Poll: Daylight Spazzing Time
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That just encourages the clueless to vote.
Right, because under a non-mandatory voting system people do thorough research before voting, are able to evaluate their competence to make the decision, and if they're not competent enough they happily let more skilled people decide.
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It encourages the apathetic to vote. The ones who not only don't know, they don't care. Arguably less dangerous than the ones who don't know and really really care.
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because under a non-mandatory voting system people do thorough research before voting,
Do your shoulder aliens vote, too?
Look what happened when voting participation increased here!
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Santa dropped acid to celebrate?
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It encourages the apathetic to vote.
As far as I know, those apathetic to the politics vote anyway, because "that's right and patriotic and an obligation of every citizen". And they vote for the guy who looks good at the posters.
The problem is with those who have a clue, but don't vote because it's hard to give a shit when your thorough research into political programs gets outvoted by two crackpots.
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As far as I know, those apathetic to the politics vote anyway, because "that's right and patriotic and an obligation of every citizen".
Not here.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/06/u-s-voter-turnout-trails-most-developed-countries/
Poland is a little bit higher in that graph.
Of course, Presidential elections always get the biggest turnout here. I sometimes skip local elections, because I have no idea, unless there's something specific going on and there's been a big to-do about it.
Not that I'm claiming that all who turn out are especially clueful.
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At least presidential elections have a point in US from what I gather of the government structure. Over here there's a huge fuss about it to elect a person that will have the awesome duty of... going to fancy dinners. That's pretty much it in peacetime. Oh, and I think the president can overrule court orders in some cases, which happened maybe once in last 25 years.
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Right, because under a non-mandatory voting system people do thorough research before voting, are able to evaluate their competence to make the decision, and if they're not competent enough they happily let more skilled people decide.
Do you know what the word "encourage" means?
Those clueless people vote in both US and Aussie elections.
In the Aussie system, they are encouraged to vote. Again: by sending people to their house with guns if they don't. Because that is "freedom" apparently.
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Right, but you probably have prime minister or whatever, right? I'm certainly not going to argue that a Parliamentary system is better than what he have.
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immovable business/industrial work schedule
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utterly regimented and immovable business/industrial work hours,I don't know any businesses whose schedule is immovable?
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Right, but you probably have prime minister or whatever, right?
Yup. In light of which making a big fuss about presidential elections is a bit silly, is my point.
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How would you go about amending the law so you didn't need a 2/3 majority?
You pass a poorly-written law and wait to see if it gets overturned in the courts.
Or if you're the current administration, you just do what you want and say "who's gonna sue me?"
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It took over 200 years to get approval for the last one.
And then we proceded to ignore it pretty quickly.
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Look what happened when voting participation increased here!
I'm pretty sure that logo is a 'shop.
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Fake but accurate?
Perhaps. Someone oughtta 'shop that logo onto that crazy scrotum-inflater guy who shows up at all the loony events in SF or Berzerkely.
File Under: Perhaps this belongs in the Bad Ideas thread
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@CoyneTheDup said:
immovable business/industrial work schedule
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utterly regimented and immovable business/industrial work hours,I don't know any businesses whose schedule is immovable?
I was being ironic.
But think about it. Daylight savings was a product of industrialization. So you're the authors of Daylight Savings law and you have a choice: change all the clocks, or change all the business schedules. Apparently, you decide everyone should change every single clock because it is apparently completely unthinkable to change the business schedules.
So the business schedules must be more immovable than the clocks, right?
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So you're the authors of Daylight Savings law and you have a choice: change all the clocks, or change all the business schedules.
The "do nothing" option is always a valid option.
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Daylight savings was a product of industrialization
Actually, it was war. The Germans started it in WWI and everyone followed suit. In the US it went away afterwards because everyone hated it and then it came back in WWII, though it was year round at that point. Then stuff got wacky, because apparently some places used it and some didn't.
The History of Daylight Saving Time
Daylight Saving Time (DST) is used to save energy and make better use of daylight. It was first used in 1914 in Regina, Canada.
So you're the authors of Daylight Savings law and you have a choice: change all the clocks, or change all the business schedules.
The governments running stuff during the wars decided to change it all.
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More importantly, probably, is the large percentage of people who rarely or never vote.
Definitely.
Awful. That just encourages the clueless to vote. And I'm not talking about people who have nutty ideas (there are plenty of those on any side of an issue), but the people who literally have no idea what's going on or who is running for what, or even what the offices they'd be voting for actually are.
