be worth if a tyrannical regime decides to take it from you? It's funny how you want to lecture us on history and then assume as if our unusually peaceful domestic situation as a society will hold forever and ever simply because that's all you, yourself, have ever known.

      I can understand antipathy towards modern day politics. What I can't understand are the great number of people who have become convinced that governance is somebody else's problem.

      -Grym

    10. Re:Frankly... by poticlin · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually, the British colony of Canada in 1775 was barely 12 years old and was handed out to the British by the French who lost in a battle of war in 1763. The Loyalist who fled the USA to Canada were loyal to the crown and were, of course well treated by the leader of the British colony. Who needs a tight grip when you know your people are happy?

    11. Re:Frankly... by boyko.at.netqos · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm astounded that you can think this.

      Looking a gift horse in the mouth anyone? anyone? I don't think you fully appreciate the value of such an opportunity provided to you by our government at ridiculously low long term interest rates.

      It's not the interest rate - it's the declining wage and increasing tuition. Even a public school education will run you $10,000 a year when you're not otherwise making any "real" money - and after you graduate, the jobs are few, far between, and don't pay well - across all fields, the value of the dollar is declining, too, so cost of living expense is going up while wages are going down, meaning it's harder to pay off any loans.

      In other words, it's not the principle of the thing, it's the principal of the thing!

      Loan slavery? Strange twist in generation perception. No one says you have to buy this new car, when saving $200 for a tune-up on the old car will do just fine, or you fix it yourself. No one says you have to buy this new house, when the kids can double bunk in one room. And, no one says college is a right. Moreover, work 2 jobs and reap the benefits of serving in the Army to finance your way through college, like I did.

      Used cars are still damn expensive and you need one to commute to work in most places. Oh, and that $200 for a tune-up? That's 1978 money. Think $1000 if something goes wrong - more if it's something like the transmission.

      Owning your own house is also 1978 thinking - our generation can't afford kids.

      People often say "Work another job" as if it's an option. People are already working two jobs to make ends meet - what's the answer to that? Work a third job? A fourth? It doesn't matter how many jobs you work if the pay's so bad that you can't pay your bills.

      And at 0 to 8% on car to home loans, respectively, your complaining? No. The problem is you expect to have everything else everyone else has. Yes, the X and millenial gen kids never had it so good. It's unfortunate they never realized just how hard it can be, financing your way through life by their own sweat and blood. You think student loans are your shackle and chains? If you take the time, you might see yourself in the mirror wielding the whip in your own hand.

      Look, I'm on the X/Millenial cusp. I'm 28. I've got a good paying job. I can't say how much it is, but it's more than most of my graduating class is getting and less than what most of 1978's graduating class is getting. I've gone only to state schools, not private schools. But it took a damn long time to find this job. I'm one of the lucky ones and I'm still saddled with over $15,000 in debt - and I did everything -right- by your standards.

      Our generation is getting screwed because of people like you thinking that we have it easy. We're not. We're the first generation that's likely to earn less than our parents over the course of our lifetime. We're the first generation to inherit the massive trade deficit and debt. We're the first generation with broken manufacturing unions and outsourcing. And we're not going to join the army where we can get paid less and shot at for no good reason other than to make the people who are screwing us richer!

      I don't think you realized how inflammatory your comments are, but they certainly hit a nerve with me. Maybe you should actually talk to some of those Millenials and Xs that you complain about. Maybe then you'll know why we complain about you.

      --
      I used to work for NetQoS. I no longer do, but want to keep the excellent karma attached to this account.
    12. Re:Frankly... by rasputin465 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?

      Yeah, you really should wear some deodorant.

  2. How much? by Palpitations · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:How much? by mrjb · · Score: 5, Funny

      Protect against pirates? But what about global warming?

      --
      Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
  3. The last group are the smart ones. by LaminatorX · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You could have far more influence over the government with that $1,000,000 than you ever will by voting.

  4. Historically by Lally+Singh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!
  5. Best way to cheat the buyer by Chapter80 · · Score: 5, Funny

    If you want to really cheat the buyer, sell them your lifetime votes for a million dollars. Then kill yourself. That'll teach 'em.

  6. uhhhhh he wasn't a Christian by BitterAndDrunk · · Score: 5, Informative

    T.J. was a deist, if that. Please stop the mythmaking about our founders being Christians, it just fuels the wackaloons who want to turn America into a theocracy.

    --
    You better watch out, there may be dogs about . . .