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That hipster girl in yoga pants just screams Obama demographic lol.
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On November 06 2012 04:15 BluePanther wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2012 03:35 Risen wrote:KROFT: Mr. President, this morning you went out of your way to avoid the use of the word terrorism in connection with the Libya Attack, do you believe that this was a terrorism attack? OBAMA: Well it’s too early to tell exactly how this came about, what group was involved, but obviously it was an attack on Americans. And we are going to be working with the Libyan government to make sure that we bring these folks to justice, one way or the other. He didn't know what it was, so he didn't know what to call it. I'm confused as to what you're trying to say? Edit: Why did I even ask you. It's clear you're once again just trying to be misleading. Did you think people wouldn't click the link? Because he said in the debate that he called it a terrorist attack when it happened. That's just not true.
The way people can just take words and mix them up is beyond me. He said more specifically "an act of terror" which he did say. Whether you definite it as one or the other is up to you but don't fuck up his words, especially since you can take a few minutes to look them up on Youtube and watch the specific section.
“No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve" yada yada this great nation etc.
ROMNEY: I think (it's) interesting the president just said something which -- which is that on the day after the attack he went into the Rose Garden and said that this was an act of terror.
OBAMA: That's what I said.
ROMNEY: You said in the Rose Garden the day after the attack, it was an act of terror. It was not a spontaneous demonstration, is that what you're saying?
OBAMA: Please proceed governor.
ROMNEY: I want to make sure we get that for the record because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror.
OBAMA: Get the transcript.
CROWLEY: It -- it -- it -- he did in fact, sir ... call it an act of terror.
When Romney flubbed the ball, he said that Obama never called it an act of terror which he directly did. Terrorism and terror are two separate things and in a charade of political dodging Obama was right when directly asked if he called it an act of Terror.
On November 06 2012 04:17 farvacola wrote:
That hipster girl in yoga pants just screams Obama demographic lol.
why? -.-
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United States42653 Posts
On November 06 2012 04:16 ThreeAcross wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2012 04:06 farvacola wrote:On November 06 2012 04:01 kmillz wrote:On November 06 2012 03:14 farvacola wrote:Considering what is going down in Florida with understaffed early voting locations, provisional ballot issues, and shortened voting windows, this story struck me as simply incredible. We can manage to accept votes from astronauts but not poor black Floridians...... Call it the ultimate absentee ballot. NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station have the option of voting in tomorrow's (Nov. 6) presidential election from orbit, hundreds of miles above their nearest polling location.
Astronauts residing on the orbiting lab receive a digital version of their ballot, which is beamed up by Mission Control at the agency's Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston. Filled-out ballots find their way back down to Earth along the same path.
"They send it back to Mission Control," said NASA spokesman Jay Bolden of JSC. "It's a secure ballot that is then sent directly to the voting authorities."
This system was made possible by a 1997 bill passed by Texas legislators (nearly all NASA astronauts live in or around Houston). It was first used that same year by David Wolf, who happened to be aboard Russia's Mir space station at the time. Source That's weird, I don't see one black person in this photo of Florida voters waiting in line + Show Spoiler + The fact that you think some random photo of a Florida voter line is proof of anything notwithstanding, I've already clarified my position; all disenfranchisement is bad. You are making my point. You only care about one demographic. You are disenfranchised about all other demographics. Care about everyone's vote.
"You are disenfranchised about all other demographics." doesn't mean anything and calls into question your understanding of the word disenfranchised.
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United States7927 Posts
On November 06 2012 04:08 ticklishmusic wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2012 03:41 Risen wrote:On November 06 2012 03:40 jdsowa wrote:On November 06 2012 03:38 Risen wrote:On November 06 2012 03:37 jdsowa wrote:
I have no issue with a date being wrong in Spanish. If you can't speak English, you shouldn't be voting in the US election. If I lived in a foreign country and wasn't fluent, I sure as hell wouldn't pretend that I had any authority to influence the direction of that country.
Most states have absentee voting and early voting. Florida is one of them. You don't need any excuse to write in an absentee ballot. All you need is a stamp and an envelope. States were taking absentee ballots MONTHS AGO.
