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BS: Do we need the right to vote?

13 Jul 21 - 08:29 PM (#4113276)
Subject: BS: Do we really need the right to vote?
From: Donuel

In the US, Republicans are using states rights to pass laws that make it legal to overturn election results in 43 states if there is fraud, with or without evidence. More over they make voting like jumping through flaming hoops to make voting harder.
Whats the big deal? So what. Trump can't live forever.

Or can he? (twilight zone theme)

Democrats prefer democracy.
Republicans prefer winning.

Has Democracy worked for you?


13 Jul 21 - 11:26 PM (#4113282)
Subject: RE: BS: Do we need the right to vote?
From: robomatic

Actually Democrats have had no problem being party bosses who institute corrupt longstanding institutions. Take a look at Tammany Hall or the stories of Lyndon Johnson's first foray into Congress ("Hey, get that vine off that tombstone and write that guy's name down. He's got just as much a right to vote as anyone else here!")

Dems were caught somehow sleeping while Republicans instituted a lot of gerrymandering (see the book "Ratf*ked").

For inspiration, maybe a little Spencer Tracy "Last Hurrah".

Anyhow, it's not the party, it's the principle. Right now in the national political life, the principles are more with the Dems than the Reps, who chose a rather warped policy under the likes of Newt Gingrich and the guy most admired by the affectations of the OP, Mr. Trmp. But the Democrats are merely human and just as subject to the truism of power: Power corrupts, but it also rocks!


14 Jul 21 - 03:15 AM (#4113295)
Subject: RE: BS: Do we need the right to vote?
From: BobL

This sounds like a half-truth to me, in the same league as "Dems want to kill babies" and "Repubs want murderers to have guns". Could somebody give us the underlying facts? I'm too lazy to research them for myself.


14 Jul 21 - 06:50 AM (#4113309)
Subject: RE: BS: Do we need the right to vote?
From: Donuel

To paraphrase John Lewis 'Voting is not a principle, it is an act'.

You either prefer
1 person 1 vote
or you do not.

It used to be white male land owners only.

Sufferage has a long history of those who cared to vote.
It occurred to me perhaps people don't care if its fair

or if they're too lazy to even bother.


14 Jul 21 - 07:20 AM (#4113314)
Subject: RE: BS: Do we need the right to vote?
From: Doug Chadwick

You either prefer
1 person 1 vote
or you do not.


In a binary choice between Republicans and Democrats, 1 person 1 vote sounds good but, under the electoral college system, only the voters in swing states get to decide anything. It is even worse in a multi-party democracy, where some sort of proportional representation would seem essential, though which system to use is open to question.

DC


14 Jul 21 - 10:28 AM (#4113328)
Subject: RE: BS: Do we need the right to vote?
From: Donuel

You are correct SIR

Of course Biden has his opinion: https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/biden-speech-voting-rights-07-13-21/h_47205b3a7113b52a0e05072b4bf6ce64

150 major companies from Amazon to Zillow share his opinion.


14 Jul 21 - 01:29 PM (#4113347)
Subject: RE: BS: Do we need the right to vote?
From: robomatic

Actually, for some of us it is 1 person, 1 multi-tiered vote.

Life is getting somewhat more complicated. Ask 'em in Maine, Alaska, and now New York.


14 Jul 21 - 01:31 PM (#4113348)
Subject: RE: BS: Do we need the right to vote?
From: Mrrzy

Voting is a responsibility.


14 Jul 21 - 05:27 PM (#4113364)
Subject: RE: BS: Do we need the right to vote?
From: Donuel

I don't understand multi tiered.


14 Jul 21 - 09:44 PM (#4113380)
Subject: RE: BS: Do we need the right to vote?
From: robomatic

The formal term is "ranked choice voting". I'm always forgetting those exact words.

Maine has had it for the last election. New York just used it to elect NYC's new Mayor. Alaska will be using it in 2022.


14 Jul 21 - 09:54 PM (#4113382)
Subject: RE: BS: Do we need the right to vote?
From: Donuel

Now I know what it is but don't understand the advantage if there is one.


15 Jul 21 - 01:40 AM (#4113392)
Subject: RE: BS: Do we need the right to vote?
From: robomatic

It makes an individual election with multiple candidates a more complex procedure but potentially saves multiple elections when no one candidate obtains a majority of the votes. It is possible to try to 'game' it but it is hoped that it is less likely to be gamed than the current system of primaries and ballots.

We'll get a chance to see.


15 Jul 21 - 05:00 AM (#4113397)
Subject: RE: BS: Do we need the right to vote?
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler

As I see it Trump believes in 1 person 1 vote, ie. he is the 1 person and he gets the 1 vote.

Robin


15 Jul 21 - 05:31 AM (#4113399)
Subject: RE: BS: Do we need the right to vote?
From: JHW

I went to Technical College not Electoral.


