Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Pattern-chaser]

Anyway, this is off topic, as usual.

Is it? Surely every voter needs sources of reliable and trustworthy information if they are to cast their votes responsibly?

[Sy Borg]

Anyway, this is off topic, as usual.

Is it? Surely every voter needs sources of reliable and trustworthy information if they are to cast their votes responsibly?

Good luck with that, if you don't use social media.

[Pattern-chaser]

Anyway, this is off topic, as usual.

Is it? Surely every voter needs sources of reliable and trustworthy information if they are to cast their votes responsibly?

Good luck with that, if you don't use social media.

Does the re-assertion of your point, already made here clearly, advance the discussion at all?

You wish to place more reliance on social media, even though you acknowledge its "noise", than on people who have devoted their lives to studying the subject you are considering atm? That seems ... difficult to justify. How am I mistaken?

[Sy Borg]

Anyway, this is off topic, as usual.

Is it? Surely every voter needs sources of reliable and trustworthy information if they are to cast their votes responsibly?

Good luck with that, if you don't use social media.

Does the re-assertion of your point, already made here clearly, advance the discussion at all?

You wish to place more reliance on social media, even though you acknowledge its "noise", than on people who have devoted their lives to studying the subject you are considering atm? That seems ... difficult to justify. How am I mistaken?

You are mistaken because you are trying to feed my thoughts through an ideological filter. It's a simple enough approach: I use social media to fill in the blanks that the mainstream media deliberately leaves. I usually start with the MSM and then find out what people are saying about the issues as coverage tends to either be superficial or slanted.

[Pattern-chaser]

You wish to place more reliance on social media, even though you acknowledge its "noise", than on people who have devoted their lives to studying the subject you are considering atm? That seems ... difficult to justify. How am I mistaken?

You are mistaken because you are trying to feed my thoughts through an ideological filter. It's a simple enough approach: I use social media to fill in the blanks that the mainstream media deliberately leaves. I usually start with the MSM and then find out what people are saying about the issues as coverage tends to either be superficial or slanted.

Filter? No. But I did misunderstand your words to mean that we should eschew MSM and academia altogether, and use only social media instead.

[Sy Borg]

You wish to place more reliance on social media, even though you acknowledge its "noise", than on people who have devoted their lives to studying the subject you are considering atm? That seems ... difficult to justify. How am I mistaken?

You are mistaken because you are trying to feed my thoughts through an ideological filter. It's a simple enough approach: I use social media to fill in the blanks that the mainstream media deliberately leaves. I usually start with the MSM and then find out what people are saying about the issues as coverage tends to either be superficial or slanted.

Filter? No. But I did misunderstand your words to mean that we should eschew MSM and academia altogether, and use only social media instead.

Estoy hablando inglés, ¿no? Parece que no entiendes las palabras que digo.

Maybe changing language will get you to actually read the words I write. I have made it abundantly clear that I use MSM and academic materials but don't trust them, so I double check with social media.

We have been lied and fooled by the MSM and academia so many times over decades. The turning point for me was the Charlottesville reporting. For years, I falsely believed Trump was a Nazi because he (apparently) referred to Nazis as "fine people".

Then I heard the full quote on social media, where Trump lambasted the Nazis at the protest and referred to the non-Nazis as "very fine people on both sides". That, of course, is not what most media reported, having clipped out Trump's repudiation of the Nazi troublemakers at the protest to sully his meaning.

Then I looked for more misleading bias and found it in every day's news, without fail. There's always angles - clipped out statements, omitted information, misleading headlines. None more than the BBC/ABC and The Guardian. The latter is even more biased than the Murdoch outlets, which at least sometimes allows left-wingers to have a say.

Human beings are extremely intelligent. This allowed us outfox other species, catching them off guard. We also trick each other. That's what humans do - they use their big brains to gain advantage over the less intelligent or aware.

The media and academia provide a multitude great examples of intelligent and subtle trickery used to push agendas over a trusting public (increasingly less trusting as social media points to things that the MSM is trying to hide). This has implications on democracy because power players, especially the big asset managers like Blackrock and Vanguard, shape public opinion to push a global agenda and discredit western nationalism (ie. politicians representing those who actually voted for them rather than global interests).

[Sushan]

Everyone should be able to vote because it will allow everyone to participate in the process of choosing their government; otherwise, there will be more abuses than now exist.

Do you mean by everyone to include children, the ones with learning difficulties, the dementic elders (I am not disrespecting any group, but merely mentioning the ones whose voting-if given the chance to- will be problematic), etc.? Even for the Conclave there is an age limit due to a historical reason.

[Sushan]

Everyone should be able to vote because it will allow everyone to participate in the process of choosing their government; otherwise, there will be more abuses than now exist.

Everybody ? Including seven-year-old children ? Including tourists who are only in the country for a week ? Including illegal immigrants ?

And if I live in a constituency that is a safe seat for some particular party, how exactly is casting a zero-impact vote contributing to the choice of government ?

I think having 'safe seats' is an issue with the system, and yes, in such a situation voting for or against the winning party will have the same impact: none at all.

[Sushan]

And if I live in a constituency that is a safe seat for some particular party, how exactly is casting a zero-impact vote contributing to the choice of government ?

The right to vote (the subject of this topic), and the process by which elections are carried out, are two different things. Are you trying to obscure issues here, not to clarify them? Is this some kind of 'spoiler'?