The funny thing here is that paranoid liberals think evil racists are trying to steal the election from them by disenfranchising minority voters. But what's really racist is the insinuation that there are poor blacks that are so utterly stupid and incompetent that they can't possibly figure out what date to vote on, where to vote, where to get the forms, who's running, etc. That is racism. There is no official language in the United States. Every citizen deserves the right to vote. Edit: Pottymouth language. Of course not. And nobody is physically preventing them from going to the polls. But ask yourself--isn't it utterly ridiculous that somebody who hasn't bothered to learn to speak the language should be voting in the election? Speak what language? WE HAVE NO OFFICIAL LANGUAGE. You could speak turkadakadurk and I'd still say you should be able to vote. I actually googled turkadakadurk to see if it was an actual language. Hilariously, your post was the one google result.
Holy shit that's fast lol. I probably would have felt a little bad if it was an actual language or something lol
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On November 06 2012 04:05 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2012 04:01 jdsowa wrote:On November 06 2012 03:55 KwarK wrote:On November 06 2012 03:51 jdsowa wrote:On November 06 2012 03:43 MVega wrote:
So glad the election will be over soon. This is the first time in my life that I'm not voting.
We really need a voting system like Australia has where voting is mandatory and if you don't vote there is some sort of fine. At least that's how I remember Australian voting being, it's been quite awhile. I'd gladly pay the fine for not voting this election, I think as long as the money from that fine went into helping any one of my countrymen it would be worth a lot more than my vote.
Edit: I'll just add this ... The candidates running for president don't take this as seriously as some of the voters do. If either candidate believed that the other guy was as evil/horrible/whatever as all the attack ads and spin claimed, if either candidate believed that the other candidate was going to run the country into the ground ... They wouldn't have been joking and laughing and chummy together after the debates. Since they were that either means they both, while wanting the job, think that the other guy is capable OR they're both equally bad. That's a terrible idea. We should be valuing quality votes--people who bothered to give a damn about the candidates and the issues. As it is, we have this culture where we encourage people to vote regardless of their level of ignorance. In this case the level of ignorance of voters is largely self assessed. I have doubts in the ability of an idiot to rate his idiocy. Is this the sort of behavior befifting of a mod? To call a poster an 'idiot' in 2 or 3 separate posts? Why not just ban me if you can't handle having another party come in and challenge your narrow worldview. I'm reasonably sure my post didn't explicitly call you an idiot. If, however, you choose to project that interpretation onto it then that's your business. All I did was point out that there is no way of objectively measuring the quality of a voter, people who may have very questionable reasoning abilities might not notice that their opinions are retarded.
In theory I would adore a test to vote. Use five, exceedingly simple questions to prove you paid the slightest amount of attention i.e. "What state was Romney most recently Governor of?" You don't even have to get all of them right, or even a majority. I want 40%, you need two out of five for a "quality," vote.
I personally feel like a put a lot of effort into understanding the issues on both sides; election season is all talk radio all the time for me. You could have it in any language, read to you or whatever, I just want to know that those who are casting their votes have paid the slightest modicum of attention to the race and those involved.
Of course this will never happen here in the states, I have recently become supremely frustrated with trying to discuss politics when people want to talk politics (The key difference IMO being a civil exchange versus talking over one another, lobbing useless insults).
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On November 06 2012 04:21 ThomasjServo wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2012 04:05 KwarK wrote:On November 06 2012 04:01 jdsowa wrote:On November 06 2012 03:55 KwarK wrote:On November 06 2012 03:51 jdsowa wrote:On November 06 2012 03:43 MVega wrote:
So glad the election will be over soon. This is the first time in my life that I'm not voting.
We really need a voting system like Australia has where voting is mandatory and if you don't vote there is some sort of fine. At least that's how I remember Australian voting being, it's been quite awhile. I'd gladly pay the fine for not voting this election, I think as long as the money from that fine went into helping any one of my countrymen it would be worth a lot more than my vote.