That's better than what we have today. Many of our current problems can be traced back to the fact that election campaigns are "get out the vote" efforts. With 50% of the population not normally voting, you can win any election by simply getting more of your people to vote. The best way to do this is to pander to the crazies, since they are pretty easy to rile up and pretty predictable. If you had high turnout, then you would have to actually change someone's mind. Even changing the minds of the clueless and/or apathetic requires more compromise than pandering to the fringes.
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If you had high turnout, then you would have to actually change someone's mind.
That assumes they'd pay any attention at all. These people have no idea what's crazy and what isn't. Not that anyone else can agree about it.
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That's better than what we have today. Many of our current problems can be traced back to the fact that election campaigns are "get out the vote" efforts. With 50% of the population not normally voting, you can win any election by simply getting more of your people to vote. The best way to do this is to pander to the crazies, since they are pretty easy to rile up and pretty predictable. If you had high turnout, then you would have to actually change someone's mind. Even changing the minds of the clueless and/or apathetic requires more compromise than pandering to the fringes.
That may be true, but the cure is worse than the disease. I'm with blakeyrat on this one. Also, when the subject came up, I thought I remembered that Saddam Hussein also had compulsory voting, so I googled it, and got hits from both Slate and National Review.
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That doesn't justify the government FORCING its citizens to vote.
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woosh on me then
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That is SUCH an awful idea. Like... amazingly so.
I agree that it is a terrible idea but it's much better than the alternatives.
"Welcome to our modern representative democracy, where we celebrate freedom! BTW, you must be at this location at this time, or we'll send men with guns to your house. Enjoy the freedom!"
In reality the worst that happens is a fine of about $50, but it's easy to not get the fine sent in the first place, and easy to get out of if it is sent. The more important aspect is that it sets a social expectation that every adult votes and takes some responsibility for the result.
Goddamned. You had the chance to ditch the monarchy and you didn't do it?
Yes, we didn't do it. Some people whine about it being because nobody liked the proposed method for choosing a president, being appointment by parliament instead of a popular vote, but really I think it was because there was a massive No campaign and the then-Prime Minister was a staunch monarchist.
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Awful. That just encourages the clueless to vote.
It encourages the clueless to become slightly less clueless.
It eliminates whole classes of electioneering games like driving buses around suburbs with favourable demographics to take them to a polling place, or putting polling places only in favourable demographic areas to discourage unfavourable areas from voting, or any number of ways in which people are encouraged not to vote.
We also vote on a Saturday so most people aren't at work.
The system isn't perfect, far from it, but I find it highly ironic for an American to be lecturing anybody on how to run an electoral system. You guys pretty much demonstrate the worst ways to do it.
This is my personal approach to voting on proposals to borrow money for whatever.
Do you also never borrow money to buy a house or car, or set up a business or investment of some kind?
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Do you also never borrow money to buy a house or car, or set up a business or investment of some kind?
I have two questions in response:
- Why would you think that?
- Do you think my vote at home means more or less than my vote at the ballot box?
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It encourages the clueless to become slightly less clueless.
ROFL! You say that like people aren't stubborn and contrariwise creatures who would do things like vote for someone random, or the opposite of the last person whose ad they heard, or things like that, out of spite.
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It eliminates whole classes of electioneering games like driving buses around suburbs with favourable demographics to take them to a polling place, or putting polling places only in favourable demographic areas to discourage unfavourable areas from voting, or any number of ways in which people are encouraged not to vote.
We also vote on a Saturday so most people aren't at work.
The county I live in (and several others in Washington State) fixed those and many other issues by going 100% vote-by-mail. Our "polling station" is literally every mailbox in the county.
The system isn't perfect, far from it, but I find it highly ironic for an American to be lecturing anybody on how to run an electoral system. You guys pretty much demonstrate the worst ways to do it.
America has a lot of shitty States, like Florida, that fuck up everything. Those are the States you're hearing about. Washington has never had problems with elections, but you don't see a news story like, "Washington election goes exactly as planned with absolutely no problems". Especially not in a different country.
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Why would you think that?
I was wondering whether you are consistent in your decision-making or whether you're wharrgarbling.
Do you think my vote at home means more or less than my vote at the ballot box?
At least the vote in the ballot box is counted, right?
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ROFL! You say that like people aren't stubborn and contrariwise creatures who would do things like vote for someone random, or the opposite of the last person whose ad they heard, or things like that, out of spite.
They absolutely can be, but I think they're in a small minority compared to the people who actually have an opinion.
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The county I live in (and several others in Washington State) fixed those and many other issues by going 100% vote-by-mail. Our "polling station" is literally every mailbox in the county.
