Citizenship and voting.
2004-Mar-05, Friday 17:03![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thorfinn
Apropos of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
strepsil's post regarding being forced to join the electoral roll, I figured I'd post my opinions regarding Citizenship, what I think it means, and why, in a democracy, it's crucial for a Citizen to get out there and vote correctly, rather than spoiling their vote or not voting at all.
"Citizen" and "State" are intertwined concepts. A Citizen is a member of a State and a State is composed of the sum of and the interaction between its Citizens. They aren't separable concepts. You can't have a Citizen without a State for that Citizen to belong to and you can't have a State with no Citizens that go to make up that State. In a representative democracy, the basic concept is that Citizens are formed into groups, who then elect representatives of those groups, and those representatives are responsible for the process of government and lawmaking. Group formation, houses of parliament, the form and nature of parliament vs executive, etc, are details which vary between representative democracies. You should go find out about the details for your locality, because they matter, but they're not the key thing I'm here to talk about in this post.
The key thing is that as a Citizen of a democratic State, your chance to influence politics comes when you get to vote on something. Whether that vote is in a referendum, a local election, a regional election, a federal election, or some other time, that vote is the only chance that you get to express your view directly. There are plenty of ways to express it indirectly, for example, by writing letters to your representatives, influencing the media, etc, etc, but they are just that, indirect.
Now, let's jump back to the theoretical State entity. The point of a State is to have a particular form and methodology, and the aim of a State is, theoretically, to ensure that its Citizens are cared for as best as possible. Different States, obviously, do that differently, and strike different balances, and succeed or fail in different ways, but ultimately, that is the responsibility and purpose of the State as an entity. In a democratic state, the State is informed directly about the wishes of its Citizens by the votes of those Citizens, whenever a vote comes up.
Over to Citizens. As a Citizen, you're theoretically being looked after by the State. If you wish to express views about how that State is run, it is your responsibility to get out there and inform the State of your views. In a democracy, as already said above, but it bears repeating, the only time you get to express that view directly is when you cast a vote. That makes it crucial that you actually get out there and do so. If your genuine informed opinion is, "meh, these outcomes are all the same", then okay, spoil your vote, or don't vote. Bear in mind, though, that not voting is your active choice, and it is a choice that means that you are specifically accepting the consequences of the vote, whatever the consequences be.
In a democracy, because you can vote, it is not valid to say, "Well, I didn't vote, so Little Johnny/The Shrub isn't my fault." That's a completely bogus statement. In fact, quite the opposite is true. By not voting, you have expressly accepted the Will Of The Voters As Expressed By The Results Of The Vote, and if that is to put in Little Johnny or The Shrub (leaving aside questions of electoral fraud), then that's what you voted for by not voting. Only if you voted against, do you have even a skerrick of credibility, if the State goes and does something you don't like. You're still responsible for it, since a Citizen is always a part of the State, and thus is always partially responsible for anything the State does... But if you didn't express your will when you had the chance, then you don't even have a partial quitclaim on that responsibility.
If you think "I'm in a safe Blah Party seat, my vote doesn't count", that's utterly wrong. Even in a "safe" seat, the margins count, because they indicate to the party in question whether their political base is happy or not. Also, particularly hated politicians have lost elections in supposedly "safe" seats before, resulting in them being unable to be part of the government. You can make that happen. It happens more often in by-elections than general elections, but it has happened in both.
In Australia, because we have preferential voting, go out and vote against those you don't like, by numbering the ballot in reverse. Give your most hated party or politician the highest number available, and work downwards from most hated to least hated. A preferential voting system is designed to keep out the most hated options, rather than keep in the most liked options, so vote that way consciously.
The U.S. is different. You do not have preferential voting. A vote for someone who doesn't even have a chance is basically a wasted vote and you might as well not have voted at all. So, think carefully. If there are only two clear front runners nearing vote time, choose between those two, don't waste your vote on an also-ran. (Somebody correct me if this paragraph is wrong.) EDIT (corrections based on lederhosen and blarglefiend's comments): Thus, you have to think a bit differently. You can vote for someone who isn't already a front-runner, which means sacrificing your vote this time round. The idea with doing so is to exert a longer term influence, either by making your candidate look like a decent chance for next time or by dragging one of the front-runners in the direction of who you voted for. The other option is to vote short-term for a specific candidate, if you feel there is a difference between the front runners that matters to you more than exerting a longer term influence towards a minority runner. Or, of course, if you genuinely prefer a front runner, then vote for them.
