http://rangevoting.org/

I'm sold.

So it would be like Massassi's level voting system then?

Either 9-10s or 0-1s.

I don't think this would do much to solve anything. (But that's because our presidential race is a farce, so is democracy, and so are all politics).

Many people will be too stupid to figure it out.

But if our current system is ****, it'd at least be better than what we've got. And it's at least more mathematical than what we're using now.

iron range?

So who'd you vote for?
Oh, a little of each.

Yep.

How is it being "more mathematical" a better system? I can see how this will help who can't make up their mind at the polls, but honestly, if you can't decide, don't vote. At the end of the day, I'm willing to bet people will just "10" the person they want and "0" everyone else. If you were a rabid Obama follower, you want him as much as possible in office and want to see everyone else go down.

Because it's an alternative to a questionable and flawed voting system doesn't make it the greatest solution.

I love you.

Democracy is like a sandwich that is a bit rancid, but you take that over the brown paper bag that may have a good sandwich or the sandwich in it has been aged for years and will cause your intestines to explode. Democracy basically just gives you a consistent, predictable, and livable amount of crap while the other more authoritarian styles can unpredictably range from being a golden age to utter hell.

Then there are those that would rather not pick a sandwich and just starve.

No, our system "doesn't work" because deadbeats like you don't vote.

This is the most intelligent thing said on Massassi in the past 4.5 years.

It has nothing to do with not voting. Has everything to do with power corrupting the few who attain it and the general masses being consumers of sensationalism or down right lies fed to them by those few. While I enjoy demonizing politicians, the people are responsible as well.

Whatever. Voting is worthless, I could duplicate myself 100,000 times and still not affect the outcome here in WA.

It's only worthless because people like you insist that it is. One vote never counts, but if everyone that said "voting is worthless" starting voting, it would matter.

You could do other things too, like write to your congressman. And don't say they don't listen. I'm sure many don't, but some do. My brother has had phone and e-mail conversations with Stephanie Tubbs Jones here in Ohio. Unfortunately she died yesterday from a brain anyerism.

I suppose I should have clarified. The system is "broken" not so much because you deadbeats don't vote, but because you deadbeats do nothing but complain and never take action.

.

Thank you Emon. You pointed out yourself that voting =/= political activism. Two different animals, mostly in their effectiveness.

Systems are always broken.

Spook. I saw some silly bumper sticker the other day with a self-righteous message about how our soldiers are defending out freedom every day. I forget exactly what it was, but it pissed me off.

The U.S. hasn't been directly threatened since the War of 1812. I suppose you could argue WWII, what with Pearl Harbor, and the fact that if we hadn't entered the war, we soon would have been threatened.

But the claim that soldiers in Iraq are "fighting for our freedom" really gets to me. What do you think of that?

Politics is a waste of intellectual effort. If you really want to change the world, then figure out how do do something with less resources than we're doing it now. Although some political solutions may address this, they are worthless because humans won't cooperate under a political framework. Turn your efforts instead to the technological solutions.

Actually, the more people who vote, the smaller the probability that my individual vote will have an impact on the election. Of course that assumes this calculation for "my vote counting":

Assume that there is candidates a and b.

Total vote count for a is denoted as A; B for b.

If I support a, for my vote to count, A+1 must be >= B.

Of course, there's no way of knowing to that precision that the vote is tied or minus one... So the rational voter may decide to vote if the election meets some threshold in their head of "close enough" that there is a "good enough" probability of the vote making a difference.

Also, I understand that you are assuming a person who is complaining and therefore not satisfied. But if the candidate I want to win is going to win in my state anyway, I can just free-ride off the work of the other voters and enjoy my day while they stand in line for the polls to achieve my desired outcome.

You forgot WWI. Germany trying to instigate a Mexican invasion of the US sounds pretty threatening to me. Also, Pearl Harbor was not a direct threat. It was a direct attack, a little above and beyond the threshold of "threat". Same with 9/11.*

*I'm talking about Afghanistan there, not Iraq.

It sounds pretty funny to me.

Edit - and I don't see how you can call WWII not a threat. Japan was clearly coming for the US.

I took Emon to be meaning that a major land war has not been fought on a consistent basis on Continental US soil where most American's lives are.

One off attacks does not equate with the chance of the Capitol of the country can be taken.

Civil War counts as a land war, war of 1812 counts, revolutionary war counts. The War on Terror could be counted if you consider that 'terrorists' in the US hiding in the shadows plotting and using subterfuge on the government here as being a land war because it means 'troops' within the borders.

There is no amassed army crossing the borders blatantly.

words of a sad broken man with no hope for the future

other than the mexican army anyway

If the capitol in imminent danger of being taken is the only definition of threatened, then that is a very narrow and irrational view of being threatened.

I'd rather be cynical of a system that has shown us it is inefficient and corrupt than naive that it will get better because they'll eventually get tired of their games and put the people before themselves.

btw, he stated in that same post that he does have hope for the future, just not with the government.

Emon isn't busting out the insults because of Freelancer's political views, he's saying that because of the way he actually lives.

Actually it's attitudes like that that makes voting irrelevant. People are morons who only want crappy leaders. So crappy leaders are the only ones who run, because that's what most people want, and everyone else is willing to settle for less, because it's "patriotic". You think it's like sports, but it's not. I'm going to go make some "Don't vote!" signs.

See, governments don't work because basically, people suck. Sometimes there are exceptions to that rule, but in the long run everyone's screwed. If that wasn't true, we'd have had utopia thousands of years ago. Also, anarchy doesn't work for the same reason. It's kind of like the laws of thermodynamics; You can't win, you can't break even, and you can't stop playing.



Is that really any better than a naive fool walking optimistically towards the same future? The best you can do is try to make the exceptional periods last as long as possible.

Threatened and Directly Threatened are two different definitions

Word. But that's only because you don't vote for the liberal democrats running our state (I assume).

This Range Voting garbage is stupid. Of course it would have even less of a chance of passing as the highly enlightened Fair Tax Act so I'm not worried.

Our system doesn't work because it only allows for two candidates.

I have plenty of hope for the future. I just know where to put it.

Doesn't change a thing. If the only definition of directly threatened is the capitol is in imminent danger, that is far too narrow of a definition.

I'm pretty sure there are more than two candidates...

If I wanted to vote for a third party candidate, I would be wasting my vote.

Of course, since I live in Arizona, unless I vote for McCain it doesn't matter anyway.

No, there are more than two candidates. Nothing in our system references how many candidates or parties can exist. House and Senate rules operate under a two party system but those rules can easily be changed and are not limited in anyway by the constitution. The rules only exist the way they are because two parties are all that really exist in any substantial way in national politics.

This doesn't change the fact that there are more than two candidates. Also: Your vote doesn't matter anyway because of the Electoral College.

Not true. Sure, the electoral college could vote contradictory to the popular vote of the state but that has never in modern time been shown to change the outcome in any state. Generally speaking, if a candidate wins a plurality of votes in a state, they're going to have at least a plurality, if not all, of the electoral votes from the state.