Six Degrees of Voting 80
An anonymous reader writes "Received a link to SixDegreesOfVoting.com that is a new take on the Registration drive concept. From the Manifesto: 'if we make sure everyone we know is voting, and they make sure everyone they know is voting, and so on, wouldn't everyone be voting?' Match it with a nice flash map showing linked signups, it looks pretty cool (albeit leaning solidly to the left right now)."
Oh great... (Score:2, Insightful)
A lot more is at stake than the presidential election: all the house of representatives, a third of the senate, and lots of state and local elections.
When you force the ignorant into the polling places, they will most likely vote for every selection, even the ones they know nothing about. So you wind up with candidates getting votes because of their party affiliation or their cool-sounding names. That's the last thing we should be pushing for.
Since when... (Score:4, Insightful)
Like religion, it should be an individual decision and like religion, I find people who meddle in the affairs of others in these issues annoying.
One good point... (Score:4, Insightful)
When will we see a nationwide campaign encouraging people not to vote if they don't care? Or what about people who just don't have the time to do the homework? I know too many people who vote based purely on party or distant relationship than on merit.
Re:One good point... (Score:2, Insightful)
Voting based on party is not nessasarily a bad thing. A party designation allows the less then informed citizen to have an idea on where a canidate stands on a given set of issues. No, it doesn't give you a detailed idea of the policies they would implement, but most people don't know that anyway.
People vote base on a number of consicuous and unconscience clues. Be it from the way the canidate holds himself, to the way the canidate looks, to the general impression they get of him, whether they trust the canidate or not. Is this the ideal way to elect a president or canidate for another office (which is most of the time chosen based on who the incumbent is), no of course not. But it is the way the situation is and it is the way things have been since the system began.
Everyone will be registered (Score:2, Insightful)
Please don't Rock the Vote! (Score:2, Insightful)
Cheers,
Craig
Re:Since when... (Score:2, Insightful)
Your religion or lack there of, and how you practice it, will have an impact on who your friends are in the irst place.
Re:Since when... (Score:5, Insightful)
In your case, it doesn't seem prudent. But that doesn't mean it is never prudent.
However, let me point you out a little difference to religion.
Contrary to religion is not about makeing you choose a certain party.
Next, wether you like it or not, your life is affected by politics. There are not a lot people that don't care how their life is affected by it and have no particular opinion on anything. But most people say something along the line of: "Well, what I do/say doesn't matter anyway". They have given up.
Re:Since when... (Score:4, Insightful)
Religion, like voting, is a community descision. People who are members of your community (and not in the YMCA/United Way meaning. I mean the folk who are your real kith) have a duty to share their views with you, and you have an opinion to share your views with them. If you don't, then they're not kith.
It is your busiess that your friends vote because if they don't vote, then the elected officials don't care about them and the government will not bend to assist them.
It is your business what religion your friends are. Formal or informal, agreeing or disagreeing, knowing how a person relates to the divine is part of knowing a person. At the very least, you need to know if you can invite them to be your kid's godparent or trust them to keep the kid from being brainwashed by organized religion.
Oh, and that "meddling" you're referring to--that's called DEMOCRACY.
Re:Oh great... (Score:4, Insightful)
What does that mean? How informed is "well-enough informed to cast their votes meaningfully"?
How is one vote more meaningful than another?
The first thing we should be pushing for is for people to get out and vote. The second thing we should be pushing for is for arrogant snobs to STFU. I'll vote straight party line, I'll vote for cool sounding names. I'll vote for women I consider doable or people with an odd number of syllables in their name or whomever else I choice to vote for.
How someone might vote should never be the litmus test on whether they can or should vote.
One really bad point. (Score:2, Insightful)
I hope I never live to see that day.
And what makes you so qualified to judge how other people vote? So you know people who vote purely on party. Why isn't that on merit? What if I disagree with every stand in a party platform. Shouldn't I then vote for candidates of another party?
What makes someone so friggin' self righteous they think they can decide who should vote and who shouldn't?
Humanity is your business. (Score:3, Insightful)
If you were out with a friend and spouse and starting needling them on their choice of birth control--that might be meddling. If your friend starting coughing up blood, saying, 'do you need a doctor?' is not meddling.
I am a little surprised someone who chose the name HotNeedleOfInquiry is worried about being meddlesome.
Worse are some of those who do vote... (Score:4, Insightful)
We harp on not having enough people voting but we ignore the bigger problem of having people vote who don't know the issues let alone the players.
Don't Vote (Score:4, Insightful)
People are under the deluded impression that Democracy is just. It isn't. It is just more likely to be just then other forms of government. However, it is perfectly within a democracies ability for 51% of the population to put the other 49% into slavery. The very reason why this nation has a bill of rights is because the founding fathers recognized that Democracy is less then perfect.
Just because 51% of the people say something is right, does not make them right. It just means more people believe one thing over another. Pick your favorite philosopher or political figure. No matter how accepted that person might be right now, at one point they articulated an opinion which the vast majority disagreed with. That didn't make that person wrong, just in disagreement with the rest of the world.
To be perfectly honest, I -don't- want more people to vote. I want less people to vote. As it is now, too many stupid people vote. Too many people vote based upon who has the prettier words, looks the best, or just fills them with a warmer feeling. I don't care if it is the stupid southern house wife you just doesn't trust any liberal because, well, no one in her family ever has since the civil war, or if it is a stupid stoner college student who really has no fucking opinion of his own, but is pretty sure everyone else hates Bush and so he should too. I don't want these people to vote. There input into the system isn't helpful. It is just noise. When they vote, I don't feel any sense of pride that two uneducated idiots made their decision based upon something that has absolutely nothing to do with reality.
Voting is a mechanism to reach a consensus as to who should rule. When you rule, you have the authority to pass laws that will result in violence on the population. I don't care if you pass a law to stop gumball theft. You just authorized violence against your population. Laws don't work without the threat of someone taking either your property or you freedom and sending you to jail.
So, when the decision is coming around as to who gets this power, take it fucking seriously. Don't tell idiots to add their input. If they don't want to vote, good, don't encourage them. The fewer idiots that vote, the more that my vote counts, and the more that non-idiots votes count.
I propose a different solution. Tell your friends not to vote. If they are stupid enough to do as you say, then you are doing the world a favor by keeping them from voting.
Re:Since when... (Score:2, Insightful)