RoR: Forum

Post 0

Monday, October 27 - 12:34pm

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The Anthropic Principle in Voting

Do not think, when you vote, that you are just voting for yourself. For every person on the edge*, there are 1,000 other voters who will vote the same way you do. So if you stay home, thinking that your vote won't count, you are behaving exactly the same as 1,000 other voters who will vote as you do. If, however, you hold you nose and vote for the only practical alternative to an unacceptable option, then there will be 1,000 people joining you in your vote.

Why do polls matter? Because polls influence the weak-willed to vote or not vote as they see the wind blowing. Why is the mainstream media so insistent on repeating that McCain is behind in the polls? Because in this case, simply saying makes it so. It is the Big Lie. The only countermeasure against the Big Lie is the Little Truth. You must vote. Not abstain. Not a protest. Not for someone who cannot win a single state. But for the only man who can prevent a Marxist fascist administration with a filibuster-proof majority behind him. Elections are not about who should win. They are about who will be the commander in chief. The choice is split government, or an orgy of pull.

For each of you who votes, you will be joined by 1,000 non-Objectivist voters. This is not science. It is democracy. Democracy is an exercise in applied practical social-metaphysics. The winning vote is yours. What are you going to do with it?

* E.g., Steve Wolfer

(Edited by Ted Keer on 10/27, 2:10pm)

Post 1

Monday, October 27 - 12:51pm

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Hmmm, is Ted the one holding the watch or the one looking at it? Hard to tell.

Post 2

Saturday, November 1 - 4:46pm

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Elsewhere, commenting on election predictions, Bill Dwyer quoted John Stossel:

"And the people in the crowd need to be independent, so that they pay attention mostly to their own information, and not worrying about what everyone around them thinks."

This what polling data is precisely not. See above. Even market predictions are but a reflection of a reflection of people's opinions of other people's morale.

If McCain loses, it will be solely due to abelief on the part of would-be McCain supporters that he cannot win. The election will be decided by actual turnout, which will be decided by morale. McCain supporter (i.e., Anti-Obama as far as this list) morale will be undermined by universal predictions of a McCain loss.

Post 3

Saturday, November 1 - 5:56pm

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You have to be an Objectivist to appreciate this.
Call it "the anthropologic principle in voting."

Peruvian Shamans for Obama 1:07

A group of Peruvian Shamans gather in Lima to send good vibes to their favorite U.S. presidential candidate, Barack Obama.

<Click> if you dare!

Post 4

Saturday, November 1 - 7:15pm

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Ted,

When you said, "If McCain loses, it will be solely due to a belief on the part of would-be McCain supporters that he cannot win," I realize that contains an implied 'all other factors to the contrary not withstanding' but.... The bigger picture keeps intruding into my thoughts - telling me:

If he loses, despite his tireless persistence, it will be because he didn't run as good a campaign.
If he loses it will be because the mainstream press took their bias to a whole new level.
If he loses, it will be because he isn't as articulate and didn't have as strong a message.
If he loses, it will be because he doesn't understand free enterprise and couldn't, therefore, articulate his opposition to Obama on economic issues.
If he loses, it will be because he wasn't nearly as strong as he should have been on Obama's character and his associations (he refused to say anything on Reverend Wright - presumably because anything to close to race or to religion is to be treated as sacred).
If he loses, it will be because he IS a lot like Bush when you look at their policies.
If he loses, it will be because he didn't demand, face to face, that Obama tell the people who he represented as a lawyer, what did he teach ACORN when he was an instructor for them, where are the reports and papers that document what they are doing for the $800k he gave them, where are the papers he wrote at Columbia and Harvard - why is keeping all of this unavailable.
If he loses, it will be because the Republican base can only be strongly and consistently energized by religious nonsense.
If he loses, it will be because he doesn't really excite anyone.

Not to be picky, but there are really lots and lots of reasons that he might lose - including the possible vote fraud that the other side is probably engaging in. But probably the biggest reason that he will lose is that our educational system has been so badly broken for so long that a sizable portion of the electorate are politically and economically illiterate.