Anyway, what all this is really saying is, "Inform yourself, get out there and actually vote." It's the only chance you get to exercise your political will directly, and if you don't use it, you cannot disavow responsibility for the results. As a Citizen of Australia, I will be exercising my political will at every chance I get, and I exhort you, if you are a Citizen of this or any other democratic State, to go out and exercise your political will at every chance you get, too.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-04 22:30 (UTC)How many thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, of people die, or are imprisoned, fighting for their right to vote?
How dare we be so lazy or blase about going to a local polling booth, where we might spend just a few minutes queuing and then filling out a simple form. We don't even have to vote for preferentially for Senate candidates in this country if we don't wish to.
What a sign of privilege that is taken for granted when citizens can't be bothered to vote. What a wicked waste.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-04 22:48 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-04 23:05 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-04 23:09 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-04 22:40 (UTC)In countries where voting is not compulsory, the likelihood of conservative candidates winning is significantly higher, because the demographics which tend to support such candidates are more likely to vote. Apparently conservative voters are more highly motivated - if it rains on election day in a state where voting is not compulsory, the conservative candidate is more likely to get a higher share of the votes.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-04 23:16 (UTC)I have always wanted to see some studies or statistics on this. Do you know of any off the
top of your head? I realise it's an outside chance :)
Hear, hear!
Date: 2004-03-04 22:47 (UTC)Thanks. I'll add this one to my memories list.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-04 23:16 (UTC)Yes and no.
In the short-term, a vote for (e.g.) Nader has no effect on the outcome of an election. But there are two good longer-term reasons why one might want to do so.
(1) In a two-party system, the inevitable tendency is for the two parties to drift closer together, competing for the middle ground and taking the rest of their side of the spectrum for granted. The end result is that you end up with two indistinguishable parties, with the outcome determined by factors other than policies.
For those who don't sit in the increasingly narrow ground between Democrats and Republicans, the threat of voting for a third party is a powerful one. Without somebody to the left of them, the Democrats can only drift right. (Using Nader as an example here - one could equally well swap sides and look at Buchanan's role in the last election.) And a threat's only effective if you're willing to carry it out.
(2) If you want to *make* an alternative to the two existing parties, you have to build them up. The more people vote Green this election, the less they look like a 'wasted vote' next time around.
Voting third-party in a US-style election is basically a decision to sacrifice short-term influence in the hope of effecting longer-term change. Whether one makes that choice depends a lot on how much difference one sees between the two majors (Bush has done a fair bit to widen that gap in the last four years).
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-04 23:19 (UTC)So with you. I do not believe that a valid vote is a wasted vote, no matter how unlikely the
candidate. If you are exercising choice by voting then you damn well have both the right and
the responsibility to vote for what you believe in, regardless of the likely outcome.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-05 04:11 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-05 05:27 (UTC)The distinction I think you miss is that the presidential election is not the place for a gesture. The "first-past-the-post" nature of American elections means that if, say, the Democrats win, everyone else loses. There are no gains made for the Greens if they get 1% of the vote, and all the third party does is divide the vote up, making it more likely that their cause will lose. [1] I fail to see how that can possibly be a good thing.
If the Republicans get into office because the vote was split by, say, the Libertarian party and Nader, then there are real-world consequences of that that are borne by everyone. For four years. Consequences like, say, a draft. More people killed in useless wars. More jobs lost. Are you willing to pay that price for no outcome because of a gesture vote? Or are you just willing to let someone else pay it? [2]
I can't stress this enough: a third-party vote does nothing. Whatsoever. To help in a high-stakes all-or-nothing vote like the one for the presidency. Because a presidential election is the wrong venue for it.
The time is earlier in the process. Right now, people have been casting votes in the primaries for long-shot candidates such as Kucinich. They are sending a message to the candidate: a gesture. You don't like who eventually comes out of the decision process? Well, that's democracy, and the best you can do is to make your voice heard. Which, by the way, is the opposite of what voting for a third party will do.
