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Have you thought about moving elsewhere? Lots of choices in the world.
It's not as easy as you think. If it was PLENTY of Americans would head to the nearest embassy and renounce their citizenship. I'm one of them but due to work related reasons I'm stuck here. My company position is very important and my company has said I one of the best candidates to help run its US branch. The suffering of being too qualified.....
As for voting, I vote but I know it's pointless and irrelevant. I say we just line them up and shoot them. That would really open the eyes of those criminals in Washington D.C. I would do it without an iota of sympathy. The US has the best government money can buy.
The United States has established itself as a representative Republic, in which the means by which you chose the men and women who will govern over you is by voting for them. If you "refuse to condone the process with your participation," you are indeed abdicating your right to have a say in who will represent you. But SOMEONE will be chosen to be your (Councilman, Representative, Senator, President, etc.), and if you are too disdainful of our form of government to participate in this process, someone else will indeed do it for you. And you have NO RIGHT to complain if you aren't satisfied with the outcome.
I believe you have misunderstood me. I am not arguing that when I refuse to participate in a vote, I then get to complain when Thug A wins instead of Thug B. I am complaining that any thug claims the right to make decisions for me. Yes, the United States is a representative republic, and I understand how the system works; I am arguing that the system itself is evil because it is predicated on and cannot exist without violent coercion. It doesn't matter if that's the way it's been done for two hundred years; there is no moral imperative to uphold the status quo just because it's the status quo.
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Originally Posted by bus man
And by the way, the United States is not strictly a "majority rules" society. Certain basic fundamental rights are spelled out in the Constitution, and ALL people -- majority and minority alike -- are (at least in theory) able to enjoy those rights.
I bet if you think about it you could come up with some fundamental rights - spelled out in the Constitution or not - which have subsequently been denied by the system of majority rule. I can think offhand of three major pieces of legislation which all violate a fundamental right: the sixteenth amendment violates the right of individuals to the fruits of their own labor, the Civil Rights Act violates the individual's freedom of association, and the PATRIOT Act violates the right of individuals to be secure from warrantless searches and seizures. All three were enacted within the democratic process. All three represent the will of the majority being imposed, on threat of violence, on the minority. Once you accept that decisions should be made on the basis of number of votes, you open the door for any majority to oppress any minority.
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Originally Posted by bus man
Since you apparently disdain representative democracy, which form of government would you prefer?
I do not disdain representative democracy when it is voluntary: each and every person covered under the system has agreed to be bound by the system. What I reject is the idea that some people can decide on a system, or a ruler, or a law, and then impose it on others who wanted no part of the system to begin with. I am in favor of any system of governance that rests on the voluntary association of free people. As soon as force or violence enter the picture, however, that system becomes invalid. It is simply not okay to force others to do what you want at the point of a gun.
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Originally Posted by bus man
You have the option of either working within our system to attempt to have that type of government implemented, or moving to another country that operates under that form.
You are overlooking a very important third option: to speak and educate and get people to think about the full implications of the ideas they support. Why should I act within the system to change the system when the system itself is the problem? How can one ever vote voting out of existence? If the United States were a military dictatorship and I thought that was wrong, would my only valid avenue of advocating for change be to become the military dictator myself?
The best way to dramatically increase voter turnout is to change the way we vote, such that each individual voter, instead of voting for a particular politician, votes against a particular politician. The viewpoint of a lot of people is something like "if I could vote against Republicans, without voting for Democrats, I would." (Or vice versa.)
It is simply not okay to force others to do what you want at the point of a gun.
And yet it's done. It's the way the world works. It's a violent world, and always has been. Modern civilization is based on a truce between people who would otherwise kill each other. To make a truce work, you can't base it on the assumption that people will do what's right. They will do what they can get away with. Thomas Paine wrote: When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.
The big fallacy in libertarian philosophy is that it's based on the theory that people can work together in peace and not infringe on each other's rights. But reality is very different. It's a military world. We're lucky to have any peace at all. People are constantly looking for ways to exploit each other's weaknesses, just like in a chess game. And it's not just people. All creation works the same way. If animals do it, and we evolved from animals, what leap of logic gives us the right to assume we would naturally be different?
Democracy is a desperate measure. Trying to get away from our natural violence, we want to distribute power as widely as possible, to prevent individuals from seizing it. It doesn't work anywhere near as well as it should, but what would work better, that would take reality into account, and not be based on an academic philosophy that doesn't work well in the real world?
