A Rational Choice For November 2nd

[loseyourname]

All right guys, cool it. Is this the AC Forum or the Taiwanese senate?

[nunechka]

loseyourname that is exactly what i mean... dont just complain, do something... if you see a problem, show me the cause and the proposed solution...

if you anony, truly feel that you have no power, then why are you still living? why even complain? why are you posting something that you beleive will not change anything...

sorry for calling you a moron, i was a little angry at the time...

[nunechka]

everyone: a quick warning about anony, he actually doesnt read your post before commenting... so just remember that...

[thedebutante]

Yaaa, yet somehow he manages to dissect the hell out of your every post and crushes it with no mercy.

[nunechka]

so you agree with him? i dont understand how we can look at the same thing, i can say yes this is the case, and then he will say yes it is this, but you are wrong nune... ??? i dont get? he is like bush... lies... we look at the same thing, come to the same conclusion, but because i am saying it says he disagrees, then he goes through this long process of BS talk, and somehow makes people believe that he is smart... if he was he wouldnt keep trying to put other people down just to make himself look better...

i dont get it

[gevo]

HAHAHAHA Would you guys mind if i laugh a little bit.. this is all very funny!!! ... Nunechka.... welcome to THE forums..

[Anonymouse]

Look, if not voting makes any of you feel better, then feel free. But even if no one voted, each election would simply be decided by the electoral college. Each elector is appointed by the assembly of each state. State assemblymen would be elected based on whoever had the largest family, as they would almost certainly vote even if no one else did.?

If no one voted theoretically, the elector college and any one would have nothing to go on, thus a President will be appointed, although I don't know how 'legitimate' he will be in the eyes of the mythical 'people'. They would most likely vote for themselves, but who would they rule? If the people did not vote, it means they are also choosing not to take part or respect in the authority exercised by the voters.

Even if you feel voting is unethical because you are telling someone else what to do, the only choices you have are to either tell others what to do, or to be told what to do. Government isn't going away unless by violent overthrow, and if you consider voting to be an unethical form of aggression, then what do you consider violent revolution to be?

That is untrue. You also have the choice of not telling others what to do. Did I somehow advocate violent revolution? All I argued for are down to the ethics of individuals, something you, nor nunechka, nor any other person seems to understand. It seems that some people have forgotten that only individuals can experience life, and reason, and believe, laugh, smile, cry, create and are all too quick to relegate your individual selves to the collective whole.

Enough with the idiot and nerfbrain comments, too. Can't we at least keep the serious discussions serious? If you really want to make a statement, why don't you try introducing a ballot proposition next time dictating the abolition of all California government. See how many signatures you could collect. As Nune keeps telling you, do something, anything.

I am doing something about it. I am choosing to not vote. By not choosing to vote, I am not voting for the monopoly of violence which we call the State. By not voting I am affirming my belief in the idea that the State equals violence and coercion and tells other people what to do via violence and coercion. You and nune telling me to "do something about it", is a form of thinking in the box, because you assume that what I must do, must encompass "the people" and it has to include everyone, as in telling others to do that as well. This shows how ingrained this mentality is in you, of telling others what to do.

This assumption goes back down to the basics of believing voting changes things, which it doesn't. Voting is only deemed for government, not the absence of it. I have already explained that voting doesn't change anything, for if it did, it would be illegal, as Biafra of the Dead Kennedys said. No matter how you vote and for what, the government always gets elected.

Whether or not voting in a presidential election will change anything is a dubious question, especially in a state that almost always swings democratic by landslide numbers, but to say that all voting is useless is pretty sweeping. But to say that no vote makes any difference is an untrue generalization.

Contrary to popular belief, your vote does not matter, and you cannot make a difference. It is because you have chosen to blur your individuality in the collective whole of the mob. Whether a State swings democratic or republican does not matter. Do you not understand the crux of the matter? It is not party politics, it is ethics. Whether they are Reps or Dems they are still of the persuasion that they must force other people what to do. You seem to be comfortable with the idea of others telling you what to, or you telling others what to do. If you accept the initial proposition, then you accept you are stupid, and you need to be ruled. If you reject that then you are stating that you, by voting, are making sure your neighbor is ruled because you believe they are stupid and cannot make their own decisions and need the government to do that. And yes, all voting is useless. It seems that when criticisms such as mine come to the forefront, you and everyone recognize the problems or the ethics of it, and say "so why don't you do something?". By admitting that there is a problem, and then demanding something be done, by myself, shows your dependency. Change begins with us all. By that mentality you are affirming the problem of government, yet choosing not to go through with a change in your own personal thinking, and relaying it to me to "do something about it". Let's see what Bob Murphy has to say about voting.