As to a third party? Well, I'd like free ice cream and the ability to make hard cider come out of my nipples, too. Less sarcastically, I think that you need to build a third party from the ground up if you're going to do so, and that means not starting with the highest office in the country.
Party matters. Take a lesson from the last 20 years of American history: the far-right psychos that the Republican party is pandering to used to have no power, whatsoever. None. They were members of a small "third party" led by Pat Buchanan. It was a party defined by racism, antisemitism, and xenophobia, and it had no political strength at all. None whatsoever. These people were impotent. Why? Because they had marginalized themselves.
In the mid-90's, Buchanan ran for President and picked a black woman as his running mate. Gasp! The nuts in his party fled to the Republican Party. And started agitating. Now, be clear on this: they were a minority (heh) population-wise in the Republican Party. They still are. And yet, they were so loud, and so energetic, that they pushed their representatives to the forefront of the Repubs, and therefore to the forefront of power in America today.
So, if the angry, energetic progressives of America want to marginalize their voices, all they really have to do is to stay in a third party that has no chance of making any difference.
I don't mean to sound angry... well, okay, I do. It does make me angry that people seem to think that a presidential election is the time to make a gesture. Doing so is trivial, and it's selfish, and it's stupid. And it's most of all cruel to the people who will most likely really suffer under four more years of Bush.
Vote a third-party locally. That isn't throwing your vote away. It's slowly doing the very hard work of convincing people that you are right, and that you deserve representation. I wish you all the good karma and goodwill in the world in that, and if you do it in my town I promise to consider your candidate.
But you don't have the luxury of picking out a candidate that fits your personal fetishes and voting for him for president. Not at this price.
[1] And don't make noises about the 5% and funding, either. Not only did Nader fail to get that last time, he wasn't even properly affiliated with the Greens, and so all the funding he would have received would have gone straight into his own coffers and given nothing to his party. Also, if a third party gets 5% of the vote in this election, I promise to walk naked on my hands down Broadway at noon with a sparkler sticking out of my ass.
[2] Obviously, I'm not talking directly to
Afterthought
Date: 2004-03-05 15:35 (UTC)Not in tangible, legally-significant terms, and not in the short run. But if you want a long-term alternative to the Republicans and Democrats, you have to build up that alternative. You have to go through 1% and 10% and 20% before you can get to 50%, and that's not going to happen in one election.
If the Republicans get into office because the vote was split by, say, the Libertarian party and Nader, then there are real-world consequences of that that are borne by everyone. For four years. Consequences like, say, a draft. More people killed in useless wars. More jobs lost. Are you willing to pay that price for no outcome because of a gesture vote?
Here we're talking specific examples. In the election this November I'll be voting Democrat, for pretty much those reasons. Bush is bad enough (and the Democrats, while not great, are not-as-atrocious enough) that he has to be taken out of power now. The damage he'd do with another four years outweighs my desire to bump up the Greens.
In other circumstances, though, I might not decide the way. The closer the Democrats are to the Republicans, the less importance rides on deciding which of those two wins the contest, and then long-term considerations might dictate my decision.
The time is earlier in the process. Right now, people have been casting votes in the primaries for long-shot candidates such as Kucinich.
Yes, and that's a 'safer' way to do it... but it's also a less influential way. Because it can taken as saying "Hey, you guys are much too far to the right... but when it comes to the crunch, I'll still be voting Democrat. So just go ahead and elect the most right-wing of all our candidates, because that'll give us the best chance of winning the final election."
Vote a third-party locally. That isn't throwing your vote away. It's slowly doing the very hard work of convincing people that you are right, and that you deserve representation. I wish you all the good karma and goodwill in the world in that, and if you do it in my town I promise to consider your candidate.
Unfortunately, I don't have that option. Unless I've misunderstood the rules, which is entirely possible, as a nonresident US citizen I don't get to vote in local elections. Only the presidential one.
On a semi-relevant note... do you know why, historically speaking, Australia has preferential voting? It's *because* vote-splitting screwed with the major parties. (In this case, a secondary conservative party, the Country Party, took votes away from the major conservative party, with the result that Labour was able to win some districts with a minority of the vote).