(Edited by Steve Wolfer on 11/01, 7:17pm)

Post 5

Saturday, November 1 - 7:30pm

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Steve, the election is determined by votes. Not all elligible voters register, and not all registered voters vote. The Democrats understand that turnout matters.

I don't give a turd volant what sort of "campaign" McCain waged. Can anyone truly say Obama ran a good campaign? He had good press. But a good campaign? It is pure willpower which will win this election. That is the essence of what elections are. They are not physical phenomena. They are the effect of a purely spiritual cause.

It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the juice of Saphoo that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains, the stains become a warning.
It is by will alone I set my mind in motion..

If McCain loses it will because thoundsand of people who could have voted for him didn't.

Naught else matters. Explanations are excuses.

Here alone is will a naked cause.

(Edited by Ted Keer on 11/01, 7:34pm)

Post 6

Saturday, November 1 - 8:58pm

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Ted,

That is what I've been saying about voting Libertarian since 1971 - and that is a long period over which people build up a momentum of will.

If more people 'will' for Obama than McCain, that will be one result, and more people 'will' for McCain than Obama it will go the other way. That is so obvious that it makes one ask, WHY are more people not willing to vote for McCain. That answer might be useful.

The 'good' campaign is the one that is the most effective in getting votes - in that sense, yes, Obama ran a good campaign. That is why someone should care about a campaign.

Nothing you are saying has any essence or substance since it applies equally to both candidates. What is the point of contrasting two candidates in a way that isn't a contrast. You repeat: McCain + people not willing themselves to vote = loss. Yeah, so? Obama + people not willing themselves to vote = loss.

I guess you are just campaigning for your candidate and feeling frustrated that people who are not 'willing' enough to vote your guy might make the difference. Welcome to the club I've been in the seventies.

Post 7

Sunday, November 2 - 9:43am

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McCain's fate rests on who will vote

Long lines for early voting, like this one in Charlotte, indicate that this election may draw the highest turnout since 1908. (Gary O'Brien/Charlotte Observer / November 2, 2008)

WASHINGTON — As the presidential race enters its final weekend after two years of battle, John McCain's best chance for a history-defying comeback rests in the greatest of electoral unknowns: voter turnout.

To win on Tuesday, analysts and polls suggest, the Republican nominee must win nearly all the remaining undecided voters in key swing states and peel a large chunk of "soft" supporters from Democratic rival Barack Obama. Then he must hope that his supporters vote in overwhelming numbers, and that more Obama supporters than expected stay home.

What would happen, if, Monday night, the networks showed long lines of McCain voters? Think there is any chance they would report on this?

Post 8

Sunday, November 2 - 9:55am

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Steve, you seem to be forgetting that if all the registered third-party voters show up 100% and vote Libertarian Barr will have enough votes to win not one single state.

But if they all vote Republican, McCain may win.

Whatever happens, it will not be the candidates, but the voters who chose the next president. Personal action alone is the effective cause here. A list of McCain's campaign short-comings is not a list of causes, but a list of excuses. Against Obama, a vote for a moldy vegetable on life-support is proper. It is poor comfort to blame the loss of someone for whom you didn't vote on his failings. He surely voted for himself. That's all he can do in the final moment. What can you do? Come join the red side, before it's too late.

Post 9

Sunday, November 2 - 11:24am

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Ted,

Surely you didn't intend to compare McCain to a "moldy vegetable on life-support"?

I applaud your energetic support of your principles and I will continue to support mine. I certainly get your point that at this late point in time, apart from advocacy, all we can do is vote - and that it is too late for the various campaigns or individuals to make moves effective enough to change the outcome. But the criticisms of McCain are important, not just because they are the causes for his being in the sad state he is in, but because many of them are reasons not to vote for him. He is not only too far out of alignment with our principles but would also be as ineffective in office as he has been in his campaign.