I appreciate your concern. However, I don’t think Good_Egg is trying to confuse or obscure the issues here.

Their post might actually help clarify the topic further by encouraging a conversation on whether electoral reform is needed to make votes more equal in their influence. If one's vote does not matter, I think it can be taken as an issue related to right to vote, can't it?

[Sushan]

I think suffrage should be tied to levels of education, which usually is itself tied to age. Also curriculums should include empathy -----which can actually be taught and often is taught through the medium of the arts. There are age related stages at which individuals gradually become capable of fully developed adult empathy

Good point. However, what if access to education is not equal? Then it will inevitably take away the right to get educated as well as the right to vote.

[Sushan]

The citizenship test comparison is apt. It is required for new citizens to demonstrate civic knowledge that many natural-born citizens lack (but then the natives are excluded and they remain as uneducated voters?:? ).

This raises legitimate questions about whether some basic understanding of governmental processes should be universal for voting.

Perhaps the focus does not have to be on restricting voting rights but rather on improving civic education for all citizens while maintaining universal suffrage. This approach acknowledges the importance of informed participation without creating the dangerous political inequalities that Aristotle warned against, which you mentioned.

Society already restricts some people from voting based on the assumption that they don't know enough to make an informed vote - minors. Yet some teens know much more about the issues than some adults.

I think it's fir to test citizens for their capacity to make an informed vote but it probably won't happen due to fears that politicians will use ad distort the test to game the system.

I think this can be done by integrating politics as a subject to school curriculum, and making the students sit for the exam and prove that they are knowledgeable in politics. Currently there is a gap in this and the media is filling it. And we know how media, especially mass media, works today, and may the god bless to those who learn politics from the media.

Normally that would be a good idea but educational institutions have been captured by Marxists. Note that I am not a right wingers, I am a centrist. But I will call a spade a spade and Marxism's long-term aim of the The Long March Through The Institutions, "to create radical change in government by becoming part of it". That's been done. Schools and universities are teaching students to be obsessed with the Oppressor/Oppressed paradigm. (Which oversimplifies complex social dynamics into a binary struggle, reducing individuals to class roles. It ignores culture, agency and historical context. It assumes inevitable conflict and universal exploitation, but neglects the evidence of social mobility and cooperative systems).

No objective political teaching can be achieved in schools without the degree of cleanout that would invoke accusations of fascism. Another wicked problem.

Whether the educational system is captured by Marxists or not, I also do not think that an objective political learning is possible, as politics will always have a subjective component. What can be done is give a thorough knowledge about the fundamentals to understand what is going on, and the decision making will be more rational and logical if one has his/her fundamentals correct. I think this applies to any field, not only to politics.

[Sushan]

The right to vote should be given to all, as defined by justice and equality. Everybody must have an opinion because one way or the other the outcome defines one's livelihood. The moment we decide to filter it will suggest an elite group of people who apparently have dominion over others. However my point is only validated in a proper functioning justice system because apparently in some settings the voting concept is not applied as it should but rather used as a smoke screen for corruption

I respond to you, thinking that by everyone, you do not mean to include the children.

Yes, everyone needs to have a political opinion and needs to be given the chance to express it. But is it what really happens in the current election systems? We simply choose the political party whose promises resonate best with our opinions. And if there is no such party, either we have to simply not vote, or vote for someone reluctantly. I think the reality goes beyond merely being able to cast a vote when it comes to political opinion.

And when the government breaks the promises they gave before the election, I think that also violates the right to vote, because they simply deny what the people voted for.

[Sushan]

The right to vote should be given to all, as defined by justice and equality. Everybody must have an opinion because one way or the other the outcome defines one's livelihood. The moment we decide to filter it will suggest an elite group of people who apparently have dominion over others. However my point is only validated in a proper functioning justice system because apparently in some settings the voting concept is not applied as it should but rather used as a smoke screen for corruption

What are your thoughts on felons losing the right to vote?

I am not a US citizen. But as I heard before, Trump could have still run for the presidential election even if he was imprisoned for the alleged crimes. If that is true, then it is unfair to suspend a felon from his/her voting rights.

[Sushan]

What are your thoughts on felons losing the right to vote?

Butting in, my own thoughts are that the criminal remains a 'citizen', and so they should always have the right to vote, even if they are imprisoned for life. Although there could be health reasons, especially mental health, where an adult citizen's vote is suspended (never actually lost) while they are incapacitated.

I agree with you. But in the practical scenario, the opposite happens. While the imprisoned criminals with a sane mind are not allowed to vote, the ones who do not have a clear mind, whether due to illness or old age, are not legally suspended from voting, although their disabilities might inevitably keep them at home.

[Sushan]

No, felons relinquished that right when they committed the crime. They lost the right to freedom and they lost the right to vote. They can do their time, be released, and then they can vote.

Further, I still think that people who do not know the main functions of the different levels of government, they are not capable of making an informed vote. By weeding out those who are taking a stab in the dark, and probably just being lead by others, there will be a higher quality of selection, based on real policies rather than personalities or pie-in-the-sky promises that are swallowed by the naive.

So what about the ones who are kept in remand (pretrial detention or jail, as termed in the US) after committing a felony?

Everyone accused of a crime is innocent until proven guilty, and I think this applies to felonies as well.

And also, as far as I got to know, felons are not allowed to vote even after they get out of prison in the US, are they?