The Reason for Voting--I can't find a reason to vote.

[Jagella]

I've heard many times that we should vote in an election. Democracy won't work unless the voters get to the polls and cast their ballots! Or so we are told. In my opinion, voting is a waste of time.

Let's take a look at democracy or "majority rule." In what way is the majority fit to rule? I often disagree with the majority and find the majority's opinion to be foolish or even dangerous. The support for capital punishment is one example of such majority barbarism. The mob rules is no basis for sound government.

Even if I accepted democracy as a good basis for government, I should point out that we don't have a democracy. We have what's supposed to be a republic and a republic in name only. Who really rules America isn't the majority or those who are supposed to represent the majority. The wealthy rule America. Our current president is a billionaire, for example.

In any case, I don't vote and haven't voted since I voted for Obama in 2008. I've found that who is president makes no difference for me or anybody else I know. And if you want to tell me that I have no right to complain if I don't vote, then that's not a problem for me because I don't complain. Why complain about the jerks in office who were put there by the voters? Actually it is the voters who have no right to complain. They put the jerks in office, after all.

So what would I like for a government? I think we should rigorously train and educate our nation's leaders. Those interested in a leadership position would need to attend courses in which they are taught how to govern. They would take exams and those that make the best scores would be chosen to lead. They would be tested for physical and mental health, general intelligence and problem solving abilities, and the technicalities of government.

Anyway, that's the way I look at it.

[Divine Insight]

Hi Jagella, I agree with much of what you are saying.

In any case, I don't vote and haven't voted since I voted for Obama in 2008. I've found that who is president makes no difference for me or anybody else I know. And if you want to tell me that I have no right to complain if I don't vote, then that's not a problem for me because I don't complain. Why complain about the jerks in office who were put there by the voters? Actually it is the voters who have no right to complain. They put the jerks in office, after all.

I totally agree with you on this point. Just because a person didn't vote doesn't mean they have no right to complain. After all, if they didn't want either of the two choices that were running, then what's the point in voting? No matter who you vote for you still don't get what you want.

So not voting at all doesn't mean you have no right to complain. You still have every right to complain that the whole system is totally screwed up.

Unfortunately, the reality is that voting is the ONLY real option you have open to you to do anything at all, as feeble as it may be. Unless of course you plan on getting out there yourself and running for office. That could potentially be a far more powerful thing depending on how many people you can compel to vote for you.

So what would I like for a government? I think we should rigorously train and educate our nation's leaders. Those interested in a leadership position would need to attend courses in which they are taught how to govern. They would take exams and those that make the best scores would be chosen to lead. They would be tested for physical and mental health, general intelligence and problem solving abilities, and the technicalities of government.

Anyway, that's the way I look at it.

I agree that it would be great if we actually had an intelligent society that could determine who is fit to lead.

In fact, I would go a bit further than you have suggested and instead of having ONE president I think we should have an entire "Council of Elders".

However, even this scenario has great potential for being abused. Who decides what equates to "Intelligence" or even "sanity"?

Religious people think that atheists are insane whilst atheists think religious people are the ones who are insane.

We have grown educated adults arguing over whether or not the world is 14 billion years old as science has shown us, or whether its only 6000 years old because a middle eastern collection of myths says so.

Who's to determine what constitutes "intelligence"?

Personally I side with the scientists. But clearly not everyone does.

The support for capital punishment is one example of such majority barbarism. The mob rules is no basis for sound government.

Once again I totally agree with you. As far as I'm concerned anyone who supports capital punishment has already demonstrated their lack of civility and absence of intelligence.

But clearly the people who support such ignorance will argue that they are far more intelligent that you and I since we are complete idiots for not wanting nasty criminals killed.

And so back and forth it goes.

Here's the truth of reality Jagella. We are all nothing more (and nothing less) then evolving primates. Some of us have evolved a higher sense of morality, and intellectual awareness to be able to tell truth from myths. But unfortunately many humans have not evolved to that level yet, so they are still thinking like weakly evolved apes.

I don't think there much that can be done other than to hope that humanity as a whole survives until the majority of human primates finally mature. Then we'll finally be an intelligent species who can actually run a sane and intelligent society.

But we're just not there yet. And we may never get there either. Only time will tell on that one.

The fact that we do have so many obviously intelligent people (i.e. scientists who do understand how science works, and humanitarians who understand that killing people isn't the answer to anything), shows that humans have the capability to evolve to this level of intelligence. But unfortunately its far from the majority at this point in time. And currently we have a and extremely unevolved orangutan running our country. That fact that this ever happened is indeed scary to be sure. But hopefully given another election cycle that will change.

I'll grant that Hillary wasn't a whole lot better, but at least she showed signs of being an actual human.

So sometimes voting for even someone you don't care much for is better than allowing just any random primate into the oval office.

[Jagella]

[Replying to post 1 by Jagella]

Unfortunately, the reality is that voting is the ONLY real option you have open to you...