The conservative government of the time introduced preferential voting to 'fix' this by ensuring that votes cast for the Country Party came back to them. In the short term, it benefited them - but in the long term, it makes third parties much more significant in Australian politics. (Although proportional representation in the Senate is also important here.)
Not that one can rely on history to repeat itself, but I wouldn't complain if it did...
Re: Afterthought
Date: 2004-03-05 16:11 (UTC)You are, I believe making a false assumption, that repeat attempts at a presidential election will build the support from 1% to 10% and so on. I don't think this is true. What happens instead is, you get 2%, then 3%, then 2%, then 2.5%, and then maybe 1% because your party splits apart from the inside.
That's because the small third parties that we are discussing right now are made up of people who are, by definition, unwilling to compromise. If they were willing to compromise, they'd probably not be part of that party.
Given a different third party (a significant chunk of the non-insane Republicans breaking off and forming another party, for example) my opinion might be different. But that isn't something I can say will happen. And I don't think it will, simply because the Republicans are very very good at this whole "team as juggernaut" thing. It's a lesson progressives have to learn if we don't want to be reduced to sitting on the sidelines and complaining while the country turns into a de facto one party state.
Here we're talking specific examples. In the election this November I'll be voting Democrat...
Granted, but listen: Bush is not a problem because he is Bush. He's a problem because the extremist factions who had previously marginalized themselves have taken hold of a disproportionate amount of power within the Republican Party: they run the show. And like it or not, even without trying, that party has the support of 40-50% of the country. Regardless of the fact that it doesn't represent the interests of the majority of that segment of the population. Those are the facts on the ground, and they are unlikely to change in 2008, either. Or 2012. Because it's a winning strategy, and they know it.
This is why I am adamant that third-party voting in a Presidential election is, right now and in the foreseeable future, dangerous and irresponsible. Because the other guys have no compunctions about banding together to seize power and fighting to keep it.
Yes, and that's a 'safer' way to do it... but it's also a less influential way.
Less influential than what? I don't believe that voting for a marginalized party is influential at all, so I fail to see how voting for someone who actually represents my views within a larger party doesn't send a clear enough message.
Unless I've misunderstood the rules, which is entirely possible, as a nonresident US citizen I don't get to vote in local elections. Only the presidential one.
Well, that sucks, but I'm also not really talking directly to you; you're one vote, and you are also sane enough to realize that voting for Nader in this election would be detrimental. Unfortunately, not everyone is that sane, and it was to that hypothetical reader that I was speaking. Also, if you were registered to vote in CA, you were also eligible (I believe) to send in an absentee ballot for the primary election, provided you were registered under a party for that purpose. Thus, see my comment above about using the primary to influence the candidate that actually has a chance of seeing the interior of the Oval Office without having to hide under the desk.
On a semi-relevant note... do you know why, historically speaking, Australia has preferential voting?
That's interesting. I could wish for the same to happen here, but honestly? Not going to happen. I believe that the keys to reform of our electoral system are firmly in the hands of the people who don't want to see it.
Re: Afterthought
Date: 2004-03-06 03:27 (UTC)Can you elaborate on that argument? IIRC there are several examples in Europe to show that minor green parties can grow into a significant political force. What makes it impossible for the US Greens to follow the same course?
I'm not sure that you're not putting the cart before the horse here. When you're a fringe party, you don't compromise because there's nothing to be gained from doing so. You probably get a lot of your votes from people who feel strongly about one particular issue.
Compromising on that issue risks losing your hard-core supporters, and there's not much to be gained from doing so - after all, you're still not going to win anything in the next election. (And, let's be blunt, you can afford to make all the promises you want, knowing you're never going to be called upon to keep them.) Here, not compromising doesn't say much about your ability to do so - it's merely a recognition that there's nothing to be gained.
But when the party's support base grows, compromising becomes more useful. As you move away from being a single-issue party (as the Australian Greens are currently doing), you have more room to compromise without wiping out your support base - and if you're big enough, compromising might actually get you something tangible.
Granted, but listen: Bush is not a problem because he is Bush. He's a problem because the extremist factions who had previously marginalized themselves have taken hold of a disproportionate amount of power within the Republican Party: they run the show.
