You can't guilt people into voting. Not me, anyway, because I'm a special kind of asshole. I don't care who died for my right to participate in this twisted system. That was their choice and I don't have to accept it if I don't want to. I don't have to vote and I won't do it until you make a law and require me to do it by force. And then I will only do it because a coerced vote is meaningless.
They want to add it to their voter turn-out numbers. That way they can pretend that they aren't pushing you around and screwing you in the ass. If you spent all your time fucking people, wouldn't you appreciate it if they pretended they didn't mind, or that they even liked it? That's what voting is all about.
I'm not a pacifist. I do think there should be an army and a police force. I just think people should support it of their own volition. If I don't think a war is a good idea, I don't want to bankroll it or be drafted to fight in it. Likewise, the people who own the freeways could pay for their maintenance, just like they do now.
Maybe I do want to overthrow the system. Excuse my sensationalist rhetoric, but if you wanted to end crime, you wouldn't join the mob and try to reform it from the inside, would you?
People not participating in government is a real possibility. An insurrection is what we will have on our hands in thirty years or so if/when this whole retirement debacle comes to a head. I want to prevent that, but it can't be done with the system we are using now. People will happily sacrifice their freedom in exchange for security (where we are now), and they will sacrifice it to save their own lives(where we will be in 10-20 years), but when sacrificing it means they will die(where we will be in 30 years or so) you have a real problem on your hands. That day is coming, unless we do something to prepare for it. Desperate people do desperate things and the last thing I want is to find myself surrounded by a bunch of desperate people.
Here's the thing about the "seizing power" argument that I hear so often. Our government is powerful. It is run by people. What you say is true, people who seize power are corrupt. So our government is corrupt. How, then, is it any better to submit to our democratically elected government than it would be to submit to any other dictator? People say that politicians are accountable to the people, but all that really means is that the most successful politicians are the best liars.
The solution is to not give others power over me. This is actually really easy, because politicians, businessmen, lawyers, police officers and even common thugs get all their power from us submitting to them. So don't submit. That's all there is to it.
I don't think the government should be funded. And I don't think it has (nor should it have) legitimate authority. If people want to wage wars they should do it with their own time and money. Don't tell me that's too expensive, because we're already paying for it.
I don't see how you can reform a corrupt system by taking part in it. People have been saying that for decades, and it's only gotten worse. All we need to do is reject the government's authority. If everyone, or most people reject it, it will dissipate like the cloud of smoke and nonsense it is.
And quit raging on my sensationalist rhetoric. This is important stuff and I am only giving it the consideration it is due. It is fully worthy of such words.
Even if it's less bad, and I don' think it is, it's still not good. I've known several rape victims, and I can see that it affects them negatively to this day. But we all live with this system, so perhaps we simply think that the effects are normal.
Are you kidding? Everything you described mirrors our expected role in government perfectly. I'm not talking about being unable to get what you want, that's just how the world is.
I'm talking about people stopping me from doing what is right and forcing me to do what is wrong by threatening to deprive me of my life or hurt me. Voting, and laws in general are tools of oppression. It's a way of pretending that government is not what it is.
It gives our representatives a "mandate" to have their way with us. They want us to tell them that they are good, so to speak. When their policies fail, we are to feel guilty that we are flawed and that is the reason things go wrong.
It is exactly the same. The fear, the guilt, the fantasy of righteousness are all there. Why do you think people get so angry about others not voting? They are upset because it makes it harder for them to live with the fantasy that everything is ok.
I usually use the convenience store analogy, but in this case the rape analogy is more apt because this the kind of thing a rapist will often say to his victim (especially a date-rapist). I don't think rape is any worse than murder (though I do think it's equally bad). For some reason people do seem to have been more shocked by the rape analogy.
I don't really know why rapists think it's okay to rough-up their uncooperative victims, but I think they are using the same reasoning you are when you say I have no right to complain if I don't vote. That is why I made the analogy.
One would presume I consented to going out to eat in the first place. I think if you force me to go to eat with you, I would have a right to complain.
The main way taxes and rape are different is that once you've been raped you can start putting you're life back together and coping, while you will have to pay taxes for the rest of your life.
