<div><br>Fred:</div><div><br> </div><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 12:27 PM, Fred Gohlke <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:fredgohlke@verizon.net" target="_blank">fredgohlke@verizon.net</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;padding-left:1ex;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid" class="gmail_quote">Good Morning, Mike Ossipoff<br>
<br>
It appears I've inadvertently confused you. </blockquote><div> </div><div>No, you just inadvertently didn't specify which Michael you were replying to. No big deal. Don't worry about it. Since you didn't yet know that the posting from Michael Ossipoff was a reply to you, you can't be blamed for not specifying which Michael you were replying to. </div>
<div><br>
You said:</div><div> </div><div>You began by categorizing my assertion that ...</div><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;padding-left:1ex;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid" class="gmail_quote">
<div><br>
<br>
"All ideologies, whether of the right or the left, differ from<br>
Communism and National Socialism only in the extent to which<br>
their partisans are able to impose their biases on the public."<br>
<br></div>
... as nonsense and justified your opinion by saying ...<div><br>
<br>
"Referring to the old Eastern-Bloc, and to Nazism, Fred is<br>
referring to two specific systems which weren't democracies,<br>
even in pretense."<br>
<br></div><p>
My comment was not referring to democracies, it was referring to parties</p><p> </p></blockquote><div>[endquote]</div><div> </div><div>...including ones whose proposals and procedures are democratic. ...but which you feel are somehow like Stalin and Hitler.</div>
<div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;padding-left:1ex;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid" class="gmail_quote"> - and it is accurate. Whether Liberal or Conservative, Democrat or Republican, Whig or Tory, Communist or Nazi, all seek power - for the purpose of imposing their views on those who don't share them. </blockquote>
<div> </div><div>[endquote]</div><div> </div><div>Ok, here's a different suggestion then: Let's say that all of a country's laws can be ignored by anyone who doesn't agree with them :-)</div><div> </div><div>
Sorry, but I've never heard of any country that doesn't impose its "views", in the form of laws, on people who don't share those views about what they should and shouldn't do.</div><div> </div><div>
But feel free to advocate such a system.</div><div> </div><div>When a party platform, or an independent's policy platform, specifies that there shall be certain laws, it's understood that the laws referred to apply even to those who don't "share those views" on which the laws are based.</div>
<div> </div><div>You need to understand that even independents, propose laws of that type. It isn't something peculiar to parties.</div><div> </div><div> </div><div>You continued:</div><div> </div><div> The entire point of joining a party is to empower the party supported - to impose one's will. </div>
<div> </div><div>[endquote]</div><div> </div><div>That's what government does. Government is coercive. I won't criticize you if you're an anarchist, but you need to understand and admit that what you really are opposed to is government itself.</div>
<div> </div><div>If the govt is a dictatorship, then it _is_ one person's will that is imposed. But if it's a democracy, a genuine one, then it's the collective majority will of the public that is imposed on individuals who would violate that majority's agreed-upon wishes, in the form of specified requirements.</div>
<div> </div><div> </div><div>The excesses of the -isms are a natural extension of that purpose. </div><div> </div><div>[endquote]</div><div> </div><div>Which are you you referring to: pacifism or humanitarianism?</div>
<div>
</div><div>You said:</div><div> </div><div>It is dangerous not to recognize this fundamental reality.</div><div> </div><div>[endquote]</div><div> </div><div>You need to be a lot more specific about exactly what reality you're asserting. And you need to support your claims.</div>
<div><br>
<br>
I'd said:<br>
<br>
"Your ideology can be a democratic one, you know."</div><div> </div><div>You replied:</div><div><br> </div><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;padding-left:1ex;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid" class="gmail_quote">
Mine is! I do, indeed, seek to empower the people. </blockquote><div> </div><div>Yeah, that's what the Democrats say too :-) And the Republicans too.</div><div> </div><div>You said: </div><div> </div><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;padding-left:1ex;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid" class="gmail_quote">
<p>I believe we can find a way to achieve government "by the people" through a representative democracy. </p><p> </p></blockquote><div>[endquote]</div><div> </div><div> </div><div>Government by the people is what democracy is. </div>
<div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;padding-left:1ex;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid" class="gmail_quote">My purpose is to find an electoral method that seeks out our best advocates</blockquote>
<div> </div><div>It isn't the job of the electoral method to choose who will run, or to seek out candidates. We ourselves, the public, the voters, should be the ones to decide who our best advocates are. How do you decide that? Ask yourself which candidate, actual or potential, speaks for you the best, and advocates the policies that you prefer. Encourage him/her to run for office. Support that candidacy. Even ("gasp!") if it requires contacting and working with other people who agree with your views and proposals (a party).</div>
<div> </div><div>And then your next job is to support him/her when you mark your ballot in the election.</div><div> </div><div>That is how we seek out out best advocates.</div><div> </div><div>You continued:</div><div> </div>
<div>of the common interest and raises them to public office. </div><div> </div><div>[endquote]</div><div> </div><div>That's pretty much the purpose of the voting systems proposed here at EM.</div><div> </div><div>You said:</div>
<div> </div><div>It is clear that this cannot be accomplished by a system that pits self-interest against self-interest as epitomized by party-based systems. </div><div> </div><div>[endquote]</div><div> </div><div>Self-interests often are already contrary to and opposed to eachother, and don't need to be "pitted" against eachother. So now parties are also responsible for the instances in which self-interests oppose eachother? :-)</div>
<div> </div><div>Check the platform proposals of an independent candidate some time. Find out if s/he proposes policies that oppose someone else's self-interest. I suspect that you'll find that s/he does.</div><div>
</div><div>You said:</div><div> </div><div>However, given our natural tendency for partisanship, the question is: How can we empower the people without vesting power in oligarchical political parties? </div><div> </div>
<div>[endquote]</div><div> </div><div>By not supporting any candidate who belongs to, supports, endorses, or mentions an oligarchical party. </div><div> </div><div>I already said that. (Oh that's right, that was one of the things that you said that you aren't answering).</div>
<div> </div><div> </div><div>You keep referring to empowering the people. Of course the Democrats and Republicans say that they want to do that too. Just as you say it. What is different about your saying that, as opposed to their saying it?</div>
<div> </div><div>You said:</div><div><br>
re: "If you don't like parties, then most or all democracies,</div><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;padding-left:1ex;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid" class="gmail_quote">
<div><br>
actual and proposed, will let you vote for an independent."<br>
<br></div>
Which is, under present circumstances, the height of futility.<br></blockquote><div> </div><div>[endquote]</div><div> </div><div>Fine. If you don't want to support an independent, then support a party candidate, or no one at all.</div>
<div> </div><div>But, speaking of the futility of voting for what you actually prefer--That futility is actually a property and artifact of Plurality. That's why we all, here, want a better voting system.</div><div> </div>
<div>You see, with Approval, supporting, on your ballot, someone whom you prefer would no longer be the height of futility. And yes, that could be an independent candidate unaffiliated with any party.</div><div> </div><div>
But, even with Plurality, you know what "the height of futility" really is? It's voting for someone you don't like because you think that the candidates chosen by two unliked parties are the only ones who are "viable". Voting for a "lesser-evil".</div>
<div> </div><div>Someone said that insanity is expecting to get a different result by doing the same thing.</div><div> </div><div>We keep voting for the same two parties, and expecting things to get better. </div><div> </div>
<div>I'll give the two quotes that I often post:</div><div> </div><div>If you vote for a lesser-of-2-evils, you get an evil.</div><div> </div><div>It's better to vote for what you want and not get it, than to vote for what you don't want and get it.</div>
<div> </div><div>So why don't you just vote for someone you like, or someone whose policy proposals you like, instead of whining about parties.</div><div> </div><div>And yes, that person you vote for can be an independent. And no, voting for what you like isn't futile, as is voting for a lesser-evil.</div>
<div> </div><div>if, just once, everyone voted for what they like, then we'd find out which candidate-categories have support and are "viable". But I admit that, with Plurality, it would still be difficult to organize which candidate