Edit: I'll just add this ... The candidates running for president don't take this as seriously as some of the voters do. If either candidate believed that the other guy was as evil/horrible/whatever as all the attack ads and spin claimed, if either candidate believed that the other candidate was going to run the country into the ground ... They wouldn't have been joking and laughing and chummy together after the debates. Since they were that either means they both, while wanting the job, think that the other guy is capable OR they're both equally bad. That's a terrible idea. We should be valuing quality votes--people who bothered to give a damn about the candidates and the issues. As it is, we have this culture where we encourage people to vote regardless of their level of ignorance. In this case the level of ignorance of voters is largely self assessed. I have doubts in the ability of an idiot to rate his idiocy. Is this the sort of behavior befifting of a mod? To call a poster an 'idiot' in 2 or 3 separate posts? Why not just ban me if you can't handle having another party come in and challenge your narrow worldview. I'm reasonably sure my post didn't explicitly call you an idiot. If, however, you choose to project that interpretation onto it then that's your business. All I did was point out that there is no way of objectively measuring the quality of a voter, people who may have very questionable reasoning abilities might not notice that their opinions are retarded. In theory I would adore a test to vote. Use five, exceedingly simple questions to prove you paid the slightest amount of attention i.e. "What state was Romney most recently Governor of?" You don't even have to get all of them right, or even a majority. I want 40%, you need two out of five for a "quality," vote. I personally feel like a put a lot of effort into understanding the issues on both sides; election season is all talk radio all the time for me. You could have it in any language, read to you or whatever, I just want to know that those who are casting their votes have paid the slightest modicum of attention to the race and those involved. Of course this will never happen here in the states, I have recently become supremely frustrated with trying to discuss politics when people want to talk politics (The key difference IMO being a civil exchange versus talking over one another, lobbing useless insults).
Seems reasonable to me, a lot of people just blanket "left or right" blindly. It'd be interesting if we actually forced thought into the discussion.
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On November 06 2012 04:21 ThomasjServo wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2012 04:05 KwarK wrote:On November 06 2012 04:01 jdsowa wrote:On November 06 2012 03:55 KwarK wrote:On November 06 2012 03:51 jdsowa wrote:On November 06 2012 03:43 MVega wrote:
So glad the election will be over soon. This is the first time in my life that I'm not voting.
We really need a voting system like Australia has where voting is mandatory and if you don't vote there is some sort of fine. At least that's how I remember Australian voting being, it's been quite awhile. I'd gladly pay the fine for not voting this election, I think as long as the money from that fine went into helping any one of my countrymen it would be worth a lot more than my vote.
Edit: I'll just add this ... The candidates running for president don't take this as seriously as some of the voters do. If either candidate believed that the other guy was as evil/horrible/whatever as all the attack ads and spin claimed, if either candidate believed that the other candidate was going to run the country into the ground ... They wouldn't have been joking and laughing and chummy together after the debates. Since they were that either means they both, while wanting the job, think that the other guy is capable OR they're both equally bad. That's a terrible idea. We should be valuing quality votes--people who bothered to give a damn about the candidates and the issues. As it is, we have this culture where we encourage people to vote regardless of their level of ignorance. In this case the level of ignorance of voters is largely self assessed. I have doubts in the ability of an idiot to rate his idiocy. Is this the sort of behavior befifting of a mod? To call a poster an 'idiot' in 2 or 3 separate posts? Why not just ban me if you can't handle having another party come in and challenge your narrow worldview. I'm reasonably sure my post didn't explicitly call you an idiot. If, however, you choose to project that interpretation onto it then that's your business. All I did was point out that there is no way of objectively measuring the quality of a voter, people who may have very questionable reasoning abilities might not notice that their opinions are retarded. In theory I would adore a test to vote. Use five, exceedingly simple questions to prove you paid the slightest amount of attention i.e. "What state was Romney most recently Governor of?" You don't even have to get all of them right, or even a majority. I want 40%, you need two out of five for a "quality," vote. I personally feel like a put a lot of effort into understanding the issues on both sides; election season is all talk radio all the time for me. You could have it in any language, read to you or whatever, I just want to know that those who are casting their votes have paid the slightest modicum of attention to the race and those involved. Of course this will never happen here in the states, I have recently become supremely frustrated with trying to discuss politics when people want to talk politics (The key difference IMO being a civil exchange versus talking over one another, lobbing useless insults).