Not to nit-pick, but even if all the Republicans vote for McCain he still needs some votes from Democrats and from Independents to reach a majority because the republican party is like the Libertarian party - a minority (just a much bigger one). And it is too late for McCain - he has lost. Ted, I invite you to cast a losing vote for Barr rather than a losing vote for McCain. Vote for Capitalism.

Post 10

Sunday, November 2 - 12:14pm

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You know, Steve, I really would like to hear you post on Tuesday that you held your nose, hoped, and voted for McCain. I realikze that my berating you here will tend to harden your heart, and I regret that. But I still hope.

Elections for candidates are not about principles. They are about selecting the person who will hold office. A vote for McCain is just as much a vote against this Marxist as is a vote for the Christian Drug-Warrior / Pedophile ticket.

The reconciled loser claims to stand on principle, (a privately known principle which is untallied, a principle which might, for all anyone knows, be anarchism and child pornography,) while the winner holds office.

Read Nietzsche's Antichrist. The so-called "principled" third-party voter is the slave moralist justifying his self-imposed inefficacy with a "higher" morality. This book is short and profound, on a level with Rand's and Paterson's best. Therfe is time to read it before you vote.

The only difference between those voting Republican in this election and those voting Libertarian is that the former are still hoping to defeat Obama and the latter have their excuses and are content with losing.

Post 11

Sunday, November 2 - 12:20pm

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Steve, ironically in voting for your closest approximation of an ideologically pure candidate you will be doing nothing to prevent the election of the person who represents the exact opposite.

"..I invite you to cast a losing vote for Barr rather than a losing vote for McCain."

It's not over yet. I'll be voting for McCain.

Post 12

Sunday, November 2 - 3:17pm

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Ted,

I would never have imagined myself saying this to you, having read and appreciated so many of your posts, but on this issue your argument is concrete bound and arises out of a failure to grasp and appreciate the power of the human spirit in this context.

I would have let well enough be, having wished you well in pursuing your vision of principles we hold in common and having made my case. But you last post was disturbing on so many levels. You said, "Elections for candidates are not about principles. They are about selecting the person who will hold office." If you choose to throw out principles you no longer can say anything meaningful about the candidates, you can no longer distinguish between them in any meaningful way, you are no longer intelligible! If that isn't becoming concrete bound, nothing is.

There is also much about your post that is ugly and insulting and beneath you. When you paint anyone who does not vote for McCain as perhaps being a child abuser or anarchist and content with losing, you go too far. You addressed your post to me. Have the courage to say to my face that these are my positions or stop putting my name at the top of those posts where you feel impelled to make ugly smears.

There are a few people bright enough to grasp the power of the human spirit and you are one of them. But I believe that you are so frantically fighting the trench warfare of day-to-day politics that you have lost touch with where the only real battle is being waged. The increments by which this political war, which spans centuries, is being measured is in laws passed or not passed, judges appointed or not, taxes and regulations... and the effects thereof. But none of these, even in their best or worst implementations can be more than temporary in the face of human belief and determination. To be more specific, if we continue down the path of political illiteracy, special interest greed, victim-hood and entitlement as the political sense of life, beliefs and determination - all deeply altruistic and collectivist - no amount of effort by McCain or any other middle of road Republican will shift our direction. On the other hand, a nation with even 15% of it's adult, voting population, that understands the basics of capitalism and individual rights could reverse a century or more collectivism in less than a few short years. The war isn't about McCain - he is worse than irrelevant, he is an energy drain, a dead-end, a false hope, a target that the left labels as "Capitalism gone bad" and whose bullets he can't dodge.

Until you are fighting on the right side, which is not Barr, or Ron Paul, or Libertarianism as such, but whoever and whatever is the closest this year to Capitalism and Free-Enterprise and Individual Rights, then, in this war, you are irrelevant.

