Why Compulsory Voting is Wrong

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Originally posted by Cueball:
[b]Who cares if it can be enforced or not? What does that have to do with the principles of human rights?[/b]

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If it is legally required to vote, and it is illegal to spoil your ballot, that means that the state requires each citizen to support a recognized political party.

Isn't that a pretty obvious violation of human rights?

Democracy includes the right not to support any candidate or party, which is why I'm strongly opposed to mandatory voting.

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I think the point of compulsory voting is to create legitimacy for whomever has or takes power.

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Which is why historically it has been required almost exclusively by dictatorships.

[ 05 November 2008: Message edited by: brookmere ]

Force in the case you are using is euphemistic not actual.

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Originally posted by Cueball:
[b]Force in the case you are using is euphemistic not actual.[/b]

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In other words, ask yourself why truth is not revealed perfectly under torture.

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Originally posted by Cueball:
[b]There is no component of "choice" in the term "force".[/b]

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In other words, every time a collective will and a individual will coincide, choice and force enter into a virtuous circle.

People have to have something to vote for and protect, like Nordic countries with their well-funded social programs and fancy-shmancy proportional democracies.

Here in Canada our stoogeocrats govern paternalistically and fear no financial or otherwise penalties for uttering false election promises.

Off topic and irrelevant. You are talking about enforced voting, not "dialoguing" with wayward non-voters, unless by dialogue you mean the one that happens between the captain of the firing squad and the condemned.

[ 05 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

I'd say that the electoral process is evidence of the existance of a considerable lack of democracy. Jingles said here once, "elections, like standing armies, are antithetical to democracy." Your intention of enforcing ratification of the process only shifts if from the category of a sad reminder of the lack of democracy in people lives, to the totalization of the tyrrany even in the act of being asked to choose the blind fold... or not.

[ 05 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by Cueball:
[b]I'd say that the electoral process is evidence of the existance of a considerable lack of democracy. Jingles said here once, "elections, like standing armies, are antithetical to democracy." Your intention of enforcing ratification of the process only shifts if from the category of a sad reminder of the lack of democracy in people lives, to the totalization of the tyrrany even in the act of being asked to choose the blind fold... or not.

[ 05 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ][/b]

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Whatever the quality of our democracy, all propositions to do something about it bring hope. Even proposing to kill everyone not participating in an election remains only a suggestion open to a constructive debate.

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Originally posted by Cueball:
[b]Well that is the difference between you and me.

I don't think suggesting killing anyone who does not put a check mark on a piece of paper, within a specific time frame and at a specific place is even worthy of the term constructive debate. I think it is clearly insane.

It is real Wansee Conference stuff. Now there is a deliberative assembly for you. They had a solution! A very efficient one too!

[ 05 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ][/b]

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Most leaders face situations where they have to risk the lives of some persons to avoid risking those of some others.

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Originally posted by Cueball:
[b]You weren't talking about "risking". You were saying that discussion about setting forth a deliberate policy of executing people who do not vote could be construed as "constructive debate."

I say that statement is insane.

[ 05 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ][/b]

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Any deliberation is constructive because while it is going on killing is kept on hold.

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Originally posted by Cueball:
[b]You weren't talking about "risking". You were saying that discussion about setting forth a deliberate policy of executing people who do not vote could be construed as "constructive debate."

I say that statement is insane, prima facie.

[ 05 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ][/b]

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Setting forth a deliberate policy of executing people is called planning not deliberating.

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Originally posted by Fidel:
[b]Wansee Conference? ha! We have the IMF, World Banksters and Warshington consensus for globalization. This political-economic setup ensures that anywhere from six to 13 million children alone every year are sacrificed to a merciless ideology. It's far more efficient than Heydrich's final solution. Over a hundred million in India alone between 1947 and 1979. Liberal capitalism is a monstrous ideology.[/b]

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Monstrous also is the sex drive of a lot of men.

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Originally posted by Benoit:
[b]

Setting forth a deliberate policy of executing people is called planning not deliberating.[/b]

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Doesn't matter. Even the idea that killing anyone who does not put a check mark on a piece of paper, within a specific time frame and at a specific place is even worthy of the term constructive debate is insane, even if the deliberation is just harmless discussion.

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Originally posted by Benoit:
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Monstrous also is the sex drive of a lot of men.[/b]

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... in countries without social security for seniors. In some Asian countries, the idea is to have as many children as possible in order that they survive incredible odds against living past the age of five. Children are their social security in old age. And the country with the most successful socialist program in their history, U.S. social security, refuses to export that same gold standard to desperately poor thirdworld capitalist nations through IMF and WTO diktats.

eta: Sex is like birds and bees. It is the spark of life since the dawn of the cradle of civilization in Africa. We can't dictate away the human need for pleasure and to proliferate. Health care, education and food on the table: those three things represented left-wing terrorism to very many hawks during the cold war. ~[i]"It's more difficult to govern over a confident, well educated and healthy population."[/i] Sir Tony Benn

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

Holy...there were 150 posts from 10 p.m. last night until now, 6 a.m.

Anyhow, long thread.