From: seb@draper.com (Steve Bacher)
Newsgroups: rec.org.mensa
Subject: Re: Not Voting
Date: 13 Oct 92 03:50:53 GMT
Organization: Draper Laboratory

>
>In article <01GPV25X937694E8AX@ccfvx3.draper.com>, seb@draper.com (Steve
>Bacher) writes:
>
>>>Power flows with and through many things:
>>>campaign contributions, 
>>
>>Helping politicians to get...  If not votes, then what?
>
>What kind of votes do politicians get by using money?  They get the
>votes that can be bought, they get the votes of people whose minds are
>swayed by glitzy campaigns and empty promises.

You haven't denied my premise - this source of power is void without votes.

>>And who creates/passes laws?  Your "unauthorized" representatives, that's who.
>
>And how much control does voting give you over the passage of laws? 
>Almost none.  People are fed up with the laws passed by our government,
>but year after year they vote and the same sort of laws continue being
>made.  While power is in the laws, that doesn't mean there is power in
>voting.
>
[comments about press releases and sound bites]

You are confusing acts by the government with acts by people to influence
the government.  Tell me how wealthy/privileged/lucky individuals or
organizations in our society wield power through sound bites.  
As for press releases, I could issue them all day and no one would give
a damn unless I had some real power (financial, political or otherwise)
to back them up.

>the government listens to the people for more
>reasons than votes or guns.  [nothing, money]

Yes, civil disobedience and refusal to pay taxes can be effective
techniques that don't assume voting in order to work.  I wish you
had mentioned these in your original posting.

>>(3) If most people stopped voting, things would get better.
>>    I guess that's what you're trying to show.  I'm unconvinced.
>
>I didn't say it was that simple.  You have ignored a link.  First,
>people stop voting, then either other candidates show up or the people
>turn to other means of control, then there is a change of power, then
>things get better.

Here, as in the rest of your discussion, you confound your own
proposition.  You are now defending the position that people
should refuse to vote only in elections, not referenda, and
only when none of the candidates suit them.  That's not what
your original post sounded like - it seemed that you were recommending
unmodified abstention from the voting booth.

>There are plenty of political battles inside Digital Equipment
>Corporation, yet they occur without votes at stake.  As I said, voting
>is not the do-all, be-all, or end-all of power -- politics can and does
>occur even without voting.

As long as we're on the corporate analogy, it occurred to me that the
right of employees to strike may seem to resemble the choice of people
not to vote.  But there's a crucial difference.  A strike is effective
inasmuch as it makes it impossible for the company to perform its function.
A government can function perfectly well, and possibly even better
from the POV of unfettered pursuit of power, pork and percs, even if
only one person in the country casts a ballot.

>>>right to complain, but that is plainly nonsense -- by not voting, you
>>>have REFUSED to AUTHORIZE a person to represent you, so you have given
>>>nobody the authority to do things that are harmful. . . .
>
>It is interesting that you claim that is a straw man, yet you chopped
>out the part of the sentence where I said that some people state that a
>person who does not vote has no right to complain.  That is an assertion
>I have seen many times.

Not the same argument.  In one place you talk about the right of the
individual to complain, and in the other place you talk about the right
of the government to act inimically to your interests.

>>Come up with a better system and propose it.
>
>I have, haven't I?

No, you have come up with a list of techniques which function only in
a society where a significant percentage of the people vote.

 - seb
Newsgroups: rec.org.mensa