Think about it this way. If you refuse to pay your taxes, people with guns will come and take to to jail. If you refuse to go they will shoot you. How is that really any different than going to a woman and telling her that she has to have sex with you or you will shoot her? Is it not rape simply because she will agree to go along with it to save her life?
I am being robbed every day that I live. My access to drugs is restricted. My ability to carry a weapon is restricted. If I refuse to let you rob me, I will be arrested. If I try to buy illegal drugs I could be arrested. If I have a gun in my car when I get pulled over I can be arrested. This is not right, and yet everyone seems to think it's perfectly ok.
"And it's also used to keep roads viable, provide for education, and keep serial killers out of your backyard."
I would pay for those things on my own if I could. It's the other shit that is fucked up, that and the fact that I don't get a choice about it either way.
"It's not a good metaphor, it's a heavily charged one that lets you be "shocking.""
Being forced to part with nearly a third of my income is shocking. Why shouldn't my metaphor be? I am shocked every time I look at my pay stub. How can I be paying so much for so little? Why is my own money being used to oppress me? It's horrible. It's hard to believe anyone would condone such a practice, yet most people seem to. It is a lot like like condoning rape.
Moreover when people tell me I can't complain if I don't vote, they are literally saying I deserved what I got because I didn't go along with it.
Saying I signed up for it by living here (I was born here, BTW, it wasn't a "choice") is like telling a rape victim she was asking for it because she was wearing a short skirt. Maybe she was asking for it, but she still got raped. It's not right no matter how you slice it.
"Why are you keen to throw away the one part of that participation that consists of exerting power to change/affect that system?"
Because using power to manipulate others to do my will is wrong? Because agreeing to let others use force to manipulate me is also wrong?
If you want to use force on me, feel free to see how far you can push me. But I'm not going to do the same to you. You will have to force your way on me without my consent.
"Also, just putting rape in your analogy doesn't make it effective.
"First, think carefully, and come up with one way that voting does you actual, honest to goodness harm."
As a result of the voting that's been done over the years, I pay 30% of my income to taxes. This money is used to support social programs I don't agree with and wars that I don't think are worthwhile. It is also used to enforce laws that I don't think are fair and restrict freedoms which I think are important. I think rape is a good metaphor for this process.
I don't do nothing. I work for causes I believe in and do what I think is right. That is my alternative. The government gets in the way of that, so I'm not going to vote, and I will encourage others to do the same. If enough people don't vote, the government will lose it's legitimacy. Our representatives in government will then lose their authority to enforce laws, and we will be able to brush them aside.
Obviously, not voting is only a small part of rejecting governmental authority. But you can't rightly reject authority if you continue to vote.
"if a woman, after being raped, only complained about the black eye"
That's the point. One way or another I am going to get raped by this process. The only difference between voting and not voting is whether or not I get the black eye.
Checking a box on a piece of paper isn't an active decision. Deciding to do for yourself whatever it is you're trying to force other people to do for you when you vote is an active decision.
"If you decline to vote, then you really have no recourse to complain about the results of that process, do you?"
I have no right to complain that I'm being pushed around by a system I declined to participate in? I think I have every right to complain about that. Why do people keep telling me this?
Is this kind of like telling a woman she has no right to complain about her black eye after you've raped her because she had her chance to go along with it? That doesn't make and sense to me.
1) It grants the government legitimacy by demonstrating that the public at large and you in particular believe that important decisions should be decided by a democratic process. This includes things that shouldn't be up for a vote, like whether you are entitled to the fruits of your own labor, whether or not you can decide how to raise your own kids, whether or not you can sex with who you want to and whether or not you can be free from fear and oppression in general.
2) It allows you to use the power of the government to manipulate and control others. Lets face it, no matter what nice things people say about compromise and civic duty, this is really what voting is about. You can tell this is true because people with guns will come to your house if you don't abide by the results of the election, even if you didn't agree to the process by voting.
By voting you are playing the role of the spineless coward and evil bandit at the same time. You are trying to rob and control others by fear and you are consenting to give everything you have to someone who didn't earn it and doesn't deserve it so that you can save your own life.
