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[Valter]

So, I've planned out the rest of the timeline of the universe.

2008: Barack Obama is president-elect.

2008-2010: Obama sets about with fixing the economy, foreign relations, and everything else.

2011: America is a utopia, world peace has been declared, and all nuclear weapons have been banned.

2012: Americans are satisfied with life, want something new to mix things up, decide to elect Palin as President.

2012: Mayan end of the universe arrives on schedule..

[dither]

What I don't get is this: Are you suggesting, as an alternative, to have no government and no rules? Because the government is, uh, wrong (breaking the rules?)? If so, could not governments and such exist within that system, since everyone would be following their own rules? (and, you know, if we're going by what experience "proves", we do seem to end up with governments most of the time)

Or are you just saying that a lot of things are kind of bad these days and it'd nicer if things were nice or something? : |

This is probably not what you were looking for, but here it is: I don't see the point of proposing alternative "systems" for ordering society. It's not like the people who have power right now are going to give it up once they hear a better idea. And I don't believe this is the right approach, because the means must be consistent with the ends desired.

Instead of a top-down solution, I believe in changing oneself as the only way to have a positive impact. As I said earlier, even if you have to follow the state's rules (to the extent you can do so without violating your own conscience) to avoid being hurt or killed, you can still withdraw your consent. You can see it for what it is. You can refuse to do the state's work.

How many people did Hitler kill, personally, as German Chancellor? None, is my guess. And yet we say that Hitler had great "power". Of course, his power derived from the willingness of others to give their minds and bodies over to his purposes. Ditto for Clinton, Bush and, soon enough, Obama.

All of us have power. How you affect society depends on which power you use. Stop being a part of the problem (not saying you are, but in general). If you want a society where force isn't the rule, then reject force, whole heart, whole mind. That is power, too. You can't expect anything to change if you won't even change your mind.

Ever heard the saying, "What if they had a war and no one came?" That's the idea, but take it even further. What if they had an election and no one voted? What if the president gave a speech and no one listened?

I won't kill for the state, I won't endorse it by voting, and I won't genuflect before the elected Caesar. That's my plan, for starters. Care to join?

[moi]

So, I've planned out the rest of the timeline of the universe.

2008: Barack Obama is president-elect.

2008-2010: Obama sets about with fixing the economy, foreign relations, and everything else.

2011: America is a utopia, world peace has been declared, and all nuclear weapons have been banned.

2012: Americans are satisfied with life, want something new to mix things up, decide to elect Palin as President.

2012: Mayan end of the universe arrives on schedule..

2013 LORD HUMONGOUS

[neon]

Ever heard the saying, "What if they had a war and no one came?" That's the idea, but take it even further. What if they had an election and no one voted? What if the president gave a speech and no one listened?

what if, what if.  this isn't going to happen.

I won't kill for the state, I won't endorse it by voting, and I won't genuflect before the elected Caesar. That's my plan, for starters. Care to join?

yeah!!  everyone who wants to have absolutely no influence on the state's policies, sign up here!  everyone who wants to accomplish absolutely nothing, registration is free! 

when you don't vote, here's the thing:  no one cares.  everyone else will still vote.  we will not change the government in a tumultuous revolution of apathy.  you do not accomplish anything by not voting, wheras when you vote, at least you can pick the lesser of two evils.  at least there is one candidate that you like more than the other, even if it's by an infinitesimal amount. 

here's the thing - government is necessary.  anarchy would play out like this.

1) realization that there's no government
2) mad dash for food and weapons
3) war
4) being cut off from the rest of the world
5) famine, poverty, disease, etc.
6) 

there is no way in which people can govern themselves without a system of basic rights and regulations set up and enforced.  this is why we have governments.  our only problem right now is that the government doesn't have to answer to anyone.  the citizenry doesn't hold the power with which to create checks and balances with the government.  with an organized group of people, there could be balance between the people and the government, and needs could be met. 


also, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_Law) the hitler reference was in poor taste.

[Rory]

Voting is compulsory in Australia. Americans are impressed if they get 65% of people voting. We consistently get 98-99% of the population voting. Maybe Al Gore would have been president instead of Bush. Maybe America would already be a Utopia. Maybe there would be no war in Iraq. Maybe the economy would be in good shape. Yeah.

So, I've planned out the rest of the timeline of the universe.

2008: Barack Obama is president-elect.

2008-2010: Obama sets about with fixing the economy, foreign relations, and everything else.

2011: America is a utopia, world peace has been declared, and all nuclear weapons have been banned.

2012: Americans are satisfied with life, want something new to mix things up, decide to elect Palin as President.

2012: Mayan end of the universe arrives on schedule..

:D

[dither]

yeah!!  everyone who wants to have absolutely no influence on the state's policies, sign up here!  everyone who wants to accomplish absolutely nothing, registration is free!

