Positive rights vs negative rights & how that may or may not apply to our current situation

wrath
41

The idea that voting supports the current system, and hence that not voting is fighting against it, is a ludicrous fantasy. The corporatist oligarchs would happily continue to rule even if the only people left bothering to vote were themselves and their friends. They would correctly point out that everyone was given the chance to vote for absolutely anyone they wanted to vote for, yet still the New Democratic Conservative Labour Republican Party won the election fair and square.

Hence not voting isn’t an act of defiance, it’s an act of surrender.

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42

Okay, here’s something that everyone else in this discussion realizes that you apparently don’t. Logic is empty. Logic can show you whether A implies B but without evidence from the real world, extrapolating to the real world is equivocation. If you can use logic, without evidence, to show that voting is immoral, then that’s fine, but realize that “voting” and “immoral” are just variables in your logic. But there is no reason for anyone to think they even vaguely connect to “voting” or “immoral” in the English language.

If you think that you can go from pure logic to the real world then you don’t need to be debating morality, you need to be debating ontology, because that is transparently bullshit.

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43

Wow, another person who has nothing to say to my assertion and can only attack the format.

Since you won’t debate the subject but rather the format, I’m only left with what you did say. Logic is not empty. As evidence, I present to you the entirety of western culture and thought. Logic can be applied to real world circumstances. As evidence, I present the computer you are using.

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@mathew
I’ve not seen anyone suggest here that the act of not voting is defiance so I’m not sure what your point is.

45

@dacree You yourself said:

If you don’t view refusing to vote as defying what they want you to do, then you’ve failed to make your position clear to me.

So is your position that both voting and not-voting are what those in power want you to do?

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46

Fine, here is my argument.  Try to argue against it without going after the format:
You are wrong, it is a 100% certain fact.

Alright, now onto how you are actually wrong, or why your point is not worth considering:

Within reasonable limits. My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins, and all that.

Emphasis mine.

Naked assertion, though not necessarily to your point.

Let’s start with the part where you are just wrong. Toddlers are human beings and their parents rule over them rightfully so. Infants even more so. Well, we’ll just change it to “adult” then, right? But the problem is that all the other words you are using here are just as slippery. The idea that one human has a positive right to rule over another human - as we define rights in that UN declaration - seems to be contrary to that words of the declaration. But “has a right” is often used to mean, “is allowed to.” And “doesn’t have the right” is often used to mean “must not.” So you’ve gone from a narrow statement that everyone can agree with based on the UN declaration to a very broad statement that prohibits actions that most people who agree with the charter don’t have a problem with. There is sliding room between “doesn’t have a right to” and “must never.” You may not think so, but you have to argue that point explicitly.

Wow! You’ll have to expand on this a little bit.

Now, I myself haven’t voted in a while, and I don’t really intend to vote in the future unless some things change first (I also don’t live in the US so many of the arguments here don’t apply to me). But voting in a democracy is a model of group decision making, just as the market is. Both have rules that have to be followed and neither gives everyone everything they want.

If my friend and I wish to divide up a cake and we’d both like the whole cake, but we both agree on me cutting and him choosing, we would presumably agree that no ones right to self-determination has been violated (I hope). So suppose instead it’s six of us and five like that idea of dividing it with a clever cake cutting method that is equivalent to that two person method while the sixth doesn’t. The sixth person, voices their discontent but however feels they have to go along with it because it’s what everyone else wants - clearly the will of the others is being imposed on them.

  1. Did something unconscionably immoral just happen there?
  2. If so can you propose a method to resolve such a dispute that does not involve immorality?

If the answer to one is yes and the answer to two is no, then all the cogent thinking in the world won’t change the fact that your idea of morality is just not something people can actually use. If you can answer both of those questions then I think it will really help to elucidate where you are coming from.