I'd actually be curious to know what % of voters could actually pass that. It was pretty disheartening when one of the news agencies reported that a ridiculously large number of people they polled couldn't name any of NY's state politicians or any of the city politicians aside from the mayor.
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On November 06 2012 04:26 MVega wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2012 04:21 ThomasjServo wrote:On November 06 2012 04:05 KwarK wrote:On November 06 2012 04:01 jdsowa wrote:On November 06 2012 03:55 KwarK wrote:On November 06 2012 03:51 jdsowa wrote:On November 06 2012 03:43 MVega wrote:
So glad the election will be over soon. This is the first time in my life that I'm not voting.
We really need a voting system like Australia has where voting is mandatory and if you don't vote there is some sort of fine. At least that's how I remember Australian voting being, it's been quite awhile. I'd gladly pay the fine for not voting this election, I think as long as the money from that fine went into helping any one of my countrymen it would be worth a lot more than my vote.
Edit: I'll just add this ... The candidates running for president don't take this as seriously as some of the voters do. If either candidate believed that the other guy was as evil/horrible/whatever as all the attack ads and spin claimed, if either candidate believed that the other candidate was going to run the country into the ground ... They wouldn't have been joking and laughing and chummy together after the debates. Since they were that either means they both, while wanting the job, think that the other guy is capable OR they're both equally bad. That's a terrible idea. We should be valuing quality votes--people who bothered to give a damn about the candidates and the issues. As it is, we have this culture where we encourage people to vote regardless of their level of ignorance. In this case the level of ignorance of voters is largely self assessed. I have doubts in the ability of an idiot to rate his idiocy. Is this the sort of behavior befifting of a mod? To call a poster an 'idiot' in 2 or 3 separate posts? Why not just ban me if you can't handle having another party come in and challenge your narrow worldview. I'm reasonably sure my post didn't explicitly call you an idiot. If, however, you choose to project that interpretation onto it then that's your business. All I did was point out that there is no way of objectively measuring the quality of a voter, people who may have very questionable reasoning abilities might not notice that their opinions are retarded. In theory I would adore a test to vote. Use five, exceedingly simple questions to prove you paid the slightest amount of attention i.e. "What state was Romney most recently Governor of?" You don't even have to get all of them right, or even a majority. I want 40%, you need two out of five for a "quality," vote. I personally feel like a put a lot of effort into understanding the issues on both sides; election season is all talk radio all the time for me. You could have it in any language, read to you or whatever, I just want to know that those who are casting their votes have paid the slightest modicum of attention to the race and those involved. Of course this will never happen here in the states, I have recently become supremely frustrated with trying to discuss politics when people want to talk politics (The key difference IMO being a civil exchange versus talking over one another, lobbing useless insults). I'd actually be curious to know what % of voters could actually pass that. It was pretty disheartening when one of the news agencies reported that a ridiculously large number of people they polled couldn't name any of NY's state politicians or any of the city politicians aside from the mayor.
If I were to make a guess, I'd say that most Western countries that follow the election probably know on par or more than a lot of American voters with regards to the election.  I knew Romney was a governor before he tried to pass John McCain and got smacked around.
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On November 06 2012 04:26 MVega wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2012 04:21 ThomasjServo wrote:On November 06 2012 04:05 KwarK wrote:On November 06 2012 04:01 jdsowa wrote:On November 06 2012 03:55 KwarK wrote:On November 06 2012 03:51 jdsowa wrote:On November 06 2012 03:43 MVega wrote:
So glad the election will be over soon. This is the first time in my life that I'm not voting.
We really need a voting system like Australia has where voting is mandatory and if you don't vote there is some sort of fine. At least that's how I remember Australian voting being, it's been quite awhile. I'd gladly pay the fine for not voting this election, I think as long as the money from that fine went into helping any one of my countrymen it would be worth a lot more than my vote.