Think about what you're saying. The only way to accomplish anything is by influencing the state's policies? I know this world is politico-centric, but the power of violence is not the only power at work here.

when you don't vote, here's the thing:  no one cares.  everyone else will still vote.  we will not change the government in a tumultuous revolution of apathy.  you do not accomplish anything by not voting, wheras when you vote, at least you can pick the lesser of two evils.  at least there is one candidate that you like more than the other, even if it's by an infinitesimal amount.

I'm not interested in changing the government. Furthermore, what do you accomplish by voting, except to endorse your own enslavement? Lesser of two evils? How do you know? You have no control over the person you vote for. Put another way, would you want to be held personally responsible for what he does, once he has power and no longer needs your vote? If Obama orders the troops to bomb Afghanistan, will you want to face the families of the people blown to pieces and tell them, "This is the lesser of two evils"?

here's the thing - government is necessary.  anarchy would play out like this.

1) realization that there's no government
2) mad dash for food and weapons
3) war
4) being cut off from the rest of the world
5) famine, poverty, disease, etc.
6) 

We've heard this all before. Governments -- which wreck economies, and jail peaceful men and women, and have killed hundreds of millions of people during the 20th century, and brought nuclear weapons into the world -- are an absolute necessity, lest we end up with...what? In any case, I wasn't proposing "anarchy", which is pretty much what exists now, as a master plan for society. I specifically rejected the idea of master plans.

there is no way in which people can govern themselves without a system of basic rights and regulations set up and enforced.  this is why we have governments.  our only problem right now is that the government doesn't have to answer to anyone.  the citizenry doesn't hold the power with which to create checks and balances with the government.  with an organized group of people, there could be balance between the people and the government, and needs could be met. 

What if, what if. This isn't going to happen.

[dither]

Voting is compulsory in Australia. Americans are impressed if they get 65% of people voting. We consistently get 98-99% of the population voting. Maybe Al Gore would have been president instead of Bush. Maybe America would already be a Utopia. Maybe there would be no war in Iraq. Maybe the economy would be in good shape. Yeah.

Sarcasm? 

[Gold Cray]

brought nuclear weapons into the world

Not to mention the Internet, the Large Hadron Collider (and other accelerators), the world's fastest supercomputer, and soon fusion power too.

[Zaphos]

One of the (many) sad things about Prop 8 passing was that a large majority of African Americans voted for it.

This comment is a bit racist, african americans are allowed to have various opinions.
even though they know how it feels to be in a minority, doesn't make them forced to vote all like one man.

I should clarify... it's sad to me that while most African Americans were helping to vote in the United States' first black president, a large majority of them (in California) were simultaneously voting to take away the rights of gays.  With plenty of other people of different colors, of course.  I just thought it was kind of tragic, in an ironic way.

But I think I see what you're saying, so I'll step back and say it was generally just a sad result.  With the economy going badly, and the war still going on, I can't understand why anyone would care what other human being a human being wanted to marry.

Here's a more optimistic (for the long run) look at prop 8 demographics: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/prop-8-myths.html

[Corpus]

I think Derek was right - it is sad, because it suggests that there's a trend among African-Americans (or among African-Americans in California, or among the type of Californian African-Americans who're given to voting) towards homophobia. I don't actually know whether or not what people are saying is true, though.

Like always, race-related isn't necessarily racist. To pretend that race doesn't factor even slightly into ideological trends and culture within communities is silly.


EDIT:
Also:

Furthermore, what do you accomplish by voting, except to endorse your own enslavement?

QFT

[Gnarf]

I won't kill for the state, I won't endorse it by voting, and I won't genuflect before the elected Caesar. That's my plan, for starters. Care to join?

yeah!!  everyone who wants to have absolutely no influence on the state's policies, sign up here!  everyone who wants to accomplish absolutely nothing, registration is free!

If you want to have absolutely no influence on the state's policies, you might as well vote I'm with dither on this one.

We've heard this all before. Governments -- which wreck economies, and jail peaceful men and women, and have killed hundreds of millions of people during the 20th century, and brought nuclear weapons into the world -- are an absolute necessity, lest we end up with...what?

Lest we end up with governments which wreck economies and jail peaceful men and women and so on.

And people did those things. People are scum. Men and women aren't peaceful. They have killed hundreds of millions of people during the 20th century.

In any case, I wasn't proposing "anarchy", which is pretty much what exists now, as a master plan for society. I specifically rejected the idea of master plans.

I think we need a better system, not no system. I think we need one that tries to deal with all the mean stuff humans do to each other and to everything else rather than something that leaves us free to, say, create warmongering governments all over the place. Freedom and humans is a recipe for disaster.

Just rejecting the existing governments and leaving it at that seems to me like a detour to right here.

[Valter]

Er.

EDIT:
Also:

Furthermore, what do you accomplish by voting, except to endorse your own enslavement?

QFT

I hope you're being sarcastic. It's an entirely unnecessary statement. It's sort of like choosing to be enslaved to a man who gives you cookies and pie, and doesn't actually force you to work. Besides, when you don't vote you choose to be led by whoever you want. It sounds like you're a lazy bastard at heart, and you don't really give a shit about anything that's going on around you. You just notice that some people have died, and then you flip out because you figure there's the slightest chance that the current government will take what you think is yours.