I don't know how many ways it can be said, "McCain can NOT win this war. He doesn't even understand it." The people must move the politicians to do the right thing - they can't do that until they are so educated and motivated. Voting Barr and Libertarian and giving support to Ron Paul are tiny, but important steps in that direction. With a majority of people believing in socialism, even John Galt as president could do nothing but get himself impeached. With a majority of people who understood Capitalism and Individual rights, even Obama could be forced to move politics in the direction of free-enterprise (or be impeached and swept aside). The people have to effectively demand the right political solutions and supporting McCain or Obama are both the wrong direction - neither solve the real problem.

It is not about being "content to lose" it is about being realistic enough to recognize how far we have yet to go and realistic enough to know that one of the major problems is all of the people who are fighting the wrong war.

You can't get to free enterprise through John McCain or the Republicans.

Post 13

Sunday, November 2 - 3:49pm

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Steve, don't be silly. I didn't say that one doesn't use principles in judging a candidate. But one elects people, not principles. Elections are not opinion surveys. And they are not, as you seem to think, a form of prayer, a message to...something. A vote is nothing more than a vote. If you want to write in "minimal constitutional government" as your candidate, feel free.

You are voting Libertarian to send a message, no? Let's grant that such public prayers have some sort of efficacy. So, what "message" are you sending? Does the ballot in your state ask if you are voting Libertarian because you are a minarchist, or because you are an anarchist? Because you are a NAMBLA supporter or because you are an antitaxer?

Bottom line, you listed a dozen odd reasons why you think McCain will lose. You omitted the only one that matters, how people vote.

To the right is the current prediction of the best predictive-poller, IBD, of the last election. Note that the undecided vote will decide the election. And it is not enough to elect Barr. Patronize me all you want with your concern.

Post 14

Sunday, November 2 - 4:16pm

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Ted, I had hoped that you might apologize for the ugly smears in that post of yours, I'm disappointed you chose not to.

As to votes being only for candidates and somehow, magically, the candidate is separated from any political principle... Well, I disagree. You elect the candidate and with him the principles. You can't vote for Obama without voting for redistribution and you can't vote for McCain without voting for his principles of altruism. I am not saying that one agrees with the principles by voting for them - and we are NOT required to find perfect candidates, and we don't get into bed with flawed candidates when we vote for them, but their principles stay as attached to the candidate before the vote as after. We elect a package - not some naked, tabla rasa homo-sapiens, stripped of all but his body. He no more goes into the Oval office naked of principle than naked of clothes. Christopher Hitchens and Christopher Buckley both seem to think that the specifics of principle can be ignored. Vote for the intelligence, Ivy-league education and temperament, they say, and cross your fingers that he'll grow new principles. Doesn't work that way. Not for them and not for your argument.

To make voting only about 'winning' with no regard to the principles makes no sense and is a sure and certain way to vote ones way into hell on earth - like the political choices we have today. McCain isn't the answer - he is but another part of the problem.

Post 15

Sunday, November 2 - 7:49pm

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Steve,

I'd have to ask on what basis you think McCain would be "as ineffective in office as he has been in his campaign". Personally, I see these as two completely different and unrelated activities. Campaigning, particularly in this media rich environment, is clearly more of a popularity contest that a real test. The authority of the presidency tests the man. As candidates, both men are (embarrassing to say) actually expected to play fast and loose with the facts. Half truths and often outright lies are considered acceptable. In office, there is little escaping from the facts - it becomes a simple question of results. The man in office is in the hot seat, and his decision doesn't just affect his personal fortunes (like a campaign), but all of our fortunes.

This is why I agree with Ted that it is too important to just go with popular assumptions and vote 'to make a statement'. I think it is important to vote for the best viable candidate that we can put in that office.

jt

Post 16

Sunday, November 2 - 9:22pm

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Jay wrote:

I agree with Ted that it is too important to just go with popular assumptions and vote 'to make a statement'. I think it is important to vote for the best viable candidate that we can put in that office.

Good luck with that. Isn't that the approach that gave us eight years of George Bush? How has that been working out? I have to agree with Steve that we need a new strategy.