Edit: I'll just add this ... The candidates running for president don't take this as seriously as some of the voters do. If either candidate believed that the other guy was as evil/horrible/whatever as all the attack ads and spin claimed, if either candidate believed that the other candidate was going to run the country into the ground ... They wouldn't have been joking and laughing and chummy together after the debates. Since they were that either means they both, while wanting the job, think that the other guy is capable OR they're both equally bad. That's a terrible idea. We should be valuing quality votes--people who bothered to give a damn about the candidates and the issues. As it is, we have this culture where we encourage people to vote regardless of their level of ignorance. In this case the level of ignorance of voters is largely self assessed. I have doubts in the ability of an idiot to rate his idiocy. Is this the sort of behavior befifting of a mod? To call a poster an 'idiot' in 2 or 3 separate posts? Why not just ban me if you can't handle having another party come in and challenge your narrow worldview. I'm reasonably sure my post didn't explicitly call you an idiot. If, however, you choose to project that interpretation onto it then that's your business. All I did was point out that there is no way of objectively measuring the quality of a voter, people who may have very questionable reasoning abilities might not notice that their opinions are retarded. In theory I would adore a test to vote. Use five, exceedingly simple questions to prove you paid the slightest amount of attention i.e. "What state was Romney most recently Governor of?" You don't even have to get all of them right, or even a majority. I want 40%, you need two out of five for a "quality," vote. I personally feel like a put a lot of effort into understanding the issues on both sides; election season is all talk radio all the time for me. You could have it in any language, read to you or whatever, I just want to know that those who are casting their votes have paid the slightest modicum of attention to the race and those involved. Of course this will never happen here in the states, I have recently become supremely frustrated with trying to discuss politics when people want to talk politics (The key difference IMO being a civil exchange versus talking over one another, lobbing useless insults). I'd actually be curious to know what % of voters could actually pass that. It was pretty disheartening when one of the news agencies reported that a ridiculously large number of people they polled couldn't name any of NY's state politicians or any of the city politicians aside from the mayor.
Why is that disheartening? How many of those politicians have any meaningful impact on the lives of their constituents? Most local officials are just pencil pushers. They don't make laws, they don't allocate money. They just maintain the status quo. And that's fine, we need people to do that. But we also shouldn't be surprised that they're kinda invisible.
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On November 06 2012 04:26 MVega wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2012 04:21 ThomasjServo wrote:On November 06 2012 04:05 KwarK wrote:On November 06 2012 04:01 jdsowa wrote:On November 06 2012 03:55 KwarK wrote:On November 06 2012 03:51 jdsowa wrote:On November 06 2012 03:43 MVega wrote:
So glad the election will be over soon. This is the first time in my life that I'm not voting.
We really need a voting system like Australia has where voting is mandatory and if you don't vote there is some sort of fine. At least that's how I remember Australian voting being, it's been quite awhile. I'd gladly pay the fine for not voting this election, I think as long as the money from that fine went into helping any one of my countrymen it would be worth a lot more than my vote.
Edit: I'll just add this ... The candidates running for president don't take this as seriously as some of the voters do. If either candidate believed that the other guy was as evil/horrible/whatever as all the attack ads and spin claimed, if either candidate believed that the other candidate was going to run the country into the ground ... They wouldn't have been joking and laughing and chummy together after the debates. Since they were that either means they both, while wanting the job, think that the other guy is capable OR they're both equally bad. That's a terrible idea. We should be valuing quality votes--people who bothered to give a damn about the candidates and the issues. As it is, we have this culture where we encourage people to vote regardless of their level of ignorance. In this case the level of ignorance of voters is largely self assessed. I have doubts in the ability of an idiot to rate his idiocy. Is this the sort of behavior befifting of a mod? To call a poster an 'idiot' in 2 or 3 separate posts? Why not just ban me if you can't handle having another party come in and challenge your narrow worldview. I'm reasonably sure my post didn't explicitly call you an idiot. If, however, you choose to project that interpretation onto it then that's your business. All I did was point out that there is no way of objectively measuring the quality of a voter, people who may have very questionable reasoning abilities might not notice that their opinions are retarded. In theory I would adore a test to vote. Use five, exceedingly simple questions to prove you paid the slightest amount of attention i.e. "What state was Romney most recently Governor of?" You don't even have to get all of them right, or even a majority. I want 40%, you need two out of five for a "quality," vote. I personally feel like a put a lot of effort into understanding the issues on both sides; election season is all talk radio all the time for me. You could have it in any language, read to you or whatever, I just want to know that those who are casting their votes have paid the slightest modicum of attention to the race and those involved. Of course this will never happen here in the states, I have recently become supremely frustrated with trying to discuss politics when people want to talk politics (The key difference IMO being a civil exchange versus talking over one another, lobbing useless insults). I'd actually be curious to know what % of voters could actually pass that. It was pretty disheartening when one of the news agencies reported that a ridiculously large number of people they polled couldn't name any of NY's state politicians or any of the city politicians aside from the mayor.