You're talking as if the Republicans weren't that bad until 2000, when Buchanan fed them some extremists. I think that's a little over-generous; they may have gotten worse, but they were plenty bad enough to start with. Bush is a bumbling, ignorant, underachieving nincompoop, who has the connections to get him into the Presidency; that's a nightmare with or without Buchanan's ex-shipmates. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, and the rest of the current gang of bastards - weren't most of them deeply entrenched in the Republican party machine long before 2000?
And like it or not, even without trying, that party has the support of 40-50% of the country.
Nitpick: Of those who actually *vote*. More like 25% of the country as a whole.
Less influential than what? I don't believe that voting for a marginalized party is influential at all,
It was very influential in 2000. Not in the manner Nader's voters would have preferred, but the fact remains that had the Democrats managed to woo a few more of those supporters they'd have won the presidency. Which is a powerful incentive for any Democratic candidate to at least consider the left side as well as the right.
(Not that I think that'll be much of an issue in this election; IMHO, Kerry can afford to pretty much ignore the left, because most will hold their nose and vote for whatever looks like the best chance of beating Bush. But in future elections, the memory of 2000 may be influential.
I could wish for the same to happen here, but honestly? Not going to happen. I believe that the keys to reform of our electoral system are firmly in the hands of the people who don't want to see it.
Oh, I don't think the Nationalists introduced preferential voting out of the goodness of their hearts :-) It was just a saleable way of boosting their power - the right thing done for selfish reasons.
And as things stand, it might well be in the Democrats' interests to introduce such a system. With preferential voting, they'd presumably have won the last election.
(I doubt they *will* introduce it, because the American public seem to be fundamentally incompetent when it comes to electoral systems, and making the change and educating voters about the new system would probably seem like too much hard work. Just like I don't see the USA going over to metric any time soon...)
Re: Afterthought
Date: 2004-03-06 13:01 (UTC)The fact that until you reach 5%, you don't get access to equal public funding is a big one. Also see below: coming in second-best is the same as losing completely in our system. That's the biggest. You get the same benefit from winning 6% of the vote as from winning 35% of the vote: you both lose to the big fish.
And you get the alternate joy of seeing someone utterly counter to your interests elected for four years.
When you're a fringe party, you don't compromise because there's nothing to be gained from doing so. You probably get a lot of your votes from people who feel strongly about one particular issue.
When you're a fringe party that has no chance whatsoever of being elected, you don't compromise because you apparently feel your principles are more important than actual incremental small gains that might beneficially affect real peoples' lives.
I also don't think you grasp how hostile the situation on the ground truly is to third parties. The defining point is that second best gets you absolutely nothing. And if a third party draws away people who are angry and energetic enough to vote for a party, it increases the chances of that party losing.
If you stand to gain something by coming in second place, then the situation changes; supporting a third party is much less of a high-risk element. And unless I'm wrong, that's the situation in the countries where the third parties rose to prominence.
You're talking as if the Republicans weren't that bad until 2000, when Buchanan fed them some extremists. I think that's a little over-generous; they may have gotten worse, but they were plenty bad enough to start with... Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, and the rest of the current gang of bastards - weren't most of them deeply entrenched in the Republican party machine long before 2000?
I wish it were that simple. I don't have the space here to give a history of the Republican party, but here's a quick precis: the majority of the South, before LBJ's Civil Rights actions, were Democratic. The segregationists jumped parties after desegregation in 1968 or so. So while Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc. were knocking around in Ford's administration, the R party (I speak also of the people registered as R's who vote, not just the people at the top, BTW, and that's important) was undergoing a bit of a redefinition of itself. That didn't really manifest until the 1980's, when the Rs in the Senate and House finally shook free of their old New Deal Democratic allegiances.
From 1980 to 1992, the Rs shifted further and further to the right. In the early 90's, talk radio emerged as a meme transmitter; Rush Limbaugh, Michael Weiner, and Dr. Laura began taking the ideas of the extemists on the far right (the fringe that was attracted to Buchanan's party) and tranmitting them into the everyday. The Media Is Overwhelmingly Liberal. Health Insurance Is A Privilege, Not A Right. Feminazis Are Destroying Our Society. Klintoon Is A Nazi OMG! This made a difference in the base of the Republican Party; it took the concepts that were dear to the heart of the Patriot movement and Buchanan's isolationists and normalized them. In short, it made the R party a welcoming environment for the real nutjobs when in 1996 they fled from the specter of a black woman as VP candidate.
