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Tactical Voting

nemafakei
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Would you vote tactically for mainstream candidates in order to make your vote significant?  

28 members have voted

  1. 1. Would you vote tactically for mainstream candidates in order to make your vote significant?

    • Yes, but I'm generally happy with mainstream candidates, so I don't need to.
      3
    • Yes, and I often vote for mainstream candidate (or intend to), instead of my first choice.
      3
    • Depends on the situation.
      10
    • No, I would always vote for whoever I thought best for the job.
      10
    • No, I never vote in anything.
      2

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Andrew

Andrew

Posted
Posted

Yes, it might. But it would make a difference in relations between Britain and USA

Just like how the election results in Canada will have an impact on USA and viceversa.

nemafakei

nemafakei

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Ordinary Americans take their democracy seriously. The higher up you the political ladder you look, the less this is the case.

Consequently it's quite dangerous for the Americans to take their democracy seriously.

(sorry)

Viq

Viq

Posted
Posted

Ordinary Americans take their democracy seriously. The higher up you the political ladder you look, the less this is the case.

Why is that? Is it something to do with power or what?

Anathema

Anathema

Posted
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That said, I suppose there's little relevance for those sneaky Dutch and their like who have proportional representation.

Proportional representation is only a relevant option when electing a body of multiple representatives (like a parliament) not for choosing a single leader (such as a president). For that a 2 stage election would be best (like Edric explained)

If I were a US voter, I'd probably still vote for whoever appeals to me the most, even though no third party candidate has a chance of voting. If he/she gets a fair share of the votes though, maybe more people will vote for him/her in the next election (just look at Nader)

nemafakei

nemafakei

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Think about it, Viq. If you are one of a small group of people in power and have got yourself into a position where you have a lot of corporate sponsorship etc. - while also being the sort of person the corporations are likely to sponsor - you are likely to realise pretty soon that the will of the people isn't going to be in your interest for long. And you may well be in a position to do something about it.

Caid Ivik

Caid Ivik

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Have they ever taken democracy seriously? When did they vote about Vietnam? Or about Iraq? What about privatization of schools and hospitals? I believe this is just a small piece of the top if the iceberg...

For the hell yes, who else? However it seems they are all like geschlagt from those Arabs or what.

Viq

Viq

Posted
Posted

Think about it, Viq. If you are one of a small group of people in power and have got yourself into a position where you have a lot of corporate sponsorship etc. - while also being the sort of person the corporations are likely to sponsor - you are likely to realise pretty soon that the will of the people isn't going to be in your interest for long. And you may well be in a position to do something about it.

That's as may be, but aren't these people meant to want the best for US, the people that they represent?

Viq

Viq

Posted
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We should use less commas. ;D

Sure thing, dude, or dudess, as the case may be. By the way, I detest smileys. But I digress. Seriously, if you're looking for the ultimate? fairest? voting system, what would you go for, and why? I think the system as it is could be better, but i have no idea how you'd go about making it better.

Dude_Doc

Dude_Doc

Posted
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That's as may be, but aren't these people meant to want the best for US, the people that they represent?

In all systems there are holes and bypasses. If you know them you can get through. These "holes" exist everywhere, not only at the political level. Not only that, people who discover these holes can make a quite big fortune of it.

Well, if you changed the voting system, it wouldn't really resolve this, would it? What, then, should we do?

I think that people don't realize that there is still a long way to go before we acquire real freedom. So long as I can do whatever I want, say whatever I want and so on, why should I care about, say, colored people's rights? Or homosexuals? Or what about all the poor people. The thing is that people just don't care about each other. But, when my freedom is restricted, only then do I realize that something should be done.

It's the same thing with this system. As long as I have my freedom, my money and my loved ones safe and secured, then I won't care who's running the country. That is what needs to be changed. We must care about what's going on around us. We must care about who's running the country, about where the taxmoney goes and that all people have the same rights and freedoms as I have. When we care, corruption will slowly fade away.

Viq

Viq

Posted
Posted

It's the same thing with this system. As long as I have my freedom, my money and my loved ones safe and secured, then I won't care who's running the country. That is what needs to be changed. We must care about what's going on around us. We must care about who's running the country, about where the taxmoney goes and that all people have the same rights and freedoms as I have. When we care, corruption will slowly fade away.

So what percentage of people enjoy this security and don't care whose running the country? I'm just curious to see if they are in the majority, because then the government is obviously doing a good job. I agree, Cyborg, with what you say about us having to change, but how on Earth is that going to happen?

Dude_Doc

Dude_Doc

Posted
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So what percentage of people enjoy this security and don't care whose running the country? I'm just curious to see if they are in the majority, because then the government is obviously doing a good job.

Well, I think that in richer countries (the West, with other words) the majority are enjoying their liberties. In poorer countries, I think most people care, because those countries often have a habbit of enslaving, killing, banning free speach and will. But as generations go, I believe more and more people have begun caring for each other, and for their own country.

I agree, Cyborg, with what you say about us having to change, but how on Earth is that going to happen?

That is the big question. We already know that one can't force his own view on others, so the only thing possible is for people to think free, to have open minds, and not dismiss everything they hear as a "communist lie" or conspiracy. This requires free information, and as we have now entered the age of information, this provides another problem. All information is not free. We can't decide or make judgements if we don't have free information. I think that as long as information is restricted and have a price, people can't make decisions, and no progress can be made because of this.

Take the terrorist threat for example. The state says that this and that piece of information is restricted, and that people have to believe in it. This is both right and wrong. It is right because the information can be used by the terrorists, and it's bad because people can't make judgements. Because of this, more restrictions can be placed, and less decisions made by the people. They just have to get along with it, because those with the information probably makes the right decisions.

Building upon this, we can now say that to get a world where information about everything is free for everybody is a world of peace, where there is no wars, no struggle. This presents another problem, the Gun Industry won't agree. How can they make money if no one will be killed? What would the army do? The air force, the navy? What about the nukes and all stealth planes we've invented? Imagine the cost of all war machines around the globe, every single bullet, every rifle, every bomb, every plane, armour, helmet, boat, submarine and plane. The sum will be unimaginable. And most of all, what about the people who make these things?

Which leads us to history. First we had the Soviet Union, the threat of immediate nuclear destruction of our world. The solution? An army. A big one. And nukes, lots of them. Stealth planes, spy agencies and so on. For almost fifty years, money streamed to these things. Then the Soviet Union died, and we had no enemy left. And now we have the terrorists to worry about.

Discounting this, we've always had robbers and murderers, gangsters and all other criminals. Seems to me like the Gun Industry don't have one day off.

Continuing, there is a man in history who knew this kind of thing would always be in advantage to him. In order for his "empire" to always obey him and never ask questions, there would always be war and conflict. War and conflict are countered with the wise decision of "the leader". If there was no war, people would begin to ask questions about the orders he gave them. "Why should I do this and that if there is no enemy?", therefore, war was necesary. The man who said this was Adolph Hitler.

War and suffering is the tools of fascism. While the powerful nations don't have this exact structure, it is resembling it. There will always be a small group of people controlling the majority, no matter in which system, as long as there is a threat, imaginable or real.

This is what has to be changed.

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