Why stop there? Everyone who agrees with the general ideals of social democracy (the majority of Americans do if you ask them on a policy by policy basis), but thinks that she cannot get her neighbors to go along and so votes for an "electable" Democrat, is selling out her, is a spineless sellout because "everyone did it" we'd have Kuchinic or maybe a real social democratic party.
There are so many problems with this line of reasoning it would take a book to enumerate them:
1) It ignores the collective action/public goods problem that makes it rational for individuals to settle for their their second worst choices in the absence of an incentive structure to make it rational to cooperate on getting the best choice;
2) if ignores the transaction costs in organizing, joining together, to create a political alternative necessary to create those new incentives.
3) It ignore the sensible decisions people make not to bother to inform themselves about the positions of the candidates, information it is costly in time at least to acquire and in time and money to process and evaluate, especially since people can be reasonable certain the candidates are all lying anyway -- in those circumstances "character" is a stereotype that provides a useful summary for some of the things that people want in a candidate that is not too hard to come to a quick judgment about.
4) The whole approach of blame-the-voter is wholly individualistic and abdicates collective left responsibility for helping working people to organize an alternative.
5) You people are fucked up, arrogant, self-important, latte sipping radical chic intellectuals who despise people who drive pickup trucks or joining the service for not seeing the point of wasting their time on symbolic politics. Every wonder why you are in a dead end left ghetto speaking in a sound-proofed echo chamber? Look in the mirror.
--- Michael McIntyre <mcintyremichael at mac.com> wrote:
> > Here's the supreme irony. Those who won't vote
> for Kucinich
> > because they think he can't win justify that
> decision on the
> > grounds of "not throwing your vote away,"
> "supporting someone with
> > a chance to win," or "casting an effective vote."
> All of these
> > justifications reject voting as an expressive act
> ("the ballot as a
> > place to make a statement") in favor of voting as
> a causally
> > efficacious act. But a moment's reflection will
> reveal that one's
> > individual vote has zero causal effect. Not only
> is it
> > extraordinarily unlikely that an election will be
> decided by one
> > vote, but given the uncertainties of any
> vote-counting mechanism,
> > one's vote is necessarily within the statistical
> margin of vote-
> > counting error. It is therefore IRRATIONAL to
> vote in order to
> > have an effect, an a fortiori irrational to vote
> (on grounds of
> > causal efficacy) for a candidate who has a chance
> rather than a
> > candidate who does not. Ironically, those who
> invoke instrumental
> > rationality as the reason for voting as they do
> are the most
> > deluded of all. The argument for not voting is
> very strong. The
> > argument for voting as an expressive act is much
> weaker, though
> > perhaps viable. But no one should vote because
> they think their
> > vote makes a difference, and no one should vote
> under the sway of
> > the flawed argument that voting for one candidate
> has an effect
> > while voting for another does not.
> >
>
> I don't think this is true if you can reasonably
> expect like-minded
> others to do the same.
>
> Ted
>
> Nope, Ted, this doesn't rescue the instrumental
> rationality
> argument. If I can reasonably expect like-minded
> others to do the
> same (whatever "the same" is), then they will do
> that whether or not
> I show up at the polling place. Conversely, if I
> expect like-minded
> others to do differently, then what I do of do not
> do at the polling
> place will not affect their actions either. One
> vote really is just
> one vote.
>
> Michael McIntyre
>
> ___________________________________
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss an email again! Yahoo! Toolbar alerts you the instant new Mail arrives. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/toolbar/features/mail/