A Little Linky Love
Posted by
tgirsch
As regular readers are well aware, my marathon debate with LarryE (which started here and continued here) went from bad to ugly, and violated all the rules about disagreeing without being disagreeable (I accused him of having a “persecution complex”; he at least twice described me as being “truly an ass.” Really? He’s just now figuring that out? Anyone who has read my writing with any regularity over the three or four years I’ve been blogging ought to know that about me, but I digress…), doesn’t mean that we can’t share a little linky love. Our disagreement was largely about prudent and effective electioneering, and he discusses his views on them in Kevin T. Keith-like detail in a series of four posts:
Full disclosure: So far, I’ve only read Chapter One; but in the interests of fair and open debate, I felt our readers who have been following this mess (Who am I kidding? Just Ted) should know about those posts. I’ll read the other three, and try to keep an open mind about it. It’s only fair.
You’re only an ass because you take yourself to seriously. Other than that, I think you’re cute.
Comment 6/7/2007
you take yourself to seriously
Only in very limited circumstances.
Comment 6/7/2007
Actually, when I said “you truly are an ass” I meant to reprise my previous statement that you truly are being an ass.
Y’know, that “separate the person from the behavior” thing you mentioned which we both managed to forget.
Truth is, in retrospect I’m reminded of something a friend once said after we’d gotten into an argument about something and I said we were being silly: “I think it’s more that we agree on so much that we have to make the most out of where we disagree.”
We certainly managed to do that.
In the very first post of Lotus, I said “my hope is nearly gone. My anger is the only thing that keeps me going.” That’s not entirely true: The hope has never entirely left me. But I suspect that for both of us - for a lot of us, in fact - it’s that intense sense of the importance of some things, the outrage at the injustice of some things, that often provides the energy that sustains us.
Sometimes that comes out in ways not truly intended. So while I haven’t changed my position, I do regret the turn the exchange took and I apologize for the harshness of some of my language.
Comment 6/7/2007
Hey! Some of us (besides Ted) did read through that whole affair. (I’m not sure why, but that’s another matter.)
Comment 6/7/2007
I just want to state what I feel is a logical inadequacy with the if you don’t vote, you can’t bitch (which would extend to “pissing your vote away on a third party candidate)perspective.
Wouldn’t it be just as logical to argue that if you do vote for the candidate who wins, you can’t bitch either. Like, anybody who voted for Clinton can’t bemoan the crippling of welfare?…
Drawn to it’s conclusion, it seems that the only people who can bitch are those who supported a [major-party] candidate and lost.
Also, what about the possibility of converts? Can nobody who voted against a candidate who won bask in the splendor of his/her “successes?” Should those who voted against Bush, but who are wealthy enough, not be allowed their tax cut?
To me, the “you don’t vote you can’t bitch” and the “you waste your vote on a third party candidate in a close race” are both very childish and reductionist perspectives.
Are all Cleveland Cavs fans “wasting” their rooting interests right now?
There is also this presumption that those who don’t vote, but bitch, don’t do anything else. Political activism is not defined solely by participatory democracy. If you were to poll political/community activists (especially radical ones) and ask them what the most important things they did in a given year was, I bet voting wouldn’t finish near the top.
Voting is a civic duty of questionable return. For the true radical, it is probably, a guilty pleasure, at best.
[Comment fixed by tgirsch, per commenter request]
Comment 6/8/2007
Digg:
The part about bitching was a more general complaint about people who bitch about problems when they can’t even be bothered to do what’s within their power to try to fix them. Third-party voting was a separate issue. You can bitch about candidates that you voted for or against, but if you remove yourself completely from the process, you haven’t got much credibility for bitching IMO.
As for “pissing away votes,” that’s probably too strong of language. The idea is that your vote could have been put to better use for your own objectives than spending it on a no-shot candidate, unless there’s truly no preference whatsoever among the candidates with a viable chance at winning.
As for the Cavs, they’re probably not the best example. I’m a lifelong Brewers fan, and that’s probably a better example. I suppose you could argue that I’ve “wasted” my support, but then baseball is just a game (as is basketball), and my team losing doesn’t cause real harm to real people the way election results do.
There is also this presumption that those who don’t vote, but bitch, don’t do anything else. Political activism is not defined solely by participatory democracy.
With this, you have an important and valid point. There are lots of other things that you can and should do. That’s a point we made in the other threads, and that’s how you work to improve the parties in power on issues that are important. But with elections getting ever more polarized and ever closer statistically, not voting at all, or voting for a non-viable candidate, seems to me like too much risk with too little return.
Comment 6/8/2007
voting for a non-viable candidate, seems to me like too much risk with too little return
Well, I think….
Never mind.
Comment 6/8/2007
LarryE:
Ha!
Comment 6/10/2007
It depends how you define risk…
Perhaps, the biggest risk of all is placing your faith in the two-party electoral system…
Perhaps, when it comes to fix our broken system, the potential for reward is directly correlated to the level of risk you take, in terms of the chances the candidate winning. I am risking a lot by voting for a candidate who probably won’t get support, you are risking a lot by compromising your real beliefs.
In my mind, you are at a roulette table choosing between red or black, and the ball is about to land on 0 or 00 (which are green, ain’t it great when things just work out like that…)
Comment 6/11/2007
Digg:
You will never, ever, ever get more than two parties that matter without fundamentally changing our electoral system. And you’re never, ever, ever going to make that change by voting third party. Until that fundamental change happens — and it would have to happen via nothing less than a constitutional amendment — it makes sense to play within the system we have. (As we all know, LarryE disagrees. Strongly.)
But under the current system, the absolute best you could hope for is that today’s “third party” replaces one of today’s “big two.” What you end up with is still a two-party system, just two different parties. As Kevin says, everywhere in the world where you have first-past-the-post, winner-take-all elections like we do, you wind up with a two-party system, because that’s how coalitions work. [Note to Kevin — you still need to write that post…] You want to start a movement to scrap our electoral system, and replace it with a parliamentary system with truly proportional representation? I’ll be right there with you. But I’m not going to pretend that’s what we’ve got when it isn’t.
And I don’t believe I’m compromising my beliefs, at least not in a show-stopping sort of way. In life, you have to make compromises, or you get nowhere. I guess where I disagree with you (and with Larry) is that you seem to believe that doing the best you can with what’s realistically available, and demanding better / improving the realistic options, are somehow mutually exclusive propositions they aren’t. I believe you can do what you can with what you have today, while still working for better choices tomorrow.
Comment 6/11/2007
Yeah. I don’t think it makes sense to play within that system at all. I would go so far as to say that a good argument can be made that third party candidacy is more of a waste of that candidate’s resources, than it is a waste of the voter’s votes.
Perhaps, the best argument that can be made on your side is that a vote for a third party is a vote for a false consciousness, a positive reinforcement of a pathological means of catalyzing meaningful changes and ideological shifts. I think that argument might resonate better with those one the other side of this debate.
The fundamental issue is the question of whether you change the system by working within it or the system changes you when you become a part of it. The first scenario is the romanticized version, and we are given lots of anecdotal evidence of it. But, I don’t believe that such an outcome is more common than the latter. Furthermore, many of the “victories” we hear about are really huge concessions in terms of the original goals set forth.
Or you could play their game, but still operate by your rules, and fly to your meetings on Air Wellstone.
Comment 6/12/2007