Re: Voting, Ron Paul, and self defense
 

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I actually think that filing a ballot every year should be mandatory like filing taxes, as long as people have the option of submitting a ballot in which you don't vote for anyone.

But I'm sure that would never go over well as people would probably over react and say "ZOMG you're forcing us to vote!" even though you'd have the option of voting for no one and it would be about 100x less burdensome than filing taxes.

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Gonna even attempt to show that this could be constitutionally acceptable?

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Who said anything about constitutional? I'm talking about the optimal way to operate a democracy. I'd guess it would be another thing to add to the amendment that gets rid of the electoral college.

Re: Voting, Ron Paul, and self defense
 

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I actually think that filing a ballot every year should be mandatory like filing taxes, as long as people have the option of submitting a ballot in which you don't vote for anyone.

But I'm sure that would never go over well as people would probably over react and say "ZOMG you're forcing us to vote!" even though you'd have the option of voting for no one and it would be about 100x less burdensome than filing taxes.

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Gonna even attempt to show that this could be constitutionally acceptable?

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Who said anything about constitutional? I'm talking about the optimal way to operate a democracy. I'd guess it would be another thing to add to the amendment that gets rid of the electoral college.

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How about adding a Non of the above catagory? When ever that catagory won a new election must be held for that position where any of the candidates on the previous ballot are disqualified for that election cycle.

Re: Voting, Ron Paul, and self defense
 

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But each of us decides as an individual who to vote for or whether or not to vote. If my vote is a waste of time, your decision to try to influence my vote is also a waste of time because if it doesn't make any difference how or whether I vote, an attempt to influence my decision is useless as well.

I'm using "waste of time" in the meaning that I assume you intended it to mean when you orginally mentioned it, not as a waste of the minutes we are allotted on this earth but as something that is ineffectual in achieving anything of importance.

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Andy, most likely both voting and convincing people to vote is a waste of time. But how can you not see that, in at least some cases, convincing others might be worth it?

Voting is a waste of time unless the following inequality holds true:

(1) (benefit of your candidate winning) x (probability of your vote swaying the election) > the cost of you voting

Convincing other to vote is a waste of time unless this inequality holds true:

(2) (benefit of your candidate winning) x (probability of your persuasion swaying the election) > the cost of your persuasion


The idea is that the left hand side of inequality (1) is very close to zero because of the extremely small probability of your vote swaying the election (this is especially true in presidential elections depending on what state you live in).

On the other hand, if you are a very persuasive or powerful person and can convince thousands or millions of people to vote a how you want them to, the left hand side of inequality (2) might be a respectable number.

Now the likelihood of either of those inequalities holding true is very small, but you at least have a chance with number 2.

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All true.

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Except for the part where I proved to you before that voting is definitely not a waste of time. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Re: Voting, Ron Paul, and self defense
 

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I actually think that filing a ballot every year should be mandatory like filing taxes, as long as people have the option of submitting a ballot in which you don't vote for anyone.

But I'm sure that would never go over well as people would probably over react and say "ZOMG you're forcing us to vote!" even though you'd have the option of voting for no one and it would be about 100x less burdensome than filing taxes.

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Gonna even attempt to show that this could be constitutionally acceptable?

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WTF? People can support ideas for how things should be run and be willing to follow the amendment process, you know. This is a completely unwarranted attack.

Re: Voting, Ron Paul, and self defense
 

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I actually think that filing a ballot every year should be mandatory like filing taxes, as long as people have the option of submitting a ballot in which you don't vote for anyone.

But I'm sure that would never go over well as people would probably over react and say "ZOMG you're forcing us to vote!" even though you'd have the option of voting for no one and it would be about 100x less burdensome than filing taxes.

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Gonna even attempt to show that this could be constitutionally acceptable?

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WTF? People can support ideas for how things should be run and be willing to follow the amendment process, you know. This is a completely unwarranted attack.

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Attack? Is my sarcasm detector broken?