Compulsory Voting (part 2)

Oooh, a "state is first and foremost and army". How Prussian. Let me know when you hit the late 19th century, yo.

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Originally posted by Benoit:
[b]

In a discussion forum, I cannot be in a position to use the inherent violence in the system to affect anything.[/b]

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Of course. I am simply getting you to fully articulate your position, since you are much better at advocating for the imposition of the kind of totalitarian proccess you are outlining than I ever could be. I have not spent much time considering the possibility that killing people who don't vote might actually be considered a part of "constructive debate". In fact, come to think of it, this idea has never even crossed my mind.

Imagine, if you will, that Adolph Hitler is at a bar in 1922 chatting up his ideas about the Jewish conspiracy. After all a beer hall is a kind of "deliberative assembly", I am sure you will agree. Well, imagine that rather than everyone listening attentively and nodding their head in agreement, someone comess along and says something like: "Adolph is really having trouble mastering symbols", and started mocking him.

Well, in that case perhaps the Beer Hall Assembly might not have transformed its perfectly harmless, yet idiosyncratic, paranoid and fascist concept into a comprehensive policy of tyrrany followed by wanton mass extermination.

I would really like to be that guy in that Beer Hall. Perhaps I am being a little grandiose in my expectations of myself, but I'd like to think that is where I am coming from, in this case.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by Cueball:
[b]Imagine, if you will, that Adolph Hitler is at a bar in 1922 chatting up his ideas about the Jewish conspiracy.[/b]

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... an' where would Kirdorf, Krupp, Farben, Prescott, and Henry be sittin at this point? Ah? You see? It's not about compulsory fascism until the kingmakers and captains of industry conspire to buy an election for whatver reasons - ie. war of annihilation against commanism and aggression against the rebelution part deux)

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Originally posted by Cueball:
[b]
Appreciating life to the fullest in Cambodia.

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

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Yes-yes, the UN/US-backed khmer rougers were even more brutal than Hun Sen's people, and so it was decided that Pol Potty's bunch should have a quarter of Cambodia all to themselves.

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Originally posted by Benoit:
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Me too because threatening the lives of would-be non-voters is a fair but extreme way to make them appreciate their lives more carefully.[/b]

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So, you think killing people for not participating in a sham democracy is fair?

And you think the state threatening to kill someone will make them appreciate their lives more? I suppose all those Jews in Germany really appreciated their lives.

And if I still refuse to participate in this oppressive and violent system, you think killing me is fair?

Really?

oh my GOD! They're killing people again for voting? Where? Someone should put a stop to it immediately!! They've got no morals and no skool principals i dare say

Come now. You have already exposed yourself for what you are there is no reason to try and make some kind of populist appeal to the anti-corporate sentiments of the board to try and get sympathy for your fascist ideas. That is par for the course.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by Benoit:
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Basically people don't vote because they are too busy working. But when people don't vote, we see now what is happening to them: they end up working for nothing: the politicians are only bailing out corporate executives while the people are losing their houses and pensions.[/b]

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Those are salient points you've made. And I must repeat something I did read about better participation rates in Nordic and Scandinavian countries. They tend to have higher participation rates because Swedes and Danes have something worth protecting from right wing political agendas, namely their well-funded social welfare states. They turn out in droves on the one day that counts every four years or so.

Here our politicians have gradually whittled away at our social gains beginning in the 1980's by way of stealthy neoliberal policies, FTA-NAFTA flip-flops and other betrayals ongoing behind closed doors with Canadians never fully realizing what they've been up to.

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Originally posted by Benoit:
[b] For a fascist there cannot be more than one candidate to vote for.[/b]

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But what if Canadians only ever had the real choice of choosing between two political parties delivering very similar corporatist and banking agendas for the last 140 years in a row - or roughly twice as long as Soviets ruled the USSR?

I think our autocrats perhaps [i]should[/i] begin anew by threatening small fines for not voting just to arouse a few hypnogogic non-voters(41% of eligible voters apparently) to the general idea of democracy before restarting the federal study on electoral reform.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

Which party would benefit the most if voting was compulsory? Not the cons, they all vote already.
And the greens vote automatically regardless of their chance of winning.
So I guess the ndp and the federal liberals.
So the left would gain.
Penaltys for non voting? How about loss of citizenship, withdrawal of passports, or conscription? Perhaps voting record could be linked to the old age pension?
As far as I am concerned the left leaning non voters have let my side down.
Why should we cut slack to deserters?
The non voter as a traitor? How should we see them?

