[Vision2020] please remember

hayman@moscow.com hayman@moscow.com
Tue, 4 Nov 2003 22:43:36 GMT


Sorry people, but I must step in here.

> Donovan Arnold wrote:
>  
> “Support democracy, end dictatorship, VOTE.”
> Tell me this is a joke. Democracy can’t rule out dictatorship if a
> majority votes it in. Dictators all around the world have been voted in
> by the sacred cow of democracy. Great help voting was.

Are you echoing the "tyranny of the majority" quote by one of our founding 
leaders? I think it was meant in the opposite direction; i.e. no participation 
and suffer therefrom. In the meantime, send this message to others in 
countries who cannot vote freely.

>  
> And:
> “Thank you for caring about your community.”
> Shouldn’t this be, “thank you for coercing your community”? How
> has
> “coercing” become the same thing as “caring”? Politics is only
> about
> forcing people do things they won’t do freely. Why should that be
> lauded
> in hushed tones? Don’t we have better things to do as a community 
than
> threaten one another with coercion? Do something productive.
>  
> Doug Jones

Do you mean "[to] do things?" 

Ok, so voting is a coersive act. I would thoroughly agree with voting as a 
subversive act, but I think that's the point of open individual voting. Until I 
hold a weapon at your head in the booth, or you do the same, or anyone 
else does it to either or both of us, I have a difficult time envisioning 
casting a private ballot as coersive. We're back to the tyranny observation, 
which is again a reason to vote individually.

So the alternative is not to vote? Thereby solidifying whatever coersion is 
already in place?

Hushed tones. I know of no louder voice than the freely casted individual 
vote.

I admit that I assume the comment of not voting was 
a) a joke
b) the posting of a rather egomaniacal person who seeks more press
c) a serious injunction
d) all of the above.

Finally, let us remember the outcome of the last presidential election, 
wherein a walloping ~51% of registered voters did so.

On my own time, and thank you Ms Sullivan for a great question,

Warren Hayman
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