That to me is the crux of the problem. I feel I put a lot of effort into being a member of the "informed electorate," though I of course have my pet issues and glaring gaps as everyone does. Maybe I should Tweet this to CNN or something see if they would do some exit polling.
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On November 06 2012 04:01 kmillz wrote:That's weird, I don't see one black person in this photo of Florida voters waiting in line ![[image loading]](http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/_dZmv5mzEJ1qBk7sEl8avg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Y2g9MzgzO2NyPTE7Y3c9NjE0O2R4PTA7ZHk9MDtmaT11bGNyb3A7aD0zODM7cT04NTt3PTYxNA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/theatlanticwire/Voting_Is_Already_a_Mess-5e1ecf92c8e8bdbfef095110655268f8) Point being, quite trying to pretend like its Florida trying to fuck black people.
Your picture was taken in the city of Hialeah which has less than a 3% black population compared to the states 16% black population. I don't know the neighborhood but i would also venture that this isn't one of the black ones. Your argument may as well be that korea has no elderly because there weren't any in the GSL crowd.
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On November 06 2012 04:31 patrick321 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2012 04:01 kmillz wrote:That's weird, I don't see one black person in this photo of Florida voters waiting in line Point being, quite trying to pretend like its Florida trying to fuck black people. Your picture was taken in the city of Hialeah which has less than a 3% black population compared to the states 16% black population. I don't know the neighborhood but i would also venture that this isn't one of the black ones. Your argument may as well be that korea has no elderly because there weren't any in the GSL crowd.
lol, that is all
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United States42653 Posts
The problem with the test theory should be obvious. Say we accept the premise that the 'stupid votes' dilute the impact of the 'knowledgeable votes' and institute a test to disqualify the stupid votes, say 20% of the total. Great, now we've excluded those who can't dress themselves. But there is a still a range of different levels of knowledge within the remaining voters with Obama at the top with the most detailed knowledge of his own record of anyone and flat tax advocates at the bottom. Those 'stupid votes' are still here, the guys voting aren't as stupid as the first time we ran the filter through but there is still a range of opinions of varying idiocy. So we make the test harder and exclude another 20% (20% of the remaining 80% so the electorate is now the 64% most informed). But we still have some people who couldn't tell you an approximation of the dictionary definition of socialist in this group and yet still try and use the word so we take another 20% out because those guys clearly shouldn't be allowed to make any kind of decision (20% of the remaining 64% so we're now down to 51.2% voters). Rinse and repeat.
If you accept the premise that the least informed shouldn't be voting then you either have a nonsensical argument about how a certain amount of idiocy is acceptable or you go to the logical conclusion, that how informed people are is fundamentally a relative concept and that in any group there will always be a least informed portion until you get to the single most informed person in a group of one. Once at this conclusion you proclaim an oligarchy and be done with democracy.
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On November 06 2012 04:31 Klondikebar wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2012 04:26 MVega wrote:On November 06 2012 04:21 ThomasjServo wrote:On November 06 2012 04:05 KwarK wrote:On November 06 2012 04:01 jdsowa wrote:On November 06 2012 03:55 KwarK wrote:On November 06 2012 03:51 jdsowa wrote:On November 06 2012 03:43 MVega wrote:
So glad the election will be over soon. This is the first time in my life that I'm not voting.
