Originally posted by Lord LucienI'm glad you agree, little brother.
Subjective. Foolish to be covered.
Anyway; I wouldn't be surprised if many of these people didn't vote. It's common knowledge that the younger generation of voters vote the least in the US; and the hardcore occupy people tend to be angry yuppies. lol.
Originally posted by RE: Blaxican
Well let me tell you as someone who lives in Oakland and is inconvenienced by this "occupy" bullshit on a daily basis that it's hardly "pro-corporate bias". The Occupy movement is a failure. The lack of leadership and lack of cohesion between its members has resulted in the Occupy movement becoming nothing more than an opportunity for people to act a fool and for disease to spread. In Oakland alone people have been killed, not by the police, but by protestors. There have been numerous assaults, lootings,shootings, and acts of arson. The camps that the protestors have set up have failed every single sanitation test made by health inspectors since their conception. If you ask twenty different Occupy protestors what goal the protestors hope to achieve, you'll get twenty different answers because there is no unified goal beyond the vague of notion of "down with the banks".Why should such a complete mess be allowed to exist?
Originally posted by King KandyYou don't have the righ to protest when your protesting is infringing on other people's rights. The fact that you would even say something as silly as "just arrest the person who did it" shows that you have no idea what's even going on. Please, come to Oakland, then tell me what should and shouldn't be done. I think I have a far better idea of what the situation is here than you do, no offense.
Oh please. It is a right to protest. If someone commits a crime, then you can arrest the person who did it; you can't outlaw someone from protesting because other people did something bad. Positively Orwellian. Even if their goal is 100% stupid (I don't agree at all), but, even then, they have the right. Tea Partiers protest for absolutely idiotic causes. I would never dream of telling them they should be banned from doing so.
I agree.
On the flipside though, I think the government cracking down on these protests is exactly what it needs to get more momentum going. It's too passive right now, mostly because the resistance against it has been sparing. I think that with more hostility the movement will become more focused. It'd be great if we had something resembling Libya's revolution, imo. It's going to take some severe violence for any substantial part of the American system to change.
Originally posted by KharmaDog
If 60% of registers voters turn out and vote, the results are based on what the majority of that 60% of the population want. Now when a considerable chunk of those who vote are of particular financial bracket, those folks get what they want.
Arrow's Impossibility Theorem. With the voting system we have in the US no matter how many people vote the results is unlikely to result in what the majority of people want. That assumes a system with zero corruption and zero ability to influence voters, as well.
Originally posted by RE: Blaxican
What would you define as "what [they] want"? I mean, if 51% of Americans vote for candidate A, and Candidate A wins as a result, wouldn't that mean that the majority of Americans got what they want?
That assumes those voters highest choice was A, which Arrow demonstrated is unlikely.
Say you have A, B, and C to vote for and 100 people voting. 45 vote for A, 45 vote for B (these are our democrat and republican) while 9 vote for C (say Ron Paul). Now the last person voting wants C to be president but if he casts that vote C doesn't win, so he votes for B because he considers A to be the worst.
Arrow's Theorem is the general case of this conflict and a proof that is more likely than you'd think.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem
Originally posted by RE: Blaxican
What would you define as "what [they] want"? I mean, if 51% of Americans vote for candidate A, and Candidate A wins as a result, wouldn't that mean that the majority of Americans got what they want?
If the candidate did whatever they promised, perhaps, but even then it's not what the 51% want, but what they want the most out of the very, very limited options.
Originally posted by RE: Blaxican
What would you define as "what [they] want"? I mean, if 51% of Americans vote for candidate A, and Candidate A wins as a result, wouldn't that mean that the majority of Americans got what they want?
Originally posted by Symmetric ChaosFrom a certain point of view, one could argue that that one voter is still getting what he wants, as the person he didn't want to win most of all (B) still lost.
That assumes those voters highest choice was A, which Arrow demonstrated is unlikely.Say you have A, B, and C to vote for and 100 people voting. 45 vote for A, 45 vote for B (these are our democrat and republican) while 9 vote for C (say Ron Paul). Now the last two people voting wants C to be president but if he casts that vote C doesn't win, so he votes for B because he considers A to be the worst.
Arrow's Theorem is the general case of this conflict and a proof that is more likely than you'd think.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem
But, I see what you're saying, and that makes sense. Our voting system is definitely not perfect.
edit- stfu you two.
