A challenge for democrats
 

This is for (lowercase)democrats, that is, people who believe in democracy.

Democrats like the idea of equality under democracy. One person, one vote. It doesn't matter how wealthy, poor, smart or dumb you are, everyone gets an equal voting power. That's why the status quo hails it universally as a good idea, unlike monarchy where decisions are made exclusively by an elite few.

When confronted with the notion that one vote doesn't matter, most democrats are quick to point out that while one vote may not matter, there is much more that one person can do than simply cast one vote; by becoming active, demonstrating and discussing politics, one can get people on to his side, start a movement, and sway the course of politics. One person, undoubtedly, can make a difference.

There is a serious problem with this. Are we to understand that if person A, through rah-rahing for candidate X, persuades person B to vote for candidate X instead of candidate Y as he was going to, then it is unreasonable to conclude that each person's voting power is equal. People are not islands. We interact with other people and are influenced by them. While the votes may be equal, the influence is not...and that is a critical problem with democracy.

You know that your actions in an election do not matter. You are not going to change the direction of the election. The same cannot be said of the elite. The executives of FOX News and CNN, on the other hand, can spin coverage any way they want to, and cause a very significant shift in the election. Luckily for them, when they do, what appears is the voice of "the people," who are just mindless lemmings that do what they're told.

All democracy does is mask the complete and utter futility of the everyman by giving him a meaningless vote between two pre-selected candidates. The elite control it just as they did under monarchy; it's simply a very good illusion to make "the people" think they matter.

Why do you think George W. Bush wants to force Democracy on every part of the world?




If people were autonomous enough to actually decentralize the voting influence enough so that democracy could actually be considered egalitarian, they would be too smart to have any use for democracy.

Re: A challenge for democrats
 

Great Op as always HMK. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: A challenge for democrats
 

The idea that individual votes don't matter seems wrong to me. Taken to the extreme this means no one's vote matters so no one shows up. We're than governed by the one person that did show up...

Re: A challenge for democrats
 

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You know that your actions in an election do not matter. You are not going to change the direction of the election. The same cannot be said of the elite. The executives of FOX News and CNN, on the other hand, can spin coverage any way they want to, and cause a very significant shift in the election.

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You're also vastly overestimating the pull of cable news. Irregardless, I do not see this as a problem since people are not forced to get their news from these organizations.

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I'd like to add to this the following (as food for though):

Absolute monarchy is to be prefered over (time limited) democracy due to the fact thet the monarch has less incentive to take from the people because he will pass on the rule to his children thus it's somewhat comparable to an investment.
A democratic government that is for example limited to two terms however must use those two terms to gain the maximum for themselves. Afterwards it's the same for the next government and so on.

This is not my idea but was first mentioned by Hans-Hermann Hoppe I belive.

Re: A challenge for democrats
 

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The idea that individual votes don't matter seems wrong to me. Taken to the extreme this means no one's vote matters so no one shows up. We're than governed by the one person that did show up...

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While he says meaningless, I'd imagine he means next to meaningless. I mean, I suppose hypothetically your vote could be the one that changes the election (though the odds has to be greater the one in a billion).

The meaning of your vote depends on both the amount of people voting, and your ability to influence other voters.
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You're also vastly overestimating the pull of cable news.

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80% of all news in America is provided by five companies. Cable is not only a large amount of news, but it's also where those five companies dominate the most.
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Irregardless, I do not see this as a problem since people are not forced to get their news from these organizations.

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They may not be forced, but it certainly presents a problem.

Re: A challenge for democrats
 

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I'd like to add to this the following (as food for though):

Absolute monarchy is to be prefered over (time limited) democracy due to the fact thet the monarch has less incentive to take from the people because he will pass on the rule to his children thus it's somewhat comparable to an investment.
A democratic government that is for example limited to two terms however must use those two terms to gain the maximum for themselves. Afterwards it's the same for the next government and so on.

This is not my idea but was first mentioned by Hans-Hermann Hoppe I belive.

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Which is better, democracy or monarchy?

Re: A challenge for democrats
 

Isn't this why we have parties and other organizations that seek to aggregate votes by providing a unifying compromise individuals can rally around? People organize whether it's Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes or the IWW.

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Re: A challenge for democrats
 

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Greater than 1 in a billion? LOL. Retard.

More like 1 in 120 million.


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Whew! I feel so much better now, thx.

Re: A challenge for democrats
 

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I mean, I suppose hypothetically your vote could be the one that changes the election (though the odds has to be greater the one in a billion).
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Greater than 1 in a billion? LOL. Retard.

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You honestly think there is less than a 1 in a billion chance that your 1 vote would be the deciding vote in a national election???

Re: A challenge for democrats
 

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You honestly think there is less than a 1 in a billion chance that your 1 vote would be the deciding vote in a national election???

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sure, try running some basic analysis of very close distributions and it becomes virtually impossible for one vote to matter once the total number of votes is high enough.

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Sorry to pull a Nielsio here, but I'm going to have to just link to a longer essay to explain my thoughts about this. Mark Lance, an anarchist and philosophy professor at Georgetown discusses consensus-based decision making processes vs voting in this essay -- Basically, any decision making process is useless in and of itself - that even the most open egalitarian decision making process (like consensus, which is the de facto process of probably 80%+ of all anarchist orgs I have worked with) can be gamed and even the most unopen decision making process can be completely fair (the hypothetical ideal dictator)

Each decision making process is useful in certain circumstances and not useful in others and procedural rules can be enacted to circumvent some of the undemocratic issues that arise (one could, for example, think about Instant Runoff Voting, Proportional Representation, Campaign Finance Laws, etc as ways to mitigate the effects of a plutocratic winner-take-all system)

besides the discussion about a decision-making process, we also have to discuss enforcement of the things decided and this is where I think market anarchists have reservations about any sort of social anarchism in that they see any sort of enforcement mechanism that might assert the will of society or the community or the collective over the will of an individual as inherently coercive and unjust because the basic right of freedom is embodied on an individual level.

I don't think this is the case but as of yet haven't had the time to write up a long post explaining why.

Re: A challenge for democrats
 

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I mean, I suppose hypothetically your vote could be the one that changes the election (though the odds has to be greater the one in a billion).
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Greater than 1 in a billion? LOL. Retard.

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You honestly think there is less than a 1 in a billion chance that your 1 vote would be the deciding vote in a national election???

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You may be interested in this SMP thread.

The way it works is that if you have a national popular democratic election of 100,000,000 people (which is what most people want in this country anyway), the odds of one vote mattering, assuming each voter is coinflipping, is about one in ten thousand, give or take a factor of two. However, there is a VERY steep dropoff if the voting probability isn't 50-50. If each voter has a probability of 50.1% of voting for a certain candidate, the odds of one vote tipping the scales swells to one in a million. At 51%, the number becomes so astronomically tiny that it is not worth calculating.

The reason that elections seem close and uncertain is because we just don't know what the actual probabilities are.

I should also point out that, in the event that the race is closer and votes assume a "good" chance of winning, chances are that the candidates have already compromised their positions so much in fighting for the middle ground that there isn't much difference between the two anyway.

Re: A challenge for democrats
 

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I don't think this is the case but as of yet haven't had the time to write up a long post explaining why.

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You never write these long posts.

Re: A challenge for democrats
 

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The idea that individual votes don't matter seems wrong to me. Taken to the extreme this means no one's vote matters so no one shows up. We're than governed by the one person that did show up...

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No, we aren't. Do you see why?

Re: A challenge for democrats
 

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The idea that individual votes don't matter seems wrong to me. Taken to the extreme this means no one's vote matters so no one shows up. We're than governed by the one person that did show up...

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No, we aren't. Do you see why?

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Because votes do matter so people do show up to vote.

Somehow I think thats not what you mean...

Re: A challenge for democrats
 

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When confronted with the notion that one vote doesn't matter, most democrats are quick to point out that while one vote may not matter

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Nobody who actually supports democratic rule would say this, at least not one with a rudimentary understanding of logic.

Assume that a vote has no impact on an election. Then, regardless of the number of votes cast, there will be no impact on the outcome. But if 1,000,000 can change the outcome of a vote, then one vote must have some "meaning", otherwise you would have 1,000,000 x 0 = 0 impact on the election, which is simply not true. QED a single vote matters.

No, the real problem you are pointing out is that many Americans can't vote for anyone they want to vote for. This is a problem with the electoral system, not a problem with democracy. Attributing all shortcomings of the U.S. government to democracy is a fallacy.

Re: A challenge for democrats
 

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When confronted with the notion that one vote doesn't matter, most democrats are quick to point out that while one vote may not matter

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Nobody who actually supports democratic rule would say this, at least not one with a rudimentary understanding of logic.

Assume that a vote has no impact on an election. Then, regardless of the number of votes cast, there will be no impact on the outcome. But if 1,000,000 can change the outcome of a vote, then one vote must have some "meaning", otherwise you would have 1,000,000 x 0 = 0 impact on the election, which is simply not true. QED a single vote matters.

No, the real problem you are pointing out is that many Americans can't vote for anyone they want to vote for. This is a problem with the electoral system, not a problem with democracy. Attributing all shortcomings of the U.S. government to democracy is a fallacy.

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A mathematician friend of mine has a quote related to this:

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[If an individual vote does not matter], the argument for democracy, then, amounts to the proposition that by adding together enough zeros you can get a nonzero sum – true only in calculus.

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Re: A challenge for democrats
 

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A friend, and mathematician friend of mine has a quote related to this:

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[If an individual vote does not matter], the argument for democracy, then, amounts to the proposition that by adding together enough zeros you can get a nonzero sum – true only in calculus.

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I guess if we have an infinite number of voters my proof may break down.

Re: A challenge for democrats
 

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then it is unreasonable to conclude that each person's voting power is equal.

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Voting power is of course exactly equal. When Fox persuades someone to vote X over Y they are exercising power but not voting power.

Also not every democracy has only 2 candidates etc etc. Voting systems vary widely and in Europe many countries have proportional representation which means there is much more diversity of candidates (who stand a real chance of being elected) and that each vote has more weight.

Re: A challenge for democrats
 

The reason I vote is so i can get an "I voted" sticker. I love those!

But seriously, it's because even though there is no chance my own vote matters, there is a chance that by voting, I will help to re-enforce the group norm of voting amongst my friends. If you went to a party on election day, would you want to be one of the only ones there without a cool-looking "I voted" sticker. I think not.

Another reason to vote is that is aids certain people in taking you seriously when you talk about politics. No matter how stupid it is, some people simply will not listen to what you have to say about politics if you don't vote. You could always lie, or counterfeit a bunch of "I voted" stickers, but I think my solution is simpler.

I still don't vote for presidential candidates, but that's because I don't think my friends should either. I think we should publically boycott the elections until the two-party system is abolished.

Re: A challenge for democrats
 

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I think we should publically boycott the elections until the two-party system is abolished.

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Interestingly, I was coming up with different demostration ideas for just this purpose last night. I was thinking to myself: should I chain myself to a cross in front of my polling place shouting about how the two-party system crucifies us all? Would definitely get me some CNN time.

Re: A challenge for democrats
 

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Another reason to vote is that is aids certain people in taking you seriously when you talk about politics. No matter how stupid it is, some people simply will not listen to what you have to say about politics if you don't vote. You could always lie, or counterfeit a bunch of "I voted" stickers, but I think my solution is simpler.

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It depends on where you are. Obviously in public, logic and principles are only going to get you so far. Ron Paul is getting more done through chutzpah, rebellion, and saying words like "the constitution" than he ever could through Austrian logic. However on this forum (where the average mind is much more unconventional than the status quo), repetition and charisma just make you look like a boob. It's much more reasonable for me to talk about voting not mattering here than it is for me to speak frankly on the matter in public.

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I still don't vote for presidential candidates, but that's because I don't think my friends should either. I think we should publically boycott the elections until the two-party system is abolished.

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How exactly do you want that to be done? I mean, there are more than two parties, it just happens that people just keep usually picking from the same two.

Re: A challenge for democrats
 

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You know that your actions in an election do not matter. You are not going to change the direction of the election. The same cannot be said of the elite. The executives of FOX News and CNN, on the other hand, can spin coverage any way they want to, and cause a very significant shift in the election.

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You're also vastly overestimating the pull of cable news. Irregardless, I do not see this as a problem since people are not forced to get their news from these organizations.

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Dan Rather and the 'fake but accurate' TANG memos damn near changed the 2004 election. It was sure to work if they were just a bit more careful.

Large blocs can move on the smallest media instigated fraud. Everyone now expects the very dirtiest moves to be executed on the Friday evening before the election.

Re: A challenge for democrats
 

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All democracy does is mask the complete and utter futility of the everyman by giving him a meaningless vote between two pre-selected candidates.

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No one seem to have taken any notice, but I will again point out that at the very least the above definition is totally yankcentric as a definition of Democracy.

Given that nearly all other democratic systems dont work the same way as Yank democracy the above definition is therefore almost meaningless unless you qualify it as a discussion about yank democracy specifically.