Regards,
--
Jeff

Post 17

Sunday, November 2 - 10:18pm

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Steve, you wrote,

I don't know how many ways it can be said, "McCain can NOT win this war. He doesn't even understand it." The people must move the politicians to do the right thing - they can't do that until they are so educated and motivated. Voting Barr and Libertarian and giving support to Ron Paul are tiny, but important steps in that direction.

Let me see if I understand what you are saying. Are you saying that if the Republicans lose the election, because libertarians didn't vote for them, they'll be more likely to adopt libertarian principles in the future in an effort to gain libertarian support? If that is what you are saying, I don't see how it could be correct. Republicans, especially ones like McCain, are so far from being libertarian in basic ideology, and libertarians so small in political influence, that losing the libertarian vote is no more likely to move them towards libertarianism than losing the anarchist or pacifist vote is likely to move them towards anarchism or pacifism.

What is necessary at this stage is education, not political action. People's minds and hearts have to change before we can expect the political landscape to change. I don't see how voting or not voting libertarian in this election can have any effect on changing people's political philosophy; it is that philosophy that has to change before we can expect any significant change in government policy.

You add,

With a majority of people who understood Capitalism and Individual rights, even Obama could be forced to move politics in the direction of free-enterprise (or be impeached and swept aside).

I agree, but at present you don't have a majority who understand capitalism and individual rights, and you won't for many years to come. Be patient. Education comes first. It was the universities and their leftist faculties that ultimately produced the groundswell of support for Obama that we're seeing today; it is only a change in the universities and their political orientation that can change that. When that eventually occurs, political action can become an effective tool for reversing the growth in government, but not before. First things first. :)

- Bill

Post 18

Sunday, November 2 - 11:27pm

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Bill:

I agree with your comments about education preceding political change. I guess where I might disagree with you (I'm not sure of your position) and certainly with others is in seeing that the political process can also be used as a platform for communicating ideas and consequently as a vehicle for education. Although I'm not voting for Bob Barr, if enough people did, then the platform of the Libertarian Party would certainly get more exposure and discussion. In this way, it could be just one avenue of many for jump-starting that process of reeducation. Maybe this is what those who advocate a third-party vote have in mind with their decision.

Regards,
--
Jeff

Post 19

Monday, November 3 - 12:00am

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Bill,

I think we agree on most of the points.

If the Republicans began to bleed support in the direction of the Libertarian party or the conservatives, they would make adjustments. The party structure isn't 'afflicted' with principle, it will go anywhere to acquire power, to win. They would begin to put forth candidates that were more libertarian. They came up with Palin to get their conservative base fired up. The fact is that the Republicans have been steadily moving to the left for three reasons:

1) It is the direction that the country is moving - because of the educational system,
2) They have a an altruist philosophical base which means they lose many arguments to the more consistent altruists - the democrats,
3) They can get away with moving left because people on the right follow them - even Libertarians break rank and vote for the lesser evil.

It isn't just the tiny Libertarian vote that breaks for them, the conservatives also trail after them and vote for a Republican middle of the road or liberal candidate when threatened with a democrat as the alternative. The insiders count on that. If they don't pay a serious price for a move to the left, if they continue to be rewarded for it, they will continue to move to the left and never see the disasters that will ultimately occur.
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You say, "...[we] don't have a majority who understand capitalism and individual rights, and [we] won't for many years to come." True.
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You said, "Education comes first." Partly true.

You said, "When that [education] eventually occurs, political action can become an effective tool for reversing the growth in government, but not before." [my emphasis]

Here we disagree. If we don't consistently, and energetically vote our principles, we will lose ground in the larger war, and see the tiny, pathetic but existing Libertarian and Conservative structures wither away. There is also a very large educational value to political campaigning. More of us, who are responsible, should be working to reclaim those political structures closest to our principles. We need to be forming the opposition and building the credibility of that opposition to give the people a place to go for the crisis yet to come. That is practical, forward thinking, and principled.