You're so peeved over how voting "doesn't accomplish anything". What do you think would happen if everybody had a truly equal say in what would happen with the economy? Not everybody is trained in handling the economy. Even the smartest people in the world are puzzling over the what the answer to the current economic crisis is.  No one has perfect training in everything. A doctor doesn't necessarily know how to farm land. A carpenter probably couldn't build a computer. Just in the same way, the Economy is a trade, which requires knowledge to understand. There are people trained to fix the economy and keep it working. Do you really think you know more than these people how to fix the current crisis?

When you vote for a president, you aren't voting for each and every decision the country will make. You're voting for a direction for the future. The reason there are two major parties in our political system right now is because those two parties resonate the best with the people of America. The conservative party is one direction for the future: discipline, big business, and playing the role of world superpower. Liberalism represents another direction, supporting freedom, regulated business, and isolationism on the global scale. There are third parties as well, if you can't stand for either of the two major parties. Everybody is given a chance to decide the future of America.

[Movius]

There are people trained to fix the economy and keep it working. Do you really think you know more than these people how to fix the current crisis?

Quite often, yes.

Liberalism represents another direction, supporting freedom, regulated business, and isolationism on the global scale.

I'm pretty sure there must be a global law somewhere forbidding correct use of the term "liberal". Because every country on the planet seems to have an equally incorrect yet completely different common usage for it.

[Valter]

I'm pretty sure there must be a global law somewhere forbidding correct use of the term "liberal". Because every country on the planet seems to have an equally incorrect yet completely different common usage for it.

Ok. So? America has two parties. Defining what the parties stand for has no impact on the fact that those two parties exist, and are separate from each other.

[Movius]

from what I can gather 'liberal' in the US tends to mean "the left" or words to that effect, this is incorrect. Contrast with Australia, where the Liberal party is a conservative right wing party, this is also incorrect. Or UK where liberal means... something I'm not quite sure of, but it's probably incorrect.

[Alex May]

It means you don't like the labour or conservative parties but are too much of a pussy to vote green.

[dither]

I hope you're being sarcastic. It's an entirely unnecessary statement. It's sort of like choosing to be enslaved to a man who gives you cookies and pie, and doesn't actually force you to work. Besides, when you don't vote you choose to be led by whoever you want. It sounds like you're a lazy bastard at heart, and you don't really give a shit about anything that's going on around you. You just notice that some people have died, and then you flip out because you figure there's the slightest chance that the current government will take what you think is yours.

Just a word of advice: If you actually want to convince others of the correctness of your point of view, it's probably best not to call them names, or to ascribe evil motives to their arguments, or to misrepresent those arguments in the particulars, so as to make them appear ridiculous and thus easier to attack. We all fall into this sometimes, but it's best avoided.

You're so peeved over how voting "doesn't accomplish anything". What do you think would happen if everybody had a truly equal say in what would happen with the economy? Not everybody is trained in handling the economy. Even the smartest people in the world are puzzling over the what the answer to the current economic crisis is.  No one has perfect training in everything. A doctor doesn't necessarily know how to farm land. A carpenter probably couldn't build a computer. Just in the same way, the Economy is a trade, which requires knowledge to understand. There are people trained to fix the economy and keep it working. Do you really think you know more than these people how to fix the current crisis?

I think the people who are at "fixing" the economy right now are the same ones who broke it in the first place. The ones who saw the crisis coming and warned about it are still ignored or despised by the political establishment. This reminds me of the fact that William Kristol, who made some infamously wrong-headed predictions about the Iraq war, and how easy and cheap it would be, has since been awarded his own column in the New York Times, and become a regular guest on Fox News (presumably on account of his brilliance).

When you vote for a president, you aren't voting for each and every decision the country will make. You're voting for a direction for the future. The reason there are two major parties in our political system right now is because those two parties resonate the best with the people of America. The conservative party is one direction for the future: discipline, big business, and playing the role of world superpower. Liberalism represents another direction, supporting freedom, regulated business, and isolationism on the global scale. There are third parties as well, if you can't stand for either of the two major parties. Everybody is given a chance to decide the future of America.

I don't think the two major parties are very different at all. Sure, there is some difference in the constituencies to which each party directs the tax loot, but also a lot of overlap. The foreign policy isn't substantially different. Remember, Clinton signed the "Iraq Liberation Act" into law (which made "regime change" the official U.S. policy), imposed an economic embargo on that country and bombed it repeatedly during his presidency, not to mention his other wars. Neither party questions the central bank, or even talks about it.

Furthermore, the two major parties have legislated themselves a near-monopoly on the process, and made it extremely difficult for third parties to get on the ballots, much less get access to the press or appear in the corporate media's presidential "debates" (I use that word loosely). Third parties might as well not even exist.

[GregWS]

It means you don't like the labour or conservative parties but are too much of a pussy to vote green.

:D :D :D

[neon]

It means you don't like the labour or conservative parties but are too much of a pussy to vote green.

:D :D :D

...truth!