The Republican Party has changed fundamentally over the last 40 years, but the change has accelerated remarkably over the last eight. The point to come away with here is that, by accepting extremist concepts and shifting towards their positions, the Rs absorbed the angry, loud, vocal, voting nutjobs. And they're playing to those extemists, to keep them from splitting off.
(continued)
Re: Afterthought
Date: 2004-03-06 13:16 (UTC)Not true. First of all, they have the support in popular polls of non-voters. But more importantly, the sad truth is that conservatives vote, because by doing so they retain control. The majority of people who don't vote are the disenfranchised. It's a fallacy to look at the percentage of voters and split it down the middle. If we had mandatory voting in this country, the situation on the ground might change. But that won't happen. Because of the above.
It was very influential in 2000
As a suicide ploy. Yay. Forgive me if I don't applaud; the damage done by Bush is far too real for me to believe that it was in any way worth it. It wasn't. I say that in part because polls are now showing the same amount of people supporting Nader now as they were at the same time last election. I say it partly because I get angry at the idea that the damage done is somehow justified by any kind of possible future benefit in a hypothetical election. But mostly because I really doubt Kerry or any Dem candidate would be able to please the people who think that their vote is some kind of statement.
Kerry can afford to pretty much ignore the left, because most will hold their nose and vote for whatever looks like the best chance of beating Bush.
Bush could afford to ignore the far right, because they'd hold their nose and vote for whoever isn't a Democrat now that their party of choice has betrayed them. He isn't, because he recognizes the important fact that the extremists are the ones who go out and vote. And tell other people to vote. And get in arguments in bars over it. And spread the word. They're the ones with the energy and the motivation.
Note that he would be ignoring them if they were likely to vote for someone else no matter what he did.
Like, um, the Greens.
Oh, I don't think the Nationalists introduced preferential voting out of the goodness of their hearts
I didn't think so. But electoral reform has to get past the Republicans, because the House and Senate are split in half down the center. And it's in their best interest to kill it. So.
Plus, I have a difficult time seeing how a federal system like ours would institute some kind of similar reform. It seems like anything radical enough to do the job would be too easy to kill.
Now, going back and reading what I've read, it seems clear to me that the Democratic party really needs to learn from the Republican Party's strategy, and to begin playing strategically to the left in order to recapture the third party voters. That may be an argument in favor of third parties running for president, but I find that difficult to balance with the danger of this game.
The problem is, and has been in recent history, that the Republican Party is a brand identity, as is the Democratic Party. And despite the fact that the Dems would actually be more beneficial for the majority of people who vote Republican, they vote for the Republicans because they're loyal to the brand. That made it safe for the people in the far-right third parties to run; they knew that their best interests were going to be served by the Republicans getting into office anyhow.
It isn't safe for progressives to run a third party and leech the support of the most active potential Democratic activists. It's counterproductive and self-defeating, and any other adjective for fucked in the head that I can think of.
It's hard enough trying to make slow progress in a country that defaults to the Republican brand identity the way it defaults to drinking Coke, and that's what makes the Greens infuriating. Not to mention dangerous.
Re: Afterthought
Date: 2004-03-06 20:54 (UTC)Not true. First of all, they have the support in popular polls of non-voters. But more importantly, the sad truth is that conservatives vote, because by doing so they retain control. The majority of people who don't vote are the disenfranchised.
Hang on... that looks self-contradictory. If conservatives vote, and most of those who don't vote are not conservatives, then the proportion of Republican supporters overall will be *less* than the proportion of Republicans among those who vote.
In any case, I was taking 'support' here to mean 'tangibly support'. Telling the pollsters you believe in a party doesn't mean much if you don't then go out and vote for 'em.
Re: Afterthought
Date: 2004-03-06 20:59 (UTC)Re: Afterthought
Date: 2004-03-05 16:21 (UTC)Kerry is further to the left of Dean, Edwards, Clark, and Lieberman. And the candidate that did the most to rally the progressives to alter the way the Democratic race took place, Howard Dean, was pretty much to the right of everyone else in the field but Lieberman.