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47

@mathew
Yeah, sorry about that Mathew. I can be a bit wordy which makes it hard to get to the juicy center of what I’m trying to say. ah failings. i has them

My position isn’t really predicated on what those in power want or do not want. It’s my contention that voting is at once both immoral and ineffective. Immoral owing to the ruling over other individuals by proxy while at the same time absolving the voter of responsibility for the resulting actions taken by those whom they have voted in and ineffective owing to the current system being more akin to a corporate oligarchy than a Republic (whether the current system is actually as I see it is very debatable but I feel comfortable enough with the idea). By way of resolving the issue, I propose that how and where your money is spent can have a greater impact on the nation than your single vote. This in turn compels me to make an effort to understand how anyone receiving my hard earned cash behaves and basing my decision of who gets my money on what I learn in order to participate in our system in an ethical and moral manner.

@anon50609448
In the section beginning “Let’s start with the part where you are just wrong.” You being to make the argument that children are ruled over by their parents. However you cede the point immediately, so that then becomes more of a red herring. From there we see a bit of semantic play on the definitions of 'Right to" and its common usage. This is where the issue of positive rights vs negative rights comes in to play. It’s not as easy to determine which applies here and is a subject worth discussing. Perhaps I should say that if we are to accept the concept of all peoples being equal and empowered with the same inalienable rights, then the imposition of yourself on another would be in violation of that premise and, if morality truly is the manifest principles for proper conduct, can be said to be immoral.

Next is the cake cutting analogy. The argument you present is missing two critical bit of data. Who owns the cake and are all cuts equal. If all 6 own the cake equally, then cutting the cake 6 ways is the only viable solution. If they are unequal and one person is shorted, though they acquiesce to the will of the group, harm by theft is done through the action of might by majority. But it’s still not that simple since the formation of the group is not known which brings up the issue of voluntary and involuntary surrender of certain liberties. If we assume the group is comprised of people who voluntarily entered in to a group arrangement and the actions of the group were known and agreed upon prior to entry in to the group arrangement, then no harm can be said to be done. However, given the same group, if the cutting method was given after the group was formed, the group will to ‘outvote’ one member thus shorting them can be seen as harmful.

I think this answers both of your questions but of course I was forced to make certain assumptions such as the cake was owned by the group but not all 6 cuts were equal.

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Well, this isn’t quite right either. It would depend exactly what those inalienable rights are. In the UN declaration there certainly is, pretty early on: Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person. Unfortunately, definitions of these words may vary. So let’s look at the rest of the document and see what other rights are in there:

The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

So the same document that guarantees me liberty also guarantees me the right to participate in elections. If you are going to base your morality off a quotation from that document, you kind of have to accept that their idea of “liberty” is not violated by voting in elections. In fact, my right to vote in elections is equal to your right to life and security of the person in the declaration. So according to international human rights, your point is completely invalid. And if you have proven that the declaration of human rights itself is inconsistent with your logic then: 1) don’t quote it; and 2) how can you justify that the right to liberty should be the right that is held while the right to vote is removed to resolve this problem?

On to cake:

I did specify that the method of cutting would be analogous to the “I cut, you choose” method (there are multi-person analogies to this) which is generally considered a fair real-world way of dividing something since “equal” is not possible.

I actually didn’t include any mention of how ownership worked on purpose. Dividing a cake up should be a moral situations we can solve. If we need additional data to solve it then I’m happy you supplied the answer for some possible data points.

If this is the only situation where we can avoid doing harm to one another then we are going to have to do harm to one another a lot whether we like it or not. You say that if the cutting method is chosen after the cake is bought then there is a chance for harm, but how does that same chance not exist before the cake is bought? I presume that you assume no harm can be done because a person who is unhappy with the situation can simply walk away with their money. But that extends to after buying the cake - if they did not make a satisfactory agreement ahead of time, isn’t it their own fault that they did not do so?

How did they come to this state without agreeing to be in it? Perhaps the six men are prisoners and the cake has been dropped into their mutual cell. Perhaps they found the cake, and having found no way of establishing the proper owner, decided to consume it spoiled.

I also find it interesting that you think that if all the people own the cake equally then cutting into equal pieces is necessarily fair.  What if that sixth person, an equal owner of the cake, objects to the division because they wanted the cake for the aesthetics of the cake as a whole and don’t even care to eat it?  By dividing the cake in any manner their purpose is thwarted.  The other five had no idea that when they went in to buy the cake together that the sixth person wanted to display it rather than eat it - the thought never occurred to them.  The sixth person, being as obsessed with the aesthetics of cakes as they are, didn’t realize the others meant to eat it.

Now they have to find a way out of this difficult situation. None of the five wishes to stomp on the rights of the sixth, but the sixth is equally unwilling to impose his will on the five. But dividing the cake in any way, the purpose of the sixth is thwarted, but not dividing it the purpose of the five is. If this is the found cake or the prisoner cake then none can be faulted for not agreeing on a cake dividing method ahead of time. How can we resolve this intractable moral dilemma?

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49

For what it’s worth, I believe that wallet-voting is likely more effective than the regular kind. I just don’t see it as making regular voting unnecessary.

I also don’t see myself as morally responsible for the actions of elected politicians, unless those actions were part of the politicians’ professed policies or voting record before I voted for them.

So for example, people who voted for Dianne Feinstein take some of the moral blame for our surveillance state; but the people who voted for Obama in 2008 aren’t morally culpable for drone strikes. (Unless they also voted for him in 2012, of course.)

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50

The premise can’t be a dichotomy between making a statement with your wallet and voting because you won’t win an argument with folks in the trenches doing both.

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51

As evidence, I present the computer you are using.

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52

Sigh, meanwhile…

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53

I appreciate the link; I hadn’t noticed that article yet. Just keep two things in mind -

  • Make sure that you equally hate those Republicans and Democrats who voted against it.

  • Libertarians and Republicans are not the same thing.

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54

Make sure that you equally hate those Republicans and Democrats who voted against it.

Check! Well, maybe not equally depending on their individual voting records, etc. - but I certainly despise anyone who screwed the pooch on this one no matter their party affiliation.

Libertarians and Republicans are not the same thing.

Agreed, although there is some overlap. At least by those who are attached to the most modern and commonly used definition of Libertarian anyway.

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56

your vote is worthless

That’s not what the evidence shows.

Imagine a horse race where all the thoroughbreds were taken out on a track the day before and the rich guys raced them and only the top 2 horses got to race in the Derby, for you to bet on.

If what you’re trying to say is Democrats and Republicans are exactly the same and affect society the same, then you’re mistaken. See links below for evidence:

Instead, VOTE LOCAL

The smartest thing to do is vote local, state and national. I’ve presented evidence throughout this thread and elsewhere that proves it.

More:

And, here:

And, finally, please read here:

Democrats and Republicans aren’t the same in every way. Voting does matter.

STANDARD DISCLAIMER: I have never claimed that all we should do is vote. For more details, please read my posts.

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58

Cow, you’ve distorted my arguments into something they are not. … But I will concede that I should not have said “your vote is worthless.”

I don’t think I distorted your arguments, I appears you misspoke as you’ve conceded.

I will concede that I should not have said “your vote is worthless.” Just as a penny is not worthless, a certain type of vote is not devoid of any value whatsoever. But, compared to dollars and hundreds, a penny is proportionately and figuratively worthless.

I still disagree with your premise that national voting is worth so little on that scale. While I agree with you that voting locally is vital, Presidential elections make many differences that affect all of us on a local level.

I don’t want to repeat myself as I’ve already provided evidence throughout this thread, other threads and I’ve already provided you links to posts in that vein. I suggest you read my posts and if you still can’t see how important national elections are, then I’d like to see your counter evidence to that effect.

Presidential elections make the difference between going to more wars (or not) that affect Americans (and the world, for that matter). National elections can hinder or help state law when it comes to civil rights, drug laws, health care laws, etc., etc. that have a drastic effect federally and locally.

For example, as someone who helped to get marijuana decriminalized in Colorado despite many unhelpful naysayer idiots from both the right and the left… I can tell you that none of this would have been remotely possible under Bush, McCain, Romney or nearly any other viable Republican for the presidency.

Obama sucks and has been worse than Bush on some aspects of the drug war with overzealous prosecution/persecution bullshit and that’s despicable, but there has been some critical flexibility that wasn’t there before. It’s that same critical flexibility that was crucial in having the US not entering an open war with Syria as well (or even just airstrikes without open boots on the ground).

Unfortunately, I’m just repeating myself from what I’ve already offered in previous posts within this thread, etc. - If you don’t have the time to read it, then we’ll just have to agree to disagree. I’ve made my suppositions and I’ve backed them up with facts and evidence.

Is voting locally vital? YES.
Is voting nationally vital? YES.

We need to do BOTH.

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60

You did distort by going off into “Democrats and Republicans are the same” which is something I did NOT say and you assumed.

You first said national voting didn’t matter and that’s what I responded to. Now you say it matters very little compared to local voting, which I also disagree with.

My point is that because Democrats and Republicans aren’t the same, national elections matter very much (along with local elections). I’ve supported this with evidence throughout this thread and other threads (and provided links to such) and now I’m awaiting your evidence to the contrary to support your counterargument.

Now, do you want to get back on the topic of the importance of national elections (or lack thereof) or just continue to bicker and focus like a laser on trite distractions and focus on yourself instead?

If it’s the latter, I’m losing interest fast.

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62

Now, do you want to get back on the topic of the importance of national elections (or lack thereof) or just continue to bicker and focus like a laser on trite distractions and focus on yourself instead?

If it’s the latter, I’m losing interest fast

Demeanor in a discussion is just as important as the discussion itself, if not moreso. Because without a positive interaction, there is no discussion happening at all.

I just explained to you that I didn’t distort anything you said, I was backing up my own point that national elections are important and why (with evidence).

You made a horse race analogy that implied we’re betting on two horses (candidates) that are going to equally appease rich guys (corporatists) no matter who we pick. And then you insultingly compared voting in national elections to “clinging” to dogma. The ironic thing is you’re dogmatically avoiding the evidence I’ve shown that’s contrary to your baseless beliefs you don’t back up with evidence. Instead, you’re focusing on trite distractions.

I think the problem is you’ve admittedly not bothered to read the thread and don’t understand the context in which you’ve made your post.

My interest in discussion with you is now lost. You want to talk about you and nothing more at this point. I’m over it. If you want to discuss the issues and back up your arguments with facts and evidence, then go for it. Otherwise, the point is avoiding the issues, derailing this fucking thread you won’t bother to read and focusing on your ego and… I’m decidely not interested.

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Uh, you’re over-reacting and having a hissy fit.

Projection. Look into it, Mr. Distortion.

Demeanor in a discussion is just as important as the discussion itself, if not moreso.

This… coming from the person who jumps into a thread without reading it, says my vote is worthless (that you only later corrected) and compares my effort to voting in national elections with me clinging to a sacred dogma. All while ironically completely ignoring my evidence-based suppositions within this thread and countering with your own evidence-free beliefs.

And, you wonder where I may have gotten annoyed with you?

/thread for me

Good riddance.

I look forward to the day when one of you who dismisses the importance of voting in national elections (or otherwise) bothers to provide evidence to support your wild claims instead of focusing on insulting, trite derailments when all else fails you.

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65

Because absolute declarations, false equivalence, and argument by assertion is positive? The thread is indeed long dead, and it died when dacree revealed his partisan agenda after playing coy for so long. Simply rehashing dacree’s points isn’t going to revive them.

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