Boycott the 2011 Election?

babble shouldn't need to formally prohibit the discussion of not voting, or spoiling a ballot, but I think it would be fair if babble (or individual babblers) were to keep track of all those babblers who think we shouldn't vote, or should waste our vote -- and heck, all those babblers who maintain that all the parties are the same -- so that if the results are less than progressive, we'll know who should be reminded to shut their cry-hole about it. 

If people don't want to vote, fine.  Accept what you get with some grace.  Don't blubber that you have to live under four years of a Harper majority.  Likewise if you think that all parties are the same. 

To call a toad a toad is not pejorative to call a frog a toad might be. I don't know why this concept is so difficult to explain to you.

I have already done so more than once.

Calling a Communist a Communist might not be controversial but calling someone who is not a communist a communist is.

Calling a person who cares nothing about politics apathetic is no big deal but calling people who are deeply committed voters apathetic is a big insult.

Someone who does not care would not care about being told they do not care. A person who does care might sooner be called an asshole which is what I illustrated above. The point was not just to swear (otherwise I'd have done that earlier) but to illuistrate what you were doing with words and what is not insulting to you can be to someone else.

Northern Shoveler wrote:

Tobold if you really want to stir things up here tell the social democrats that symbolically breaking windows is effective.  I'll guarantee you that idea would also earn you the same hazing treatment.  The people on this board who feel the sense of seniority entitlement are primarily social democrats who honestly believe anyone who doesn't think like them is either a fool or a right wing plant. They are far from apathetic but quite narrow in their acceptance of minority opinions.

This whole thread has not had a single real argument but consists of a group mud wrestling contest. If Sean and the other attack dogs hadn't participated in this thread it would have been 5 post long at best.  Go ahead keep feeding the cause (or troll as you claim) that has you so upset I find it hilarious.  Instead of one short thread that died of APATHY it just goes on and on and on in a circle that has no end.  Good defence. LOL

Look at the start of this thread-- I stayed out of it till there was a comment calling voting apathy then I replied.

Look at the swtart of the whole debate-- same thing.

Not sure why you think people get to come here and shit on people for giving a crap and voting and then complain if they give you hostile treatment.

I am not an attack dog-- never have been -- I do become fierce when I see an unfairness or a wrong.

I find comments like "NDP stupor" here part of the double standard where people come here and crap all ove rthe NDP but then complain if there is any bite back.

I think it is a compliment to call someone a communist

Congratulations Tobold on saying nothing abour your own ideological views. That's very helpful and clarifies a lot.

Was a time when the provocative meanderings of Rollo and Androgys would have been immediately seen by moderators as an insult to this forum because behind it is the elitist thinking of folks who could not give a fiddler's fart about the lives of people who can be very badly hurt by the outcome of this election. Somehow the standards of the "schoolmen" have replaced a values system hereabouts that was founded on real deeds.  

I can just hear Tommy Douglas now, looking at the purely ideational drool vomited into this thread by people whose chatter could be just as relevant on Mars. They care?   They lie.

anondrogys wrote:

Don't use feigned ignorance as an argument. As several people said in several threads, one of the main aims of the boycott campaign is to reach out to disaffected non-voters and lefty types who are ready to make a break with bourgeois democracy with the aim of gathering forces to build a real people's movement to smash the state. The success of boycott as a way to rally advanced proletarians in English Canada remains to be seen. The boycott doesn't seek to change the outcome of the election or do anything grand, as you probably know. A familiarity with the material should give you enough information not to ask these types of questions unless you mean it. There are tons of positive claims associated with the campaign, too. You're just pretending not to know, or choosing not to find out in order to advance a dishonest argument.

Wow. That much anachronistic dogmatism in one paragraph sounds so much more like someone immitating their idea of what a communist is.  Troll much?

Tobold, same goes for you.  If you have a point, other than pissing people off, please make it and move on to another topic.  Or forum.

As for everyone else, this pissing contest isn't advancing anything.