But you're right to not participate in democracy. Thoreau wrote: The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation ... But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.
But living a life of wisdom, the very first wise thing you have to recognize, is that your neighbors are not so wise, and you have to live with them. So preach forever against democracy, but never get too carried away with it, or your neighbors will carry you away.
A lot of people think the polls are rigged and our vote doesn't matter and others think that we make a difference voting. I don't vote not because I don't think Ill make a difference but because im just flat out lazy.
Every poll is rigged. Samples are chosen to provide the outcome desired by whomever hired the polling firm, or the agenda the firm wishes to advance.
Have you thought about moving elsewhere? Lots of choices in the world.
I think you and I already had this discussion. I've already explained to you that it's actually not that easy to immigrate elsewhere. Otherwise I would've been long gone. So in reality you see, there IS NOT a lot of choices in the world.
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Originally Posted by bus man
Same as I said previously.
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Originally Posted by brianf408
That is exactly what brings me to the polls, getting the incumbents out. Some of these sleazeballs have been in office for entirely too long. Career politician describes exactly what is wrong with our government. It used to be that serving in public office was just that: serving. It was a public duty, you left your farm or business and went to represent your fellow Americans as a politician. When you were done, you went back to whatever it was you were doing beforehand. Now it doesn't matter what "party" the person belongs to, every politician is just another crooked slimeball who is out to line their own pocket.
I have zero problem whatsoever with our low voter turnout, being that the average American knows more about the Kardashians or the NFL than they do our government. I'd rather they not vote at all than come in completely uninformed and vote based on party line or a single irrelevant issue.
Why would you stay somewhere you hate? There are PLENTY of other places to live.
I've already tried leaving. Immigration is not easy in case you weren't aware.
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Originally Posted by OhioJB
Maybe you could sneak into Mexico or Canada, stay there forever NEVER coming back, and find utopia. Sounds like a good option for us, I mean you.
I've already tried Canada multiple times. It would've been a great option if it would've worked.
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Originally Posted by Yellow Jacket
It's not as easy as you think. If it was PLENTY of Americans would head to the nearest embassy and renounce their citizenship. I'm one of them but due to work related reasons I'm stuck here. My company position is very important and my company has said I one of the best candidates to help run its US branch. The suffering of being too qualified.....
As for voting, I vote but I know it's pointless and irrelevant. I say we just line them up and shoot them. That would really open the eyes of those criminals in Washington D.C. I would do it without an iota of sympathy. The US has the best government money can buy.
Thank you for dropping some knowledge on these guys. americans really should be more educated about immigration restrictions/laws. People think it's so easy to just up and move to another country.
I do not disdain representative democracy when it is voluntary: each and every person covered under the system has agreed to be bound by the system. What I reject is the idea that some people can decide on a system, or a ruler, or a law, and then impose it on others who wanted no part of the system to begin with. I am in favor of any system of governance that rests on the voluntary association of free people. As soon as force or violence enter the picture, however, that system becomes invalid. It is simply not okay to force others to do what you want at the point of a gun.
It's almost impossible to get any 10 randomly chosen people to agree on the same pizza topping, yet you're saying that it's plausible to get every single one of 300 million people to agree on a system of government?
The United States established its system of government when it ratified the Constitution. Everyone born here since then has been bound by this system from the moment of birth, despite having had absolutely no say in it. Are you saying that this is not fair? What do you propose -- a Constitutional Convention every 20 years, so that each generation can establish for itself the government it prefers?
I will modify my previous question to you. What system of government -- from among all of those that have ever been actually implemented anywhere in the world in a setting larger than that of a commune -- do you prefer?
I've already tried Canada multiple times. It would've been a great option if it would've worked.
OK, so you're stuck here. You can either work to improve the place you find yourself trapped in, or just remain mired in unhappiness. Your choice.
You may find some encouragement from what God told the Israelites after they had been exiled (quite against their will) from their homeland into a foreign land:
4 “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.
The best way to dramatically increase voter turnout is to change the way we vote, such that each individual voter, instead of voting for a particular politician, votes against a particular politician. The viewpoint of a lot of people is something like "if I could vote against Republicans, without voting for Democrats, I would." (Or vice versa.)
See there's still a problem. Say you hate Apple. And there's only one other smartphone out there. You're just going to buy it because it's the lesser of 2 evils? Picking the less hated of the two could still be disastrous.
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