We really need a voting system like Australia has where voting is mandatory and if you don't vote there is some sort of fine. At least that's how I remember Australian voting being, it's been quite awhile. I'd gladly pay the fine for not voting this election, I think as long as the money from that fine went into helping any one of my countrymen it would be worth a lot more than my vote.
Edit: I'll just add this ... The candidates running for president don't take this as seriously as some of the voters do. If either candidate believed that the other guy was as evil/horrible/whatever as all the attack ads and spin claimed, if either candidate believed that the other candidate was going to run the country into the ground ... They wouldn't have been joking and laughing and chummy together after the debates. Since they were that either means they both, while wanting the job, think that the other guy is capable OR they're both equally bad. That's a terrible idea. We should be valuing quality votes--people who bothered to give a damn about the candidates and the issues. As it is, we have this culture where we encourage people to vote regardless of their level of ignorance. In this case the level of ignorance of voters is largely self assessed. I have doubts in the ability of an idiot to rate his idiocy. Is this the sort of behavior befifting of a mod? To call a poster an 'idiot' in 2 or 3 separate posts? Why not just ban me if you can't handle having another party come in and challenge your narrow worldview. I'm reasonably sure my post didn't explicitly call you an idiot. If, however, you choose to project that interpretation onto it then that's your business. All I did was point out that there is no way of objectively measuring the quality of a voter, people who may have very questionable reasoning abilities might not notice that their opinions are retarded. In theory I would adore a test to vote. Use five, exceedingly simple questions to prove you paid the slightest amount of attention i.e. "What state was Romney most recently Governor of?" You don't even have to get all of them right, or even a majority. I want 40%, you need two out of five for a "quality," vote. I personally feel like a put a lot of effort into understanding the issues on both sides; election season is all talk radio all the time for me. You could have it in any language, read to you or whatever, I just want to know that those who are casting their votes have paid the slightest modicum of attention to the race and those involved. Of course this will never happen here in the states, I have recently become supremely frustrated with trying to discuss politics when people want to talk politics (The key difference IMO being a civil exchange versus talking over one another, lobbing useless insults). I'd actually be curious to know what % of voters could actually pass that. It was pretty disheartening when one of the news agencies reported that a ridiculously large number of people they polled couldn't name any of NY's state politicians or any of the city politicians aside from the mayor. Why is that disheartening? How many of those politicians have any meaningful impact on the lives of their constituents? Most local officials are just pencil pushers. They don't make laws, they don't allocate money. They just maintain the status quo. And that's fine, we need people to do that. But we also shouldn't be surprised that they're kinda invisible.
State level congresses do make laws, they do allocate money, and they set the budget. You would be surprised at what a state representative or senator can get done for a constituent, that invisibility though is precisely the problem.
Having worked in politics at the state level, most people just assume that the Governor or Mayor (basically that the executive is the route to handle problems), when in 99% of cases those executives' hands are tied on the matter. I know who my representative and senator are for just that reason.
Short story: It is difficult to explain to a woman that there is nothing we can do about the FBI refusing to sweep her apartment for bugs (schizophrenic, number was blocked by the FBI). Contact your federal level representatives.
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"If we lose this election there is only one explanation — demographics. ... If I hear anybody say it was because Romney wasn’t conservative enough I’m going to go nuts. We’re not losing 95 percent of African-Americans and two-thirds of Hispanics and voters under 30 because we’re not being hard-ass enough," - Senator Lindsey Graham.
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On November 06 2012 04:36 KwarK wrote:
If you accept the premise that the least informed shouldn't be voting then you either have a nonsensical argument about how a certain amount of idiocy is acceptable or you go to the logical conclusion, that how informed people are is fundamentally a relative concept and that in any group there will always be a least informed portion until you get to the single most informed person in a group of one. Once at this conclusion you proclaim an oligarchy and be done with democracy.
Just something I have been kicking down the road in my head, for a good while now. I don't think that you could approach such a system in a remotely equitable or unbiased fashion to have it function at any level to all concerned parties. I enjoyed your response KwarK.
