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To those of you who advocate not voting or don't care. To those who state their vote does not matter.
The thing is the model you have described is based on the notion that the will of the individual is irrelevant to group decisions. When the civil rights movement happened was it the act of a group which changed the political scene or the collection of individuals making a choice? The will of groups cannot work with out the individual minds making choices. Would it be better if more people paid attention to how they make their choices? Hells yeah. We can't guarantee people on mass will. All we can be responsible for is our own act of will.
One way which we can encourage people think more about their vote is to convince they have to vote. Not all of them will think about it but maybe some more will. It is moot. The important part is people take responsibility for their collective will. If everyone in the country decided Kenneth Hite should be president then he would. It is all a matter of individual will translating to group action.
Now that said, should someone divorce themselves from the exercise of their individual will in collective decisions of the people, then they believe they have divorced themselves of the weight of those decisions reached. This is a false notion. By not participating in the collective decisions then they are as responsible for the decision reached as the people who supported it. You have in fact by default agreed to those decisions whatever they may be.
Translation. If you don't vote, then you deserve what you receive and make yourself irrelevant. I am not irrelevant. I choose to vote and to exercise my will. If the rest of America votes another way then well that sucks but at least I can say I did my part. If I did not vote then my bitching about the status of things is really pointless. I got what I chose by not voting.
my .02
The thing is the model you have described is based on the notion that the will of the individual is irrelevant to group decisions. When the civil rights movement happened was it the act of a group which changed the political scene or the collection of individuals making a choice? The will of groups cannot work with out the individual minds making choices. Would it be better if more people paid attention to how they make their choices? Hells yeah. We can't guarantee people on mass will. All we can be responsible for is our own act of will.
One way which we can encourage people think more about their vote is to convince they have to vote. Not all of them will think about it but maybe some more will. It is moot. The important part is people take responsibility for their collective will. If everyone in the country decided Kenneth Hite should be president then he would. It is all a matter of individual will translating to group action.
Now that said, should someone divorce themselves from the exercise of their individual will in collective decisions of the people, then they believe they have divorced themselves of the weight of those decisions reached. This is a false notion. By not participating in the collective decisions then they are as responsible for the decision reached as the people who supported it. You have in fact by default agreed to those decisions whatever they may be.
Translation. If you don't vote, then you deserve what you receive and make yourself irrelevant. I am not irrelevant. I choose to vote and to exercise my will. If the rest of America votes another way then well that sucks but at least I can say I did my part. If I did not vote then my bitching about the status of things is really pointless. I got what I chose by not voting.
my .02
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From:
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But saying that does mean that yes your vote meant something. If nothing else it means how your state is going to go. This notion that statistically a single vote is meaningless is at best misleading.
A single vote compared against the 30 to 50 million who vote seems like a drop in the bucket. The problem with that is those vast number of votes still fall to the individual votes. It is the individual choices of each voter that adds to a collective number which is used to determine how a state will go. Sometimes those elections will be influenced by the sudden influx of voters normally not given to voting. In my lifetime Bill Clinton won his first election and a number of analysts at the time had argued this was due to a really high number of young voters voting for him. A group who was normally apathetic chose to make a difference and in fact did. By choosing to participate they helped guide the outcome.
Beyond that there is of course the state, federal and local elections which there is no influence of the electoral college in. These are every bit as important as who will be president. These elections also happen around the same time for the most part. If your going to vote for these people who even more directly influence your governance, then why would anyone ignore the presidential election at the same time?
My question is how can you argue that no vote I have ever taken been heard? Are you being literal? I mean they don't make noise generally, this is true. But surely you can't suggest that my vote as part of millions of others did not lead to an outcome? Are actually saying that the only decisions that matter are the ones involving what groceries to buy? Collective decisions can not be reached without individuals making choices.
As to the voice of complaint having merit, I don't agree. He has no power with out action. Say I know a guy who has insightful notions of how to make a million bucks. He of course lives in his mothers basement and has no where near a million. Why should I listen to his opinion? If someone tells you that it hurts when they lean against a stump but don't stop leaning against the stump then why should I care if it hurts them? Words are nice but ultimately if they are not coupled with some form of action they are idle intellectual masturbation. If the civil rights movement had just stayed people talking in a church somewhere, then nothing would have come from it. People have to couple ideas with actions. Otherwise you are at best spectators and at worse, sheep.
From:
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As for the rest of your point, it makes an equal case for lying about voting as for actually voting. That is, I should simply say I voted whether I did or not because, per your argument, I earn the right to express my opinion by saying so.
You ignored my argument about people voting for the "wrong" side not having the right to complain. If someone tells you that it hurts when they lean against a stump and take the affirmative action to lean harder, do you care if it hurts them?
Your analogy to the civil rights movement is a fallacious reductio. Of course there are important pieces of legislation and preferable candidates. Interestingly, the chief proponent of the civil rights movement, JFK, beat Nixon in the closest popular vote of all time ... and won by 113,000 votes. Think about that number in the context of your single vote. Even in the context of that election, no single person's vote even came close to making the difference.
Of course, electorally speaking, 2000 springs to mind. Florida, which determined the result of the election, was facially decided by 500 votes--not even close to a single vote making a difference.
Voting is idle physical masturbation (though admittedly of a different character than the typical form).
And I've left the big argument out altogether: Are you saying that people who don't like either major candidate are obliged to vote? Please answer that question for me. And if, as I assume, the answer is no, why is it acceptable to decline to vote on grounds of judgment in one instance but not another?
From:
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The thing with collective decision is they are made by individuals. The statistical models and large numbers fool us into believing that the individuals are not important but they are. Those large number collections don't happen unless the individuals make choices and vote. The individual vote has power because it is added to the whole.
You should turn over your earnings. Most votes are won by one vote. that one vote each individual in the millions make. The only time a single vote does not matter is when the system is defrauded in some manner.
Now if you want to talk about election fraud then you are standing on firmer ground. That is abhorrent to me. In those cases they are circumventing choice and that makes me angry.
As to your question, "Are you saying that people who don't like either major candidate are obliged to vote?"
My answer is still yes. In every state in the union you can write in a vote for whoever you want. There are several third party candidates. There is no excuse to not vote there. You can think of someone who you believe could be a good president. You are not restricted in anyway from voting for who your conscience says to vote for. The standard remark is "well third party votes are wasted". This is also false. They may not win as long as people believe the lie that says we only have two choices, BUT if we can convince more and more people to vote for other parties then they become more and more relevant.