Once again, please don't vote tomorrow. I just recently realized how terrible voting is. I'm going to try to start a grassroots campaign to get the word out about how horrible this whole thing is before the next election in two years. But in the mean time you can help my cause (and the cause of freedom in general) by not voting.
"If there are insurance companies, the market will decide what is possible and what isn't"
Well no. The problem is that standards for the quality of health care are deliberately designed to restrict the supply of available health care professionals, and to increase the amount of work required to provide health care. So the market can't decide what is possible because it's already been decided by others.
That's can't happen because we need other things to live. The price will go up and up until people can't afford it any more, then it will stop rising. The only real solution to to try to increase the availability of health care. This can be done by either allowing more people to become doctors or allowing lower-level staff to carry out routine procedures, or allowing less time intensive procedures to be used in place of more time intensive, higher quality procedures etc. . . .
The point is that government financing will do nothing to solve the basic problem, which is inadequate supply. But, that doesn't mean we're all screwed. We just need to increase supply and there are a lot of ways to do that.
I don't know why, but the name "Twitter Squatting" sounds like it describes an action that is illegal 48 states. Maybe there's something better they could call it?
Why is all news bad news? Oil prices go up, the stock market goes down. Oil prices go down, the stock market goes down. Which is it people? Is any change at all bad?
The prices were to high, he had a market correction. Now the price is lower. That's what is supposed to happen. The housing market has done the same thing. It will happen to the next bubble too.
The temperature rise hasn't been that great. So that discredits the link between man-made CO2 and warmer temperatures to some extent. No one would deny that we are putting CO2 into the atmosphere.
Why does anyone believe this kind of rise in sea-levels is going to happen? Stop and think for a minute. How far has the ocean risen in the last 10 years? maybe an inch? So we could expect maybe two feet in my lifetime if the rate of increase doubles. And even if it does rise 10 feet, would it really be that hard to move out of the way? We'll have a while to do it. It beats going back to the stone-age.
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You can't guilt people into voting. Not me, anyway, because I'm a special kind of asshole. I don't care who died for my right to participate in this twisted system. That was their choice and I don't have to accept it if I don't want to. I don't have to vote and I won't do it until you make a law and require me to do it by force. And then I will only do it because a coerced vote is meaningless.
No, the government does not give you freedom. You have that naturally. The government can only take it away, and even then only if you let it.
They want to add it to their voter turn-out numbers. That way they can pretend that they aren't pushing you around and screwing you in the ass. If you spent all your time fucking people, wouldn't you appreciate it if they pretended they didn't mind, or that they even liked it? That's what voting is all about.
As a Christin, I agree that the Bible definitely doesn't advocate pacifism. Quite the opposite in some cases.
I'm not a pacifist. I do think there should be an army and a police force. I just think people should support it of their own volition. If I don't think a war is a good idea, I don't want to bankroll it or be drafted to fight in it. Likewise, the people who own the freeways could pay for their maintenance, just like they do now.
Maybe I do want to overthrow the system. Excuse my sensationalist rhetoric, but if you wanted to end crime, you wouldn't join the mob and try to reform it from the inside, would you?
People not participating in government is a real possibility. An insurrection is what we will have on our hands in thirty years or so if/when this whole retirement debacle comes to a head. I want to prevent that, but it can't be done with the system we are using now. People will happily sacrifice their freedom in exchange for security (where we are now), and they will sacrifice it to save their own lives(where we will be in 10-20 years), but when sacrificing it means they will die(where we will be in 30 years or so) you have a real problem on your hands. That day is coming, unless we do something to prepare for it. Desperate people do desperate things and the last thing I want is to find myself surrounded by a bunch of desperate people.
Here's the thing about the "seizing power" argument that I hear so often. Our government is powerful. It is run by people. What you say is true, people who seize power are corrupt. So our government is corrupt. How, then, is it any better to submit to our democratically elected government than it would be to submit to any other dictator? People say that politicians are accountable to the people, but all that really means is that the most successful politicians are the best liars.
The solution is to not give others power over me. This is actually really easy, because politicians, businessmen, lawyers, police officers and even common thugs get all their power from us submitting to them. So don't submit. That's all there is to it.