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The question ends up being: Should we force people to conform to some "informed" standard (which, as KwarK points out, almost certainly ends up being arbitrary), or instead focus on improving systematic access to information such that the incentive to become informed simply becomes unavoidable, or at least less elusive? I can't help but think of the "leading horse to water" quip, and I think it has a lot of relevance here.
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On November 06 2012 04:31 Klondikebar wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2012 04:26 MVega wrote:On November 06 2012 04:21 ThomasjServo wrote:On November 06 2012 04:05 KwarK wrote:On November 06 2012 04:01 jdsowa wrote:On November 06 2012 03:55 KwarK wrote:On November 06 2012 03:51 jdsowa wrote:On November 06 2012 03:43 MVega wrote:
So glad the election will be over soon. This is the first time in my life that I'm not voting.
We really need a voting system like Australia has where voting is mandatory and if you don't vote there is some sort of fine. At least that's how I remember Australian voting being, it's been quite awhile. I'd gladly pay the fine for not voting this election, I think as long as the money from that fine went into helping any one of my countrymen it would be worth a lot more than my vote.
Edit: I'll just add this ... The candidates running for president don't take this as seriously as some of the voters do. If either candidate believed that the other guy was as evil/horrible/whatever as all the attack ads and spin claimed, if either candidate believed that the other candidate was going to run the country into the ground ... They wouldn't have been joking and laughing and chummy together after the debates. Since they were that either means they both, while wanting the job, think that the other guy is capable OR they're both equally bad. That's a terrible idea. We should be valuing quality votes--people who bothered to give a damn about the candidates and the issues. As it is, we have this culture where we encourage people to vote regardless of their level of ignorance. In this case the level of ignorance of voters is largely self assessed. I have doubts in the ability of an idiot to rate his idiocy. Is this the sort of behavior befifting of a mod? To call a poster an 'idiot' in 2 or 3 separate posts? Why not just ban me if you can't handle having another party come in and challenge your narrow worldview. I'm reasonably sure my post didn't explicitly call you an idiot. If, however, you choose to project that interpretation onto it then that's your business. All I did was point out that there is no way of objectively measuring the quality of a voter, people who may have very questionable reasoning abilities might not notice that their opinions are retarded. In theory I would adore a test to vote. Use five, exceedingly simple questions to prove you paid the slightest amount of attention i.e. "What state was Romney most recently Governor of?" You don't even have to get all of them right, or even a majority. I want 40%, you need two out of five for a "quality," vote. I personally feel like a put a lot of effort into understanding the issues on both sides; election season is all talk radio all the time for me. You could have it in any language, read to you or whatever, I just want to know that those who are casting their votes have paid the slightest modicum of attention to the race and those involved. Of course this will never happen here in the states, I have recently become supremely frustrated with trying to discuss politics when people want to talk politics (The key difference IMO being a civil exchange versus talking over one another, lobbing useless insults). I'd actually be curious to know what % of voters could actually pass that. It was pretty disheartening when one of the news agencies reported that a ridiculously large number of people they polled couldn't name any of NY's state politicians or any of the city politicians aside from the mayor. Why is that disheartening? How many of those politicians have any meaningful impact on the lives of their constituents? Most local officials are just pencil pushers. They don't make laws, they don't allocate money. They just maintain the status quo. And that's fine, we need people to do that. But we also shouldn't be surprised that they're kinda invisible.
Depending on where you live the local politicians may have more to say about taxes (like property tax), schooling, and so on than the feds or even the state does. They also regularly do bond issues and have to keep the operation solvent.
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On November 06 2012 04:36 KwarK wrote:
If you accept the premise that the least informed shouldn't be voting then you either have a nonsensical argument about how a certain amount of idiocy is acceptable or you go to the logical conclusion, that how informed people are is fundamentally a relative concept and that in any group there will always be a least informed portion until you get to the single most informed person in a group of one. Once at this conclusion you proclaim an oligarchy and be done with democracy.
In every western country, including USA, minors aren't allowed to vote. I'd say that the reason was that they are less informed.
(I'm not advocating a test before you can vote, simply pointing out that your logic makes little sense  )
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where is xDaunt? I don't know how his "Romney landslide" is going to happen...
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EPT
