[CrackMonkey] Lindsey Graham

[Seth David Schoen]

Mike Goldman writes:

> Monkey Master wrote:
> 
> >         Me, I'm holding out for None Of The Above.  I want votes of
> > confidence, dammit.  I want the appointees and representatives to have
> > to WORK for their votes.  If there are no reasonable candidates, then
> > let NOBODY GET ELECTED.
> 
> The only thing to do in the present circumstance is abstain.  Participation
> connotes acceptance of the process, and hence consent to the result.
> 
> In other words, if you DO vote, you have no business complaining about the
> fairness of the outcome.
> 
> Fuck 'em. Stay home and hack on mailman instead.

Woohoo!  crackmonkey turns into ucb-libertarian!

I think my present position is close to "Voting is wrong, but it does not
in itself constitute consent".

We had a long debate on ucb-libertarian about whether voting was moral (and,
if moral, whether commendable), and whether voting constituted consent.

My friend Daniel Burton is on the ballot for State Assembly -- voters, look
through your pamphlets, you'll find him -- but decided that electoral
politics was immoral and issued a press release encouraging people not to
vote for him, or anyone else.  That was the occasion which prompted that
debate.

It's very clear to me that "If you don't vote, you can't complain" is bogus.
(That doesn't stop it from being popular; I've been told that six or seven
times when I told people I didn't vote.)  OTOH I don't think that that
implies "If you do vote, you can't complain", and I haven't seen that
justified in a way that entirely convinced me.

But there are a variety of different sorts of "complaining" and different
grounds on which to complain.  Some of those are inconsistent with voting,
and some aren't.  (Some of them could be inconsistent with not voting,
maybe.)

-- 
Seth David Schoen <schoen at loyalty.org>  | And do not say, I will study when I
Temp.  http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/  | have leisure; for perhaps you will
down:  http://www.loyalty.org/   (CAF)  | not have leisure.  -- Pirke Avot 2:5