I don't think the government should be funded. And I don't think it has (nor should it have) legitimate authority. If people want to wage wars they should do it with their own time and money. Don't tell me that's too expensive, because we're already paying for it.
I don't see how you can reform a corrupt system by taking part in it. People have been saying that for decades, and it's only gotten worse. All we need to do is reject the government's authority. If everyone, or most people reject it, it will dissipate like the cloud of smoke and nonsense it is.
And quit raging on my sensationalist rhetoric. This is important stuff and I am only giving it the consideration it is due. It is fully worthy of such words.
Even if it's less bad, and I don' think it is, it's still not good. I've known several rape victims, and I can see that it affects them negatively to this day. But we all live with this system, so perhaps we simply think that the effects are normal.
Are you kidding? Everything you described mirrors our expected role in government perfectly. I'm not talking about being unable to get what you want, that's just how the world is.
I'm talking about people stopping me from doing what is right and forcing me to do what is wrong by threatening to deprive me of my life or hurt me. Voting, and laws in general are tools of oppression. It's a way of pretending that government is not what it is.
It gives our representatives a "mandate" to have their way with us. They want us to tell them that they are good, so to speak. When their policies fail, we are to feel guilty that we are flawed and that is the reason things go wrong.
It is exactly the same. The fear, the guilt, the fantasy of righteousness are all there. Why do you think people get so angry about others not voting? They are upset because it makes it harder for them to live with the fantasy that everything is ok.
Oh, well you're wrong.
I usually use the convenience store analogy, but in this case the rape analogy is more apt because this the kind of thing a rapist will often say to his victim (especially a date-rapist). I don't think rape is any worse than murder (though I do think it's equally bad). For some reason people do seem to have been more shocked by the rape analogy.
I don't really know why rapists think it's okay to rough-up their uncooperative victims, but I think they are using the same reasoning you are when you say I have no right to complain if I don't vote. That is why I made the analogy.
One would presume I consented to going out to eat in the first place. I think if you force me to go to eat with you, I would have a right to complain.
The main way taxes and rape are different is that once you've been raped you can start putting you're life back together and coping, while you will have to pay taxes for the rest of your life.
Think about it this way. If you refuse to pay your taxes, people with guns will come and take to to jail. If you refuse to go they will shoot you. How is that really any different than going to a woman and telling her that she has to have sex with you or you will shoot her? Is it not rape simply because she will agree to go along with it to save her life?
I am being robbed every day that I live. My access to drugs is restricted. My ability to carry a weapon is restricted. If I refuse to let you rob me, I will be arrested. If I try to buy illegal drugs I could be arrested. If I have a gun in my car when I get pulled over I can be arrested. This is not right, and yet everyone seems to think it's perfectly ok.
"You pay it, regardless of voting."
I do.
"And it's also used to keep roads viable, provide for education, and keep serial killers out of your backyard."
I would pay for those things on my own if I could. It's the other shit that is fucked up, that and the fact that I don't get a choice about it either way.
"It's not a good metaphor, it's a heavily charged one that lets you be "shocking.""
Being forced to part with nearly a third of my income is shocking. Why shouldn't my metaphor be? I am shocked every time I look at my pay stub. How can I be paying so much for so little? Why is my own money being used to oppress me? It's horrible. It's hard to believe anyone would condone such a practice, yet most people seem to. It is a lot like like condoning rape.
Moreover when people tell me I can't complain if I don't vote, they are literally saying I deserved what I got because I didn't go along with it.
Saying I signed up for it by living here (I was born here, BTW, it wasn't a "choice") is like telling a rape victim she was asking for it because she was wearing a short skirt. Maybe she was asking for it, but she still got raped. It's not right no matter how you slice it.
"Why are you keen to throw away the one part of that participation that consists of exerting power to change/affect that system?"
Because using power to manipulate others to do my will is wrong? Because agreeing to let others use force to manipulate me is also wrong?
If you want to use force on me, feel free to see how far you can push me. But I'm not going to do the same to you. You will have to force your way on me without my consent.
"Also, just putting rape in your analogy doesn't make it effective.
Yes it does. It is both effective and true.
"it's making you come off like a jackass"
That's because I am a jackass.
"First, think carefully, and come up with one way that voting does you actual, honest to goodness harm."