I think where you're going horribly, horribly wrong is this notion of voting as a responsibility. While it is a responsible thing to do, one might say, it cannot be a responsibility in the stricter sense of the word, because by design it is the very reform that legitimised the notion of responsibility to the state.

The advocates of democracy said, we will accept the authority of the state again if you give us the right to choose our leaders. That was the compromise that held the social order together and is still doing so today. It is not something you owe to the state, it is something the state owes to you, your authority that recompenses you for the authority you give up to the state.

As such, it is foolish to squander it, but it is also fully your right to do so. If you put parameters on voting, even in the case of wasting your vote, you remove the authority the vote was meant to provide. You betray the compromise, and enslave people all over again. My vote is my own. I don't owe it to anyone. I can do what I like with it. If you want to enforce restrictions on my democratic franchise, then I consider you an enemy of democracy. I don't see how it can be otherwise.

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Originally posted by Cueball:
[b]The state in it National Socialist form is founded on the idea that Furher (the leader) is the emodiement of the Reich (the state) and therefore it's people. That's Hitler, not Musolini.[/b]

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It is possible that German fascism included the idea of ein volk ein reich ein fuhrer, and whose "nation state's needs" were to project power across international borders for the purpose of corporatist needs and not so much out of ordinary folk's needs. Emil Kirdorf and der future fuhrer decided they needed financial backing if SDAP were going to overcome terrific odds against them with half a dozen socialist and communist parties poised for election.

Ernst Rohm believed that a second workers uprising to takeover the factories was the next logical step for national socialism. The very idea frightened Germany's industrial and banking elite, and so the socialist wing of the party were murdered in the middle of the night. Exnay on the ocialism say. Corporationists stood idly by and counting the weeks to zero labour costs in the new lebensraum to satiate corporate appetites for money and power, and a new lust for world domination from Berlin to New Jersey.

So, considering that the NDP has described a general lack of transparency and accountability in N. America where phony majorities, and now coalition rule with exaggerated minorities, and backroom deals are the way, which region of the world would be most susceptible to fascist rule today?

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Originally posted by Benoit:
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A state is relative to all other states. If you weaken your own state, you will be captured by another one.
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Yes, yes Luddendorf, and all that rot about "Der totale Krieg." Nothing un-fascist about social darwinism. Quite the opposite. Again par for the course. I bet you even think you understand Clauzewitz.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

Forcing people to vote is not about "co-operation".

I

don't

want

your

generosity.

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Originally posted by Cueball:
[b]Forcing people to vote is not about "co-operation".[/b]

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What if it was done for one election only and for the sake of whipping up national interest in a referendum on electoral reform? We just can't go on with this Liberal-Tory Excalibur and lady of the lake selection thing. I mean, what will our international neighbors think? - that we prefer tin pot rule to one person equalling one vote?

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Originally posted by Fidel:
[b]
I think that it in this case, our autocratic old line parties actually prefer low voter turnouts and not to arouse sleeping interests for electoral reform.[/b]

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Do you have any empirical evidence that there is any correlation between low voter turnout and electoral success for the Liberals and Conservatives versus the NDP or PQ/BQ, either at the federal or provincial level?

Did not the recent federal election with its historically low turnout produce one of the largest percentages of non-old-line MP's (NDP and Bloc) in the Commons ever? And the lowest % of popular vote for the Liberals and Conservatives combined ever?

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: brookmere ]

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Originally posted by Benoit:
[b]

A state is relative to all other states. If you weaken your own state, you will be captured by another one.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Benoit ][/b]

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The right to national independence does not arise from any merely literary and idealistic form of self-consciousness; still less from a more or less passive and unconscious de facto situation, but from an active, self-conscious, political will expressing itself in action and ready to prove its rights. It arises, in short, from the existence, at least in fieri, of a State. Indeed, it is the State which, as the expression of a universal ethical will, creates the right to national independence

Benito Mussolini

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