Gyroscopic Investing

My daughter was given a voter registration at school when she turned 18. She asked me if she should register as a Democrat or a Republican and I told her the choice is simple. If you want taxes and war, choose democrat. If you want war and taxes, choose republican.

I don't vote as a matter of principle. My non-vote is my vote.

I'm with you pp4me3.  I've got better things to do than trying to read tea leaves to figure out whether the guy slightly to the left is less corrupt than the gal slightly to the right.  At this point, the bureaucracy is so big and so entangled with big business that all we have is just an illusion of democracy.

I've become convinced that process of voting for individuals is a fundamentally flawed institution in a large society. I consider myself a pretty informed fellow but I was scratching my head trying to determine who to vote for on the local level this year. In addition to the typical high-profile positions, I get to vote for the state auditor, state treasurer, the commissioner of public lands, the county assessor, the sheriff, and half a dozen local judges. I've never heard of any of these people, and their campaign websites are all the same "my opponent sucks; vote for me!" drivel. Even party affiliation isn't a reasonable social signal at the extreme local level, where, for example, my survivalist neighbor has a yard sign indicating support for the Democratic candidate for Sheriff.

It seems like voting for individuals demands that voters have opinions regarding the personal qualities and histories of people they've never met and know nothing about. I just can't see how it could possibly work as intended outside of like a 500 member village or something. At the national level, the candidates have to become celebrities and craft a special persona to get people to identify with the idea of them. It's a total farce.

It seems like a parliamentary model of voting for parties, with many different parties available, is a sensible simplification of this system, if indeed we're stuck with voting as a method of societal decision-making.

Heck, we've got people on this site who can't even remember who they voted for for President less than 2 years ago. So what's the point?

I have not voted in years and don't miss it at all.  In this 6min CSPAN interview Harry Browne states he hasn't voted in 30 years: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/BrowneCa

Gotta love Browne, he was the best.

I vote because then I at least feel justified when I complain constantly.

Man, this sounds like a feature, not a problem.  Just get into power then do whatever.  You'd almost think rich, powerful people don't care about your opinion.

Rather than not vote at all, why not vote for third-party candidates that probably won't win anyway?  Granted it might seem like a waste of time, but how else are we ever going to break up the current system?  (not that I actually think there is a realistic chance of that happening anytime soon)

Simonjester wrote: this is pretty close to what i do, i support the candidates who have a good message and no chance of getting past the old guard establishment, and then vote third party when the guys whose message seems best cant get through the primaries...

clacy wrote: I vote because then I at least feel justified when I complain constantly.

Why is that? If you play the game and your team doesn't win then aren't you supposed to respect the outcome?

I reserve the right to complain by not playing at all.

And this is exactly the message I want to send to the politicians. I would like to think that very low voter turnout scares them.

pp4me3 wrote:

clacy wrote: I vote because then I at least feel justified when I complain constantly.

Why is that? If you play the game and your team doesn't win then aren't you supposed to respect the outcome?

I reserve the right to complain by not playing at all.

And this is exactly the message I want to send to the politicians. I would like to think that very low voter turnout scares them.

No offense but politicians could care less about you and the fact that you don't vote. Voter turnout is usually in line with previous election cycles. Even if it's lower, Republicans generally think of that as a good thing. High turnout usually helps Dems.

Simonjester wrote:

flyingpylon wrote: Rather than not vote at all, why not vote for third-party candidates that probably won't win anyway?  Granted it might seem like a waste of time, but how else are we ever going to break up the current system?  (not that I actually think there is a realistic chance of that happening anytime soon)

this is pretty close to what i do, i support the candidates who have a good message and no chance of getting past the old guard establishment, and then vote third party when the guys whose message seems best cant get through the primaries...

Yeah, that's exactly what I do. I don't vote for Demopublicans.

Pointedstick wrote: I've become convinced that process of voting for individuals is a fundamentally flawed institution in a large society. I consider myself a pretty informed fellow but I was scratching my head trying to determine who to vote for on the local level this year. In addition to the typical high-profile positions, I get to vote for the state auditor, state treasurer, the commissioner of public lands, the county assessor, the sheriff, and half a dozen local judges. I've never heard of any of these people, and their campaign websites are all the same "my opponent sucks; vote for me!" drivel. Even party affiliation isn't a reasonable social signal at the extreme local level, where, for example, my survivalist neighbor has a yard sign indicating support for the Democratic candidate for Sheriff.T

This site is very useful for local candidate information: http://classic.smartvoter.org/index.html

My rule of thumb is to always vote against the incumbent in the absence of any better information.

But the real core problem is voters are stoopid and re-elect 90% of the jokers or are easily swayed by a conspiracy of misinformation such as approving recent Proposition 1 in CA which is a water giveaway to Big Farma and will make the drought even more worse than it is now.

Heck, people don't even like soon-to-be Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell but they votred for him anyway because they didn't think his challenger had enough back-room dealing experience to put it mildly.  I would have love to see that old fart retired.  For being a right-wing Republican, why does he have an Asian wife?  Is she a mail order bride?  Sheesh.