I've thought that since my one vote may be one out of thousands or even millions, then it literally makes very little difference. It might make sense, though, to rally other voters to vote for a candidate that I think is worthy. Of course, we both know that such candidates are hard to find and like-minded people hard to find as well.

In fact, I would go a bit further than you have suggested and instead of having ONE president I think we should have an entire "Council of Elders".

Well, we have Congress and the courts to check the power of the president. I do believe that our system of checks and balances has done a decent job of preventing the rise of a despot to power in America.

Who decides what equates to "Intelligence" or even "sanity"?

Yes, that may be the most problematical aspect of my system of government. I think that we can do it, though. We have systems in which we choose people who can practice medicine or teach in universities. A similar system might be set up to choose leaders based on their knowledge and emotional stability. Again, we can develop tests to administer to potential leaders to determine their fitness for office.

Religious people think that atheists are insane whilst atheists think religious people are the ones who are insane.

Oh we all are.

As far as I'm concerned anyone who supports capital punishment has already demonstrated their lack of civility and absence of intelligence.

The logic behind capital punishment is that we must kill people to demonstrate that killing people is wrong. We must also give them what they dished out! Therefore, we need to rape rapists and molest molesters. It's perfectly logical, isn't it?

We are all nothing more (and nothing less) then evolving primates. Some of us have evolved a higher sense of morality, and intellectual awareness to be able to tell truth from myths. But unfortunately many humans have not evolved to that level yet, so they are still thinking like weakly evolved apes.

I don't know if I would be quite that harsh. All modern humans are essentially equally evolved which is evident from our genes. Religious people often exhibit amazing cognitive abilities. Isaac Newton is but one example. Some scientists think that there may be a "god gene" that causes many people to be religious. As far as I know this gene does not result in lesser cognitive abilities than people who don't have it. That said, it does seem that many atheists often trump their religious counterparts in emotional stability and cognitive ability. In any case, it's an issue that needs more research.

I don't think there much that can be done other than to hope that humanity as a whole survives until the majority of human primates finally mature. Then we'll finally be an intelligent species who can actually run a sane and intelligent society.

That's what I'm hoping for.

And currently we have a and extremely unevolved orangutan running our country. That fact that this ever happened is indeed scary to be sure. But hopefully given another election cycle that will change.

I don't hate Trump, and I hope he eventually turns out to be a good president. His election does seem awfully strange, though, and the reaction of the American people is very strange as well. I've used him as an example of what can result from a system like ours. Trump won the election constitutionally. Is that fact an indicator of what's wrong with our Constitution?

Thank you very much for the civil reply.

Jagella

[jgh7]

I like voting. There's two people running to be leader. I get to vote my say in which one I want. I'll take that over a school exam any day. How can you fairly score whose most qualified to lead when there's such polarizing views on how it's best to lead in the first place.

[Divine Insight]

Trump won the election constitutionally. Is that fact an indicator of what's wrong with our Constitution?

I'm not sure that this indicates that something is "wrong" with our Constitution. But it might indicate that our free democracy might be far more fragile than we would like to believe.

I also do not "hate" Trump. None the less I disagree with many of his idea and his policies. I don't feel a need to "hate" him. But having said that I would "love" to seem him out of office ASAP.

Nothing personal against the man. I just don't want him as president.

I don't care for Mike Pence, Paul Ryan, Steve Bannon, and many others as well.

I wasn't a fan of Hillary. In fact, I personally don't care much for her actually. None the less I would have been very happy to see her as president for the simple reason that I'm pretty sure she would have surrounded herself with people I do like and she would have chosen heads of departments that I like as well.

For example, I care much at all for Jeff Session, or Besty Devos as the heads of their respective departments. I'm also not happy with the head of the EPA, etc.

So for me it's not about Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton, but rather it's all about the the entire make up of the administrations and how they would have been different.

So from that perspective only I was a "Hillary Fan", even though I didn't care much for Hillary herself.

By the way I didn't vote either. But it wasn't because I didn't want to vote. In my state we only have ONE DAY on which we can vote, and it just happened to be a very bad day for me. I even intended to try to squeak in my vote, but I just didn't make it.

Not only that buy the polls had Hillary predicted as a fairly certain winner in my state anyway, so I was over-confident that the polls were right.

I wonder also how many people who would have voted for Hillary but didn't make it out to vote might have actually gone out of their way to do it if they thought it was that close in their state?

I'm from Pennsylvania. I thought Pennsylvania would be a blue state for sure. Unfortunately Trump had "micro-targeted" a lot of Pennsylvania coal mining towns promising to bring back the coal mining jobs and apparently that's what flipped the state red.

Nothing but lies by the way.

And besides, his plan to bring the coal mines back was based on nothing more than removing pollution restrictions. I can't believe anyone was dumb enough to fall for that one. Even if it could work, which isn't likely anyway, all that would mean is that these coal towns would end up becoming cesspools of pollution again anyway. Do people really want that?

I think voters were taken for a major ride on a roller-coaster of lies.