As a result of the voting that's been done over the years, I pay 30% of my income to taxes. This money is used to support social programs I don't agree with and wars that I don't think are worthwhile. It is also used to enforce laws that I don't think are fair and restrict freedoms which I think are important. I think rape is a good metaphor for this process.
I don't do nothing. I work for causes I believe in and do what I think is right. That is my alternative. The government gets in the way of that, so I'm not going to vote, and I will encourage others to do the same. If enough people don't vote, the government will lose it's legitimacy. Our representatives in government will then lose their authority to enforce laws, and we will be able to brush them aside.
Obviously, not voting is only a small part of rejecting governmental authority. But you can't rightly reject authority if you continue to vote.
"if a woman, after being raped, only complained about the black eye"
That's the point. One way or another I am going to get raped by this process. The only difference between voting and not voting is whether or not I get the black eye.
Checking a box on a piece of paper isn't an active decision. Deciding to do for yourself whatever it is you're trying to force other people to do for you when you vote is an active decision.
"If you decline to vote, then you really have no recourse to complain about the results of that process, do you?"
I have no right to complain that I'm being pushed around by a system I declined to participate in? I think I have every right to complain about that. Why do people keep telling me this?
Is this kind of like telling a woman she has no right to complain about her black eye after you've raped her because she had her chance to go along with it? That doesn't make and sense to me.
Don't vote.
Voting accomplishes two things:
1) It grants the government legitimacy by demonstrating that the public at large and you in particular believe that important decisions should be decided by a democratic process. This includes things that shouldn't be up for a vote, like whether you are entitled to the fruits of your own labor, whether or not you can decide how to raise your own kids, whether or not you can sex with who you want to and whether or not you can be free from fear and oppression in general.
2) It allows you to use the power of the government to manipulate and control others. Lets face it, no matter what nice things people say about compromise and civic duty, this is really what voting is about. You can tell this is true because people with guns will come to your house if you don't abide by the results of the election, even if you didn't agree to the process by voting.
By voting you are playing the role of the spineless coward and evil bandit at the same time. You are trying to rob and control others by fear and you are consenting to give everything you have to someone who didn't earn it and doesn't deserve it so that you can save your own life.
Once again, please don't vote tomorrow. I just recently realized how terrible voting is. I'm going to try to start a grassroots campaign to get the word out about how horrible this whole thing is before the next election in two years. But in the mean time you can help my cause (and the cause of freedom in general) by not voting.
"If there are insurance companies, the market will decide what is possible and what isn't"
Well no. The problem is that standards for the quality of health care are deliberately designed to restrict the supply of available health care professionals, and to increase the amount of work required to provide health care. So the market can't decide what is possible because it's already been decided by others.
That's can't happen because we need other things to live. The price will go up and up until people can't afford it any more, then it will stop rising. The only real solution to to try to increase the availability of health care. This can be done by either allowing more people to become doctors or allowing lower-level staff to carry out routine procedures, or allowing less time intensive procedures to be used in place of more time intensive, higher quality procedures etc. . . .
The point is that government financing will do nothing to solve the basic problem, which is inadequate supply. But, that doesn't mean we're all screwed. We just need to increase supply and there are a lot of ways to do that.
I don't know why, but the name "Twitter Squatting" sounds like it describes an action that is illegal 48 states. Maybe there's something better they could call it?
Why is all news bad news? Oil prices go up, the stock market goes down. Oil prices go down, the stock market goes down. Which is it people? Is any change at all bad?
The prices were to high, he had a market correction. Now the price is lower. That's what is supposed to happen. The housing market has done the same thing. It will happen to the next bubble too.
The temperature rise hasn't been that great. So that discredits the link between man-made CO2 and warmer temperatures to some extent. No one would deny that we are putting CO2 into the atmosphere.
Why does anyone believe this kind of rise in sea-levels is going to happen? Stop and think for a minute. How far has the ocean risen in the last 10 years? maybe an inch? So we could expect maybe two feet in my lifetime if the rate of increase doubles. And even if it does rise 10 feet, would it really be that hard to move out of the way? We'll have a while to do it. It beats going back to the stone-age.