We have postal voting but it's optional and you have to arrange for a postal ballot ahead of time. It's a pain.
you don't see a news story like, "Washington election goes exactly as planned with absolutely no problems"
Do you use a preferential voting system, or do you only have two candidates for office?
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Do you use a preferential voting system, or do you only have two candidates for office?
Sometimes there's three!
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I was wondering whether you are consistent in your decision-making or whether you're wharrgarbling.
Who is ever consistent? Answer: I am when it comes to voting on bond measures.
The damn things always pass anyways. But I figure one day fiscal sanity's day will come, and I'll finally be on the right side of history.
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In the Aussie system, they are encouraged to vote. Again: by
sending people to their house with gunsa fine if they don't. Because that is "freedom" apparently.
Who said it had anything to do with freedom? Apart from you or your shoulder aliens. It's about collective responsibility.
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Do you use a preferential voting system, or do you only have two candidates for office?
There's as many candidates as are running (and have jumped through the paperwork hoops).
In fact, I don't think there's any election that has only two candidates (unless only two people happen to run.) Even Presidential elections have the Green Party and other smaller third-parties.
And of course there' s a "Write-in:" line on every position.
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I don't believe the government should have the power to compel you to a certain place at a certain time, with MAYBE an exception if it's for your own safety (i.e. cops evacuating a city about to be overrun by a forest file. But even THOSE evacuations in the US are voluntary.)
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I don't believe the government should have the power to compel you to a certain place at a certain time
So you don't believe in prison or curfew/home arrest?
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I don't believe the government should compel you to a certain place at a certain time
Ah, if only there was the technology to communicate without having to be personally present at the given time and place!
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But even THOSE evacuations in the US are voluntary.
At a certain point, they do become mandatory.
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The local responders begin saying the word "mandatory" to describe them; they are not actually mandatory as in "backed by force of law".
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True, not all states back them, but some do have penalties. For example, in New York you can face misdemeanor charges for failing to comply with a mandatory evacuation. In every case, a mandatory evacuation means that if you do stay behind, you will be left without any utilities, you cannot expect any sort of emergency services, and so on. So, there are penalties, sometimes even criminal penalties.
As for enforcing them, mandatory evacuations are usually not enforced mainly because of a shortage of personnel to do the enforcing. Keep in mind that the emergency responders have other things to deal with, like the emergency that actually led to the evacuation order being issued. Because of the danger that led to evacuation order, many of the emergency response departments don't force their personnel to continue working during that situation and only those who volunteer to keep working stick around. So their numbers may be reduced simply because some of them want to get out for some reason, and then they are spread thin on top of that. Then there's the consideration that a populace generally significantly outnumbers the members of the local emergency services teams. So how exactly would they enforce mandatory evacuations?
Now, there have been one or two times during Arizona wildfires when I have seen Sheriff departments enforcing evacuation orders on the news, but those don't seem to be the norm.
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Now, there have been one or two times during Arizona wildfires when I have seen Sheriff departments enforcing evacuation orders on the news, but those don't seem to be the norm.
The state with Joseph Arpaio? We're just lucky he didn't flamethrower those people himself.
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The state with Joseph Arpaio? We're just lucky he didn't flamethrower those people himself.
He's only sheriff in one county, you idiot. The fires were in other counties.
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Yes but I like to stereotype and generalize and it's a comedy forum not a FACTZ ONLY GUYZ forum.
See that thing I posted there, about Sheriff Joe torching houses with a flamethrower himself because the people in them refused to leave? It's a funny image lololol laugh haha funny hah joke.
It's not Doctor Science trying to expand human consciousness.
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Yeah, and you never call people idiots or liars when they're making jokes. That never happens. Nope. Not once.
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Yeah, and you never call people idiots or liars when they're making jokes. That never happens. Nope. Not once.
Correct.
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In fact
Am I about to get pedantic dickweeded by Blakeyrat?
Green Party and other smaller third-parties
I just got pedantic dickweeded by Blakeyrat!
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I don't believe the government should have the power to compel you to a certain place at a certain time, with MAYBE an exception if it's for your own safety
Or jury duty.
Or a summons, subpoena or other court-ordered appearance.
Or an AVO or other movement restriction.
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Or jury duty
That's actually a pretty good example. Both jury duty and voting are civic responsibilities. In both cases, it's scary to think about below-average people doing them. But, juries tend to make fewer mistakes than you would think given that they are made up of a random selection of people. I don't see how dumb people voting would be any worse.