"Before I argue this point, let’s change the context so we’re not biased. Suppose your coworker takes off some time on November 2, in order to drive out to the woods and carve "GWB" on a tree. When he got back to work, you would naturally ask him what in the world he was doing. Suppose he answered, "Oh, I really feel that George Bush will take this country in a better direction than Kerry would."

At this point, you would point out that carving Bush’s initials on a tree doesn’t affect which person becomes president; regardless of how much better your coworker considers Bush, his actions were still ludicrous.

Well folks, it’s the exact same thing with voting. There is just about a zero percent chance that your vote will make a difference in whether Bush or Kerry is elected. The only way that your vote can matter is if the Electoral vote is close enough so that the Electoral votes in your state determine the race, and if the popular vote in your state is decided by a margin of exactly one.

This last part is crucial, so let me elaborate: Even if the rest of the Electoral votes are close enough, so that whichever candidate wins your home state wins the election, your vote still would not matter if Bush got (say) 10 million votes in your state, while Kerry got 9,999,998. Suppose you are a Bush supporter. Then even if you had stayed home and not cast your vote for Bush, he still would have won the popular vote in your state (by one) and hence the election. Suppose you are a Kerry supporter. Even though you cast your vote for him, Bush still won. So clearly you could have stayed home and been better off.

Thus we see that the act of voting confers virtually no benefit, as far as influencing the outcome of the election. So if you want to say that you like to vote because it makes you feel important, or because it’s sorta neat inside those little booths, fair enough. But if you say that you’re voting this time because the election is an important one, well, that’s as silly as carving a candidate’s initials in a tree."

What about the vote for Prop 13? Had that not been passed, there would be no cap on California property taxes, they would be much higher, and due to the very high value of real estate in the LA area, many homeowners that had paid off their houses while prices were much lower would no longer be able to afford the taxes and would be forced to move to cheaper neighborhoods.

Why should there be property taxes, period? Why is the State allowed to steal and stick its nose in the private property of individuals? It is not so much whether or not the property tax should be high or low, it is whether it should exist at all. And unless one can find a valid reason of why coercion and theft are justified, I am all ears.

If Measure A is passed, it will greatly increase the manpower of the LAPD. Is a doubled police force not a meaningful change?

In light of how corrupt the LAPD is, I wouldn't say it is a meaningful change. Like all things government, monopolies and bureaucracies become corrupt over time. Thus there is no competition, and since monopolies have no economic calculation, no cost/benefit analysis, there is no way to determine if the resources invested in it are viable or if the right resources go where they are needed. More LAPD is not the answer to crime, how about less government.

Heck, the entire Civil War hinged on the election of Abraham Lincoln. Had he not been elected (and the election was very close), South Carolina would likely not have seceded, nor would any of the other southern states.

The south did not 'secede'. That is the hodge podge Statist education has made you believe. The southern states at the time exercised the rights of what had been agreed upon were the rights of each state, which Lincoln violated. It is more properly termed northern aggression, not southern secession. The south was correct by the way.

Had Thomas Jefferson (a man with a unique relationship to the country of France) not been elected, the US might never have acquired the Louisiana Territory, which accounts for half of the contiguous states. Is that not a meaningful difference?

The Jefferson that curtalied the Constitution and illegally purchased the Louisianna territory? Of course it was a stupid decision. He contradicted himself.

[Anonymouse]

loseyourname that is exactly what i mean... dont just complain, do something... if you see a problem, show me the cause and the proposed solution...

if you anony, truly feel that you have no power, then why are you still living? why even complain? why are you posting something that you beleive will not change anything...

sorry for calling you a moron, i was a little angry at the time...

I have power over myself, not over others. Why is this about power? Do you want power over others? By voting, it seems you are crying out for power. As far as your comment of why I post something because it wont change anything, shows you are not an ethical person. I am not posting something or not voting because it will change anything, I am doing it because I stand up for principle and an ethic, which you don't. You would rather go along with what is popular and the popular will, or what we call the bandwagon. As far as you calling me a moron, I do not care. Unlike you, words don't matter to me.

[Anonymouse]

everyone: a quick warning about anony, he actually doesnt read your post before commenting... so just remember that...

I read posts before commenting, for why else would I comment if I did not read? Don't be illogical.

[gevo]

Arman, de mihat shunch kashi.. ......... apress.. mikichel jur xemi... etkan gerem ke vatanam ara.. gena durs u mekin tsetsi,,, kam vochinch miara, bayts gen durs!!!.. shat haves unes mek mek bayts.. yernek kezi...HAHAHA.....