So maybe that's what's wrong with our free democracy. It's too easy to fool the masses with cheap lies.

[McCulloch]

Let's take a look at democracy or "majority rule." In what way is the majority fit to rule? I often disagree with the majority and find the majority's opinion to be foolish or even dangerous. The support for capital punishment is one example of such majority barbarism. The mob rules is no basis for sound government.

Democracy is not the same as mob rule. Democracy is a system of government in which the citizens exercise power directly or elect representatives from among themselves to form a governing body, such as a parliament.

According to political scientist Larry Diamond, democracy consists of four key elements:

1. A political system for choosing and replacing the government through free and fair elections;
2. The active participation of the people, as citizens, in politics and civic life;
3. Protection of the human rights of all citizens, and
4. A rule of law, in which the laws and procedures apply equally to all citizens.

Even if I accepted democracy as a good basis for government, I should point out that we don't have a democracy. We have what's supposed to be a republic and a republic in name only. Who really rules America isn't the majority or those who are supposed to represent the majority. The wealthy rule America. Our current president is a billionaire, for example.

The word for that is plutocracy.

In any case, I don't vote and haven't voted since I voted for Obama in 2008. I've found that who is president makes no difference for me or anybody else I know. And if you want to tell me that I have no right to complain if I don't vote, then that's not a problem for me because I don't complain. Why complain about the jerks in office who were put there by the voters? Actually it is the voters who have no right to complain. They put the jerks in office, after all.

No difference? One side wants to bring your healthcare and educational systems into exclusive for profit businesses while the other wants to gradually nudge the USA towards these as universal services as most other developed countries did in the twentieth century.

So what would I like for a government? I think we should rigorously train and educate our nation's leaders. Those interested in a leadership position would need to attend courses in which they are taught how to govern. They would take exams and those that make the best scores would be chosen to lead. They would be tested for physical and mental health, general intelligence and problem solving abilities, and the technicalities of government.

The word for that is meritocracy.

[McCulloch]

Well, we have Congress and the courts to check the power of the president. I do believe that our system of checks and balances has done a decent job of preventing the rise of a despot to power in America.

So far. The problem is that your constitution was written before party politics were developed. Now that both the House and Senate are controlled by the party of the president, they are loathe to admit that their party made a mistake in nominating an inexperienced fraudulent womanizing rube to the presidency.

Yes, that may be the most problematical aspect of my system of government. I think that we can do it, though. We have systems in which we choose people who can practice medicine or teach in universities. A similar system might be set up to choose leaders based on their knowledge and emotional stability. Again, we can develop tests to administer to potential leaders to determine their fitness for office.

Who would you propose should establish such tests?

I don't hate Trump, and I hope he eventually turns out to be a good president.

Not much chance of that happening is there?

His election does seem awfully strange, though, and the reaction of the American people is very strange as well. I've used him as an example of what can result from a system like ours. Trump won the election constitutionally. Is that fact an indicator of what's wrong with our Constitution?

Yes. A few things. He did not take more votes than his opponent. There is something wrong with a system that elects the second place candidate. Gerrymandering is a peculiarly American problem. Other democracies do not have that problem. The solution is both simple and obvious. The electoral college could be reformed without a constitutional amendment to be more representative. Two parties? There is no other significant western democracy that operates as if the complexity of views and interests of its people can be adequately represented by merely two parties. My country has five parties represented in parliament.

[McCulloch]

By the way I didn't vote either. But it wasn't because I didn't want to vote. In my state we only have ONE DAY on which we can vote, and it just happened to be a very bad day for me. I even intended to try to squeak in my vote, but I just didn't make it.

In my country, employers must provide four consecutive hours off for employees on Election Day while the polls are open. We also have advance polls for those who find it difficult to make it on Election Day. I've voted twice in the advance polls. I'll probably do it again.

Not only that but the polls had Hillary predicted as a fairly certain winner in my state anyway, so I was over-confident that the polls were right.

Lesson learned, I hope.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 5 by Divine Insight]

I wasn't a fan of Hillary. In fact, I personally don't care much for her actually.

Not what I recall DI. I remember you calling her things like "America's Saviour" (or words to that effect) and singing her praises.

Unfortunately Trump had "micro-targeted" a lot of Pennsylvania coal mining towns promising to bring back the coal mining jobs and apparently that's what flipped the state red.

I honestly don't know. Has anyone gone back to Penn and done a survey on the people who voted Trump as to why they did so, what their reasons were?

I think voters were taken for a major ride on a roller-coaster of lies.

So maybe that's what's wrong with our free democracy. It's too easy to fool the masses with cheap lies.

Agree.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 7 by McCulloch]

they are loathe to admit that their party made a mistake in nominating an inexperienced

Honest question. In what way is Trump 'inexperienced'?

Lesson learned, I hope.

Aye. I have yet to vote in my life, not even registered, but I will be doing that this week. I'm not going to make the same mistake as DI did, and assume that what the polls say is true, therefore there's no need for my vote.