Funny how stories build up.
And I forgot to mention that your only means for creating change is not electoral at all; you do have the ability to work with internet programs such as MoveOn.org and Dean's grassroots organization. Because the candidates are, for the first time ever, really listening to the voices of the people on the Net.
Don't think that Kerry made his comeback because people are sheep. He made his comeback because he learned from what Dean was doing: listening to the energized, angry base of voters who wanted Bush gone.
Re: Afterthought
Date: 2004-03-06 03:33 (UTC)Hrmm. It's late and my wrist hurts so I won't be looking it up right now, but my hazy recollection was that at least on some issues (gay rights? Abortion?) Clark was distinctly more liberal than Kerry.
Insert obligatory "politics isn't really a one-dimensional variable, so the concept breaks down if we look at it too hard" acknowledgement here.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-04 23:25 (UTC)Right-wing Christian fundamentalists in very safe Bush territory may, for example, choose to express their displeasure with his failure to execute familiy planning people by voting for that guy whose essay I can't find now.
(And of course if nobody ever votes for a third party, how the hell are you supposed to break the lock-in the incumbents have? Sure, short-term the practical thing to do is to vote for the lesser of two evils, but does that really advance things in the longer term? No, of course it doesn't, it just reinforces their view that they're right.)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-04 23:26 (UTC)Erm. Um. By voting you are seldom utilising direct influence on decision-making. I vote
for John Smith, John Smith then makes the decisions. I do not directly influence what decisions
he makes. Even in a referendum, you aren't utilising direct influence because referendums, god
bless them, are usually stacked in favour of the way the government wants them to come out. Why
don't we have a republic? Is it because a) a majority of Australians don't want a republic or
b) because we had a referendum specifically designed to manipulate people's confusion and result
in a no vote? A vote is a good tool but it's not a direct one.
Also, voting is not your only vehicle fo exercising power. Joining political parties, trade
unions, professional societies, even charities is a powerful thing to do. Some of these help
you influence power more directly (eg, the political party) some of these are simply strong
enough lobby groups to have a fair chance of influencing governmental decisions (eg professional
societies).
I agree that people should vote but I largely disagree with your reasoning.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-05 04:07 (UTC)The only other option is joining a political party, and that is something that takes far more dedication than getting up at some point on a weekend and wandering down to a nearby polling station.
And even as part of a political party, you still don't get to participate directly in the political system unless you are able to wangle yourself a place as a candidate. All other types of political influence are indirect. I'm not saying that indirect political influence is powerless - far from it. We all know of powerful lobby groups, etc, and that is definitely something people should consider if they have time and effort.
I'm simply saying that the only real time that a citizen of a democracy has to directly participate in the political process is when they vote, and it's so damned easy to do that I think it's terrible not to.
Oh, wait. I forgot, there are two more ways for Australia. Become part of the judiciary and get appointed to the High Court (thus being able to make judgements on constitutional law), or get appointed as the Governor General. That's it, for direct influence.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-05 04:21 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-05 05:07 (UTC)I disagree that the only way to exercise power as part of a party is to be the candidate.
For a start, you get to decide who will be the candidate. In factionalised parties (ie,
the Liberal party and the Labour party) this can make a hell of a difference to party policy,
something that is well worth exercising. In smaller parties (ie, the Greens and the Democrats)
you can influence policy simply by attending meetings and discussing it.
Remember also that political power is not all centred at a federal level. As a citizen of
the state of Australia I can make a difference locally, if I choose to do so. Even without the
vote at a local level (since I'm not a home-owner) I can influence political decisions. Hell,
getting a job in the public service means you actually have some level of control as to how
governmental policy is implemented. The lowliest clerk in the meanest apartment has some say in
exactly how they do their job.
I think you're drawing a rather fine line between what you call direct and indirect influence,
here. A vote is a tool to express your wishes. So is a letter, an affiliation with a society or
participation in a rally. Each is more or less powerful, depending on the situation. I don't
see how a vote is any more direct an approach than any of the others.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-05 22:19 (UTC)What I mean by "direct" is interacting with the rules of the political machinery at first hand. Yes, that is a rather fine line, agreed. It's orthogonal to the concept of political power and influence. As I agreed, you certainly can (and should) exert more political power and influence by doing things other than just casting a vote in an election.