This guy has terrific and well explained videos on elections and the problems with certain systems (also in general):
Originally posted by RE: Blaxican
You don't have the righ to protest when your protesting is infringing on other people's rights. The fact that you would even say something as silly as "just arrest the person who did it" shows that you have no idea what's even going on. Please, come to Oakland, then tell me what should and shouldn't be done. I think I have a far better idea of what the situation is here than you do, no offense.
BTW, you DO have a right to protest, period. What rights are they infringing on? The "right to not be yelled at"? I don't see that in the constitution. The right to life? And yet, I see no statistics showing that murder rates increased with the occupy movement. I have seen those "protester murders" you are talking about, and they are nothing of the sort... people were being killed in Oakland before this movement, and unless that rate actually increases these murders are just business as usual, not some horrible epidemic brought on by protests.
Lastly, as Ben Franklin put it, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Originally posted by RE: Blaxican
From a certain point of view, one could argue that that one voter is still getting what he wants, as the person he didn't want to win most of all (B) still lost.But, I see what you're saying, and that makes sense. Our voting system is definitely not perfect.
It's actually a pretty serious problem that multiple countries are trying to fix. The fact that the single most hated candidate won't win except in very odd cases is not a value worth mentioning.
Originally posted by King Kandy
BTW, you DO have a right to protest, period. What rights are they infringing on? The "right to not be yelled at"? I don't see that in the constitution.
Ninth amendment. If it doesn't say one doesn't have the right it means you do have the right.
Originally posted by King Kandy
Lastly, as Ben Franklin put it, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Good thing rights never ever ever come into conflict with one another.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Ninth amendment. If it doesn't say one doesn't have the right it means you do have the right.
"The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
This is way different from "If I claim I have a right, I therefore do". The constitution never denies a right to free cable. But I can't just claim "yo feds, give me some cable television". There is a big difference between the amendment specifying you can't infringe on unenumerated rights and "anything not prohibited in the constitution is a right".
Additionally, the ninth amendment only applies to federal law. In no way does it protect the right of the mayors to evict protesters. So even if we assume "right to not hear contrary opinions" is one of the unenumerated rights, it still fails.
If this reading WAS true, it would certainly clear up some issues. For instance, the constitution never prohibits gay marriage, therefore, it must be a fundamental right. It also never specifically prohibits internet piracy, therefore, guess we have a right to that too. Not only that, but according to you, these rights actually BEAT the enumerated rights out.
Some quotes that may help you understand this.
Gibson vs Matthews:
"[T]he ninth amendment does not confer substantive rights in addition to those conferred by other portions of our governing law. The ninth amendment was added to the Bill of Rights to ensure that the maxim expressio unius est exclusio alterius would not be used at a later time to deny fundamental rights merely because they were not specifically enumerated in the Constitution."
Scalia's opinion:
"the Constitution’s refusal to 'deny or disparage' other rights is far removed from affirming any one of them, and even farther removed from authorizing judges to identify what they might be, and to enforce the judges’ list against laws duly enacted by the people."
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Good thing rights never ever ever come into conflict with one another.
Originally posted by RE: Blaxican
What would you define as "what [they] want"? I mean, if 51% of Americans vote for candidate A, and Candidate A wins as a result, wouldn't that mean that the majority of Americans got what they want?
true, I meant "want" in a more abstract sort of "rational actor" theory of behaviour, not simply in terms of moment to moment desires people might have.
I'd suggest the disconnect even between what people express they want and what would be demonstrably good for themselves or the nation is in itself a terrible quality of voting (not that I have a suggestion that effectively replaces this, as my point wasn't "don't vote because I have a better idea" but rather "just because someone doesn't vote doesn't mean they can't have a valid criticism of the system"😉. I also think you worded it in a perfect way, as people do vote for person A over person B, rather than (in general of course) any rational political motivations. Much of this stuff is well documented, and by in large, most people have absolutely no conception whatsoever of their own political beliefs, and vote for the candidate who conforms to a host of non-political based things.
Though, you do have a point. Short of suggesting there is massive fraud going on in every democratic system on the planet, there is some truth to the idea that if 60% of the people vote a certain way, that is what they will get, so long as we accept that the "wants" and "outcomes" that motivate or come from that behaviour can be entirely non-parsimonious (gotta put that education to some use) and in most cases are.