15 Jul 21 - 07:28 AM (#4113408)
Subject: RE: BS: Do we need the right to vote?
From: Donuel

Gen. Milley is finally speaking as harshly and sharply as me in terms of describing the Trump coup to that of Hitler.
An old and decrepid trmp is the saving grace.
We are also fortunate that (I never thought I would say this) corportions are not backing the fascist model - except for Facebook.


15 Jul 21 - 05:20 PM (#4113463)
Subject: RE: BS: Do we need the right to vote?
From: robomatic

Much of Facebook's dilemma
is due to their attempt to interfere as little in other people's 'free speech' as possible, combined with a healthy input of profit motive from their corporate model. The lesson to draw here is not that Facebook was a f-cist supporter of the Trmp, but that the Trmp organization realized what they could get away with and played Facebook like a cheap violin, and the Hillary organization did not take the same advantage. Whether this was moral sense or a lack of tech savvy is prolly debatable. But consider how easy it was to gain access to John Podesta's email.

Anyhow, more on ranked-choice voting from ballotpedia.


15 Jul 21 - 06:45 PM (#4113471)
Subject: RE: BS: Do we need the right to vote?
From: Donuel

With a business Credo like Zuckerberg's "Company over Country"
I think I know.

The right to vote is mainly being attacked and changed for racist reasons. How far does systematic racism pervade American Society??
American infant mortality is the highest among all the developed countries. It is more than twice as high as France and composed mostly of minorities.


15 Jul 21 - 08:09 PM (#4113474)
Subject: RE: BS: Do we need the right to vote?
From: robomatic

The voting rights laws are being tinkered with to sustain political interests using race as a means.

It is a time-limited method based on fear, and using fear as a tool. Much as others use confusion.


15 Jul 21 - 08:48 PM (#4113479)
Subject: RE: BS: Do we need the right to vote?
From: EBarnacle

If you do not demand your rights, you will not have them.


17 Jul 21 - 10:01 AM (#4113602)
Subject: RE: BS: Do we need the right to vote?
From: Donuel

With a sarcastic thread title like 'do we need' I suppose people can ignore those who were butchered in the Revolutionary War, Civil W, WW1, WWII and cold war in an effort to preserve that thing called Democracy. Untold millions of agonizing deaths are forgotten or never understood. If advocacy for fascist rule and by kings had been around for centuries on something akin to Facebook there may never have been democracy, liberty, justice and all that crap about freedom. Fascism is having a global resergence partly because the ignorant outnumber the intelligent. . . isn't that a kind of democracy of fools?
We would have to go back to ancient greece to find the origins of democracy;
In the future some of you will face a choice between democracy and fascism once again. Choose wisely.


18 Jul 21 - 02:40 AM (#4113669)
Subject: RE: BS: Do we need the right to vote?
From: BobL

The French Revolution, meant to replace absolute monarchy with democracy (of a sort), was the best argument other nations ever had for keeping the status quo. Especially in Britain, where the aftermath of our own civil war had eventually led to a perfectly good constitutional monarchy.

BTW the ignorant always have outnumbered the intelligent.


18 Jul 21 - 09:50 AM (#4113707)
Subject: RE: BS: Do we need the right to vote?
From: Bill D

It's too bad ignorance doesn't itch.


18 Jul 21 - 02:24 PM (#4113738)
Subject: RE: BS: Do we need the right to vote?
From: Donuel

people would buy cortisone by the gross.


20 Jul 21 - 02:05 PM (#4113902)
Subject: RE: BS: Do we need the right to vote?
From: The Sandman

Suffragettes died trying to get the vote. use your vote


20 Jul 21 - 02:51 PM (#4113904)
Subject: RE: BS: Do we need the right to vote?
From: Donuel

Sandman I am reminded of a magazine I read as a teenager, 'Minority of One'.


20 Jul 21 - 03:08 PM (#4113906)
Subject: RE: BS: Do we need the right to vote?
From: Doug Chadwick


20 Jul 21 - 03:21 PM (#4113910)
Subject: RE: BS: Do we need the right to vote?
From: McGrath of Harlow

Ignorant and intelligent aren't opposites. It's perfectly possible to be very intelligent and profoundly ignorant, and indeed the other way round.

The idea that simply having arrangements for people to vote once every few years is sufficient to justify a claim to be a genuinely democratic society is pretty absurd.


20 Jul 21 - 03:29 PM (#4113912)
Subject: RE: BS: Do we need the right to vote?
From: Donuel

I'm sure that point came up 10 years before the writting the Constitution.


20 Jul 21 - 06:54 PM (#4113927)
Subject: RE: BS: Do we need the right to vote?
From: Donuel

btw
I spent 12 years in Rochester NY, home of Susan B Anthony on Cobbs Hill. Her home was not as grand as Jefferson but tells a story of the real Sufferagettes.
There was also something called the Chatauqua Project. This nexxus of liberal thought since before the civil war was ideal for a modern hypnosis practice.