We only get to interact directly with the Constitution via referenda or by being a Judge of the High Court. We don't get to interact with legislation directly (except as targets of it). That's reserved for our elected representatives and also for other Judges whose job it is to interpret and apply legislation in the courts. The only other time we get to interact directly with the political machinery is when we vote in elections, because elections are the rules machinery that result in political representation.
Again, power has nothing to do with what I'm saying. An individual vote in a federal election (unless you're in a really marginal seat) is probably a less powerful political tool than writing a letter to your representative, or joining a political party and voting to decide who the local candidate will be. It is, though, a more direct interaction with the machinery of politics, and is the only time that most of us will get to interact with that machinery directly.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-05 21:20 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-04 23:29 (UTC)Is it just me, or are liberals the first to stop voting when given the choice? Its because of this that we get conservative maniacs in charge. And yes I know little Johnny must be some exception.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-05 04:55 (UTC)And for the record, I have voted at every election that I was eligible for since I was old enough to vote. I tend to favour the highest number for the most hated and work from there method.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-05 13:59 (UTC)The key thing is that as a Citizen of a democratic State, your chance to influence politics comes when you get to vote on something. Whether that vote is in a referendum, a local election, a regional election, a federal election, or some other time, that vote is the only chance that you get to express your view directly. There are plenty of ways to express it indirectly, for example, by writing letters to your representatives, influencing the media, etc, etc, but they are just that, indirect.
I'd actually reverse those definitions. By writing to my elected representative I directly inform them of what I think and want, on an individual and considered basis. When I vote to elect someone, all I'm doing is either picking the least worst candidate or hoping for the best, and simply becoming a number for or against. My ticking a box next to a candidate's name on a ballot says very little about what I actually want to see implemented, and contrary to most politicians' deluded beliefs, does not in any give them a 'mandate' for anything.
That being said, I agree with pretty much all of the rest of the post. I certainly agree about the responsibility citizens share for each government, however they voted. I didn't vote for Little Johnny, but because he got in, he's till partly my problem and my responsibility. My Dad usually notes around election time that 'we get the government we deserve', and I agree with him.
Citizenship's been a topic of some personal interest to me lately (and it looks like I am one after all, I just need to be able to prove it). I'm well aware of the rights and responsibilities that go along with it, while simultaneously amused that I've been able to exercise all of those rights and most of the responsibilities when my citizenship was actually unclear.
What I would like to see is a way of measuring the dissatisfied vote. In our present system we don't have an option that says 'All the candidates suck! Send this lot back and get some better ones.' (depsite having something close to it in the process by which we select our juries). I think a lack of that option is what causes many people to vote informally, not a sense of irresponsibility. If such a thing could be measured, it might provide the wake-up call to the major parties that people think they delivering when they vote independant or for a minor party out of protest rather than any real support for those candidates. Mind you, I'd also like to see referenda on a monthly basis on matters of national import too. I guess I take the idea of 'the will of the people' a bit too seriously...
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-05 22:29 (UTC)And I think I expressed myself poorly regarding direct vs indirect... I'm not talking about political power or influence in that context. What I'm talking about is whether you get to interact with the "rules of the game" or not. Thus "direct" is when you are directly interacting with the rules of the game, whilst "indirect" is when you are doing something which results in someone else doing something which directly interacts with the rules of the game.
In that context, the only time most people get to act directly that is when they cast a vote in an election or a referendum.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-06 02:39 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-06 13:37 (UTC)While many people feel that yanks are slack voters (with their roughly a 1/3 or less of people who bother to exercise their right to vote) I was raised there and that's where I developed my fervour for voting.
:-)
Donkey voters or abstainers -- in the voting sense ;-) -- trouble me as they're a symptom of the democratic system not working [why are they feeling alienated from the political process?] And whether they admit it or not, informal voters effectively further the status quo, which seems counterproductive from the informal voters point of view, since the status quo is presumably what alienated them from voting in the first place...
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-09 17:34 (UTC)