And there it is!! Being a stat holiday, there is no excuse for not voting. Also, business would be showing it's collective patriotic 'flavour' by arranging for employees to go vote. And the issue of poll results before polls have closed is rendered moot.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/03/15/election-law.html
Note: http://www.cbc.ca/canad...
Election Results Conundrum - Solved!
Posted on Friday, March 16 at 09:43 by RPWContributed By
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Why?
Because, anything that could possibly make voters believe that "oh swell, they're already won. my vote won't make any difference" more than they already do is NOT a good thing.
There's enough voter apathy already as it is.
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'When you have eliminated the impossible, what ever remains, however improbable, must be the truth'.
- Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes.
I've looked back at every last election I ever voted in, and had I not voted, the exact same results would have came about anyway. Logically, I do not have to vote - in fact all that we need to make the system work, is to select a few people at random and have them do the voting, since the results are never determined by every last vote, but by a representative random sample of votes. I'm perfectly OK with letting the die hard voters be the random sampling, they've been doing a fine job of it for decades and there's already more people voting than is needed for pinpoint accuracy.
What I'm talking about is just simple statistics - under the system that we have, your individual vote is an insignificant blip in a sea of votes.
Besides, there's never anyone worth voting for, only against, but unfortunately the system does not specifically allow you to vote against people.
Seriously, the best way to view the situation is this: People are voting against the system by not voting at all, it's as simple as that. If you give people a good reason to vote, they will vote. The bottom line is that under the current situation, the low turnouts indicate that we just don't have a good enough reason to vote. Sure, we can go on a religious campaign and brainwash the next generation of kids to vote without reason, but having mindless droids voting "because" is the same reason to vote as we have already.
If you want to make voters want to vote, give them some power! Instead of blinding them with blackouts and other rules, let them see the results instantly in real time so we can figure out quickly what's going on, then the people can work together and kick some ass.
An interesting perspective you have there, especially since power, as I understand it already resides with in the people but that small fact is forgotten, overlooked and all but ignored by the participants of the joke now called democracy.<br />
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<br />
In no particular order<br />
<br />
<a href="http://political-girl.tripod.com/thepowerofvoice/id12.html">http://political-girl.tripod.com/thepowerofvoice/id12.html</a> <br />
<br />
malroy.econ.ox.ac.uk/fisher/polsoc/Overview.pdf <br />
or<br />
<a href="http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:kvI1mBvP7SAJ:malroy.econ.ox.ac.uk/fisher/polsoc/Overview.pdf+where+does+power+reside+in+a+democracy%3F&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7">http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:kvI1mBvP7SAJ:malroy.econ.ox.ac.uk/fisher/polsoc/Overview.pdf+where+does+power+reside+in+a+democracy%3F&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7</a> <br />
<br />
<a href="http://robertdfeinman.com/society/democracy.html">http://robertdfeinman.com/society/democracy.html</a> <br />
<br />
<a href="http://robertdfeinman.com/society/save_democracy.html">http://robertdfeinman.com/society/save_democracy.html</a> <br />
<br />
“So a democracy means more than just the ability to vote. It also means a legal framework which evolves with the consent of the people. A good formulation of the legal basis of a democracy comes from Franz Neumann. Here is one version of his basic principles:<br />
1. All men are equal before the law.<br />
2. Laws must be general, not specific (this rules out bills of attainder).<br />
3. Retroactive laws are illegitimate.<br />
4. Enforcement must be separate from the decision-making agencies.<br />
Point one guarantees that everyone is treated equally and prevents the existence of a ruling class. It also prohibits discrimination against people on the basis of who they are rather than on the basis of what they have done.<br />
Point two prevents the legislature from creating laws aimed at helping or harming specific named individuals. Bills of attainder are a type of legislation in which the individual is named explicitly as having violated this law. The legislature thus acts as judge and jury bypassing the judicial function. This is explicitly outlawed in the US constitution. There had been enough recent European history of abuses of this type that it was thought best to make the abolition of this abuse explicit. General law also implies that legislation cannot be written which specifically names some one who will benefit.<br />
Retroactive laws permit an abuse of power from being punished and allow any law to be ignored at will. Permitting this type of activity renders all laws arbitrary in their application.<br />
Finally, point four is designed to prevent the abuse of power by the executive branch. Those making the laws shall not be those who enforce them, and vice versa. Otherwise there is a risk of selective enforcement or favoritism.<br />
So to summarize, a democratic society has a government "of the people", imposes minimal restrictions on freedom of personal action and economic activity and is governed by a legal framework established by the people themselves.<br />
………………..<br />
How does a people become invested in their "creed"? Through education.”<br />
<br />
<br />
My comments:<br />
It is the ‘education factor’ that is crucial here! (nit pickers may quibble, and have, on the use of ‘education’ as the word to describe the bringing of knowledge and legitimacy to democracy and that would be counter productive to the argument.<br />
<br />
Perhaps it is the concepts of ‘plenty’ or ‘enough that’ have to replace greed, and greed to me is have more via stealing from others, something unheard of in an indy world.<br />
<br />
<br />
the way I see it is until each and every one of us is able to look within be fore they assign blame we are stuck with the current status quo.<br />
<br />
I believe the concept I point to is called accountability <p>---<br>"And God said: 'Let there be Satan, so people don't blame everything on me. And let there be lawyers, so people don't blame everything on Satan."<br />
<br />
* George Bu
Listen well, Grasshopper:
One ant alone cannot kill an elephant, but 2 million can.
