BS: Political education and voting

Subject: RE: BS: Political education and voting
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 Apr 23 - 10:17 AM

Oh, and my contention was in the opening post so how on earth can it be a Straw Man argument?

From Wiki - A straw man fallacy (sometimes written as strawman) is the informal fallacy of refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion

I posted the argument so it cannot possibly be different from one under discussion!

Subject: RE: BS: Political education and voting
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 Apr 23 - 10:14 AM

Rain Dog. You quoted my phrase, "My contention is that a good political education should be compulsory rather than make voting compulsory."

How on earth does that restrict anyone from voting Raid Dog?

You then went on to say, "No but I think we can all agree that everyone who leaves school should be able to read and write."

And why should students not receive a basic grounding in politics and democracy? Seem to be you that wants to restrict reoples rights to a good education rather than me wanting to restrict anyones rights to anything

Subject: RE: BS: Political education and voting
From: Rain Dog
Date: 17 Apr 23 - 10:04 AM

"After all, we don't want those captains of industry forever moaning, as they never fail to do, that the young people of today who come to them can hardly read and write, do we?"

No but I think we can all agree that everyone who leaves school should be able to read and write. Sadly that is not always the case, even after all these years.

Subject: RE: BS: Political education and voting
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Apr 23 - 09:59 AM

We do know but we don't execute it, largely because of political interference. Watch your backs if you're not following the prescribed National Curriculum to the letter and if you're not doing things the Ofsted way (National Curriculum, Thatcher, ideology; Ofsted, John Major, ideology). Good education is not about stuffing children's heads with prescribed (from outside) content, or "following the syllabus," nor has it got anything to do with proselytising. It has everything to do with getting children to be curious and enthusiastic about learning, about seeing patterns and connections, about giving them the learning skills and about getting them to accept very little at face value and to question almost everything they're told. Sadly, all that content-stuffing and all the bureaucracy that grinds brilliant teachers down leaves very little time for any of that. Oh no, we must prepare children for "the world of work." We must fit them to what the nation needs! After all, we don't want those captains of industry forever moaning, as they never fail to do, that the young people of today who come to them can hardly read and write, do we?

Subject: RE: BS: Political education and voting
From: Rain Dog
Date: 17 Apr 23 - 09:40 AM

"What is decent general education, anyway?"

Exactly.

Here in the UK that changes with every government. In fact it tends to change with every new Minister of Education.

After all these years they still don't know.

Subject: RE: BS: Political education and voting
From: Rain Dog
Date: 17 Apr 23 - 09:36 AM

"My contention is that a good political education should be compulsory rather than make voting compulsory."

It not me who is putting up straw men. Rather it is you who seems to be in favour of restrictions.

Subject: RE: BS: Political education and voting
From: keberoxu
Date: 17 Apr 23 - 09:35 AM

What is decent general education, anyway?
We need that first,
so as to distinguish between education and indoctrination.
I can still hear a Dominican friar ranting,
"Critical thinking is not even taught . . . "

Subject: RE: BS: Political education and voting
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 Apr 23 - 09:31 AM

Who wants to restrict the right to vote, Rain Dog? You seem to be putting up straw men today!

Subject: RE: BS: Political education and voting
From: Rain Dog
Date: 17 Apr 23 - 09:23 AM

So, in times of falling turn out, some of you want to restrict the right to vote.

Why?

Is it because some of you will never understand why others vote differently from you?

Strange times we are living in.

Subject: RE: BS: Political education and voting
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Apr 23 - 09:05 AM

"What exactly is good or sound political education? And how could it be different to indoctrination?"

Ah, the good old reds under the bed argument, time-honoured. Believe it or not, it is possible to deliver a curriculum in politics that's neutral. We could do it for religion but we still prefer to indoctrinate. I'd like to suggest that, in the Daily Mail/Express/Sun/social media world in which we live, we get indoctrination of a different, undesirable sort by default. Look at what happens in sex and relationships education. We sit on our hands nervously, stay way behind the curve and let hard-core porn channels and Facebook do the "educating." So you let all that go but worry that teachers might tell the kids to vote Labour and make them chant extracts from Karl Marx. Well I've never met a teacher like that, and I've met a few.

To answer your question, in part at least, we could have lessons on what it means to be a citizen, on the history of politics and the development of our democracy, on the party system, on the voting system, on constituencies and on the role of MPs in their constituencies and in Parliament, on how laws are made and on how we can, and should, all participate in the politics of the country. We should vote, but always knowledgeably.

Subject: RE: BS: Political education and voting
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Apr 23 - 07:20 AM

We used to think it was male rich white property owners.

Subject: RE: BS: Political education and voting
From: Stanron
Date: 17 Apr 23 - 07:11 AM

What exactly is good or sound political education? And how could it be different to indoctrination?

Subject: RE: BS: Political education and voting
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 17 Apr 23 - 07:02 AM

A number of countries have eccentric political parties, such as the UK's Official Monster Raving Loony Party, who put forward joke policies. If voting became compulsory then many people might consider voting for them rather than simply spoiling the ballot paper.

There is a danger that, if people are sufficiently disenchanted with what is in offer from the mainstream parties, some of their candidates might get elected. It happened in Denmark in 1979 when Danish-Faroese comedian Jacob Haugaard, of the Union of Conscientiously Work-shy Elements, found himself often having the deciding vote in a hung-parliament.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Political education and voting
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Apr 23 - 05:33 AM

As I said on the other thread, democracies that have "compulsory voting" in secret ballots really have no such thing. You can take the horse to water but you can't make it drink. In the case of voting, you won't know whether the horse has drunk the water or not. Obliging everyone to turn out to the polling station is not the same as making people vote.

There are lots of facets to this. A big worry in some countries (the US and UK are good examples) is low voter turnout. The 2016 US election saw a turnout of about 60%, which was high for America. But it still meant that way below 40% of the electorate voted for Trump. Mandatory voting would be transformative in terms of turnout. The Aussies crow about their 90%+ turnouts. I'd like to suggest that corralling reluctant or uninterested voters to the polling booths, whilst it makes the turnout numbers look impressive, it doesn't necessarily improve democracy (I'm still waiting to hear whether the Aussies crow about excellent governance as much as they do about their turnout).

There's an argument that compulsory turnout would encourage many erstwhile refuseniks to study politics at least a little bit before they go to vote. If that were provable, you couldn't argue that it was a bad thing. Another argument is that, on the whole, wealthier people and older people are more inclined to vote, and vote right wing. More deprived and/or younger people are less inclined to vote but, if they did vote, they would increase the left wing vote. Well that's a deliciously enticing argument for a leftie like me, but there are two issues there: first, it's hardly an argument predicated on principle, and second, it hasn't actually been demonstrated to work that way.

Finally, food for thought: there is no compulsory voting in Sweden (typical turnout in the high 80s), Norway (high 70s) or Denmark (81.4% last time out, and they're worried because that was low!)

Subject: RE: BS: Political education and voting
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 Apr 23 - 04:09 AM

BTW, mods, this is not UK politics. It is global. We may have stayed in Europe with sound political education and equally I suspect Trump would not even been nominated.

Subject: BS: Political education and voting
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 Apr 23 - 04:05 AM

On the Trump thread the discussion has spun off into political education and voting, compulsory or not. I think that this deserves its own space. My contention is that a good political education should be compulsory rather than make voting compulsory.

On the more flippant side I suggested that a voting licence should be obtained, much like a driving licence, before people are let loose with decisions that affect millions of lives. That was rather tongue in cheek of course but I can now see some benefits! The major drawback is that some people will not or cannot get one. There must be ways round that. After all, how many people cannot or will not get driving licences but they still manage to get about :-)

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