[lbo-talk] Nader, et al

Michael Smith mjs at smithbowen.net
Wed Aug 8 09:22:10 PDT 2007


On 08/08/07 10:49:13 AM, Carrol Cox wrote:


> Most of the people on this list have more fun voting for the DP. Fine.
> I
> believe in fun, even for Reds. I think I have more fun not voting.
> That's my whimsey. No political impact. As Michael says, it's a null
> choice. But so, actually, is the decision to vote. Both null choices.
> Flip a coin. It doesn't matter.

I'm with Carrol as to the fun of not voting. But I didn't exactly say that voting or not-voting is a null choice (i.e. that it doesn't make any difference). What I was trying to say is that the position which needs to be defended is the Yea, not the Nay. The Nay, based on what we can easily observe about the Democratic Party, is -- how to say it? -- epistemologically privileged, like the null hypothesis in the sciences, or the not-guilty verdict in the courts. Not-voting (for a Democrat), for lefties, needs no justification; voting for a Democrat does. I realize this inverts the conventional wisdom of the high-school civics class, but that's always a good thing, no?

As to whether it makes a difference -- I disagree with Carrol to this extent: I think each vote for a Democrat does a weensy bit of net damage to the well-being of humankind (WBOH), and each abstention -- particularly if it's proudly proclaimed from the housetops, e.g. by wearing a Don't Vote button -- does a weensy bit of good, if we accept that achieving, and spreading, some degree of enlightenment is a net gain for the WBOH.

Small, I know, but consider the coral reef, how it grows.



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