Now, would you rather have those 2 million "nothing" votes actually voting and perhaps making a difference, or would you prefer to keep then all nice and quiet, out of the loop at home?
Yes, the system is crap.
But right now it's the only one we have.
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'When you have eliminated the impossible, what ever remains, however improbable, must be the truth'.
- Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes.
It is the system that HAS us and we love being had
Had means laziness
Had means ya don'ts gotta think
Had means never having to say "I bow only to G*d"
Christians that do not follow G*ds Law: Natural Law are in flagrant disregard of their Covenant with G*d
Marx was wrong: religion isn't the opiate of the masses, in modern times the drug that keeps us numb, dumb and well-behaved is a belief that we can still make a difference by politely voicing our views to our would-be rulers and owners.
Let loose the toe curling moan
oh RANDOM CHOICE
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"And God said: 'Let there be Satan, so people don't blame everything on me. And let there be lawyers, so people don't blame everything on Satan."
* George Bu
With the voting system that we have only a representative sample of ants will do the same job as 2 million, or two trillion, it makes no difference how many people vote, all that matters is if a representative sample voted or not. Despite the low turnouts the number of voters are more than enough to form a representation of what all the voters would have done had everyone showed up.
What these "laws" and rules seem to do, is to make sure that the people can only vote as a disconnected individual, so there's little possibility of having a large number of people cooperate and vote together.
HEREIN lieth da crux
besides, when was the last time ... ah fugetabowdit!
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"And God said: 'Let there be Satan, so people don't blame everything on me. And let there be lawyers, so people don't blame everything on Satan."
* George Bu
-Max Planck<br />
<br />
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"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."
-Max Planck
I C, swap one fiction for another
way to go Dick!
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"And God said: 'Let there be Satan, so people don't blame everything on me. And let there be lawyers, so people don't blame everything on Satan."
* George Bu
That would not be a representative sampling. I'm not trying to defend the concept of not voting, I'm just pointing out that the logic behind 100% near voter turnout is flawed, and you may as well just stay home on election day watching TV.
Under the current system (which I disagree with), elections are not won or lost by how many people showed up to vote, they are won or lost depending on where the percentage of votes went or did not go.
Let's assume a riding with only two candidates. If 10% of the vote went to Mr. X and 90% went to Mr Y, then Mr Y wins.
Had a representative sample of only 100 people showed up, then approx 10 will have voted for Mr X and approx 90 will have voted for Mr Y. Had 10,000 people showed up to vote, then approx 1,000 will have voted for Mr X and approx 9,000 will have voted for Mr Y. The outcomes under both scenarios would be identical. Only in cases where the vote was very close, will the outcomes be different had more or less people showed up - it would in fact be random chance, and only one person could be selected to flip a coin to decide who wins.
*If* a non representative sample voted, then yes you could have a very different outcome if the votes were close enough or if the sampling was skewed enough to make a difference. In the past two US elections, we saw plenty of attempts to create a skewed sampling of voters in the cases where the percentages in favor for one candidate and the next closest rival were very close together.
In Canada, this is definitely NOT true in practice.
2. Laws must be general, not specific (this rules out bills of attainder).
We just saw Betty Krawczyk get thrown in prison because she was specifically named by law to not go near a specific area to protest.
3. Retroactive laws are illegitimate.
A few minutes of searching uncovered several cases of retroactive laws being passed and enforced.
4. Enforcement must be separate from the decision-making agencies.
Not true in Canada. Look at the RCMP.
Forget the initial God reference, it's now just getting bothersome.
Even I don't laugh at my own bad jokes that long.
Anyways, unless anyone here happens to have enough military firepower to single handedly force a new system on the powers that be, what we have is just that: WHAT...WE...HAVE.
Read those last three words again, slower if they went over your head the first try.
Sly and semi sly witticisms, boo hooing the NAU, appeals to the almighty Alex, constant bitching of who, in what party, is trying to shaft the citizens of Canada are not going to do a damn thing.
Now, if someone here has a damn good way of getting people so interested in changing the system we now have that it can be done by 2010, then by all means open your mouth and share it.
If you have the goods, bring 'em out now.
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'When you have eliminated the impossible, what ever remains, however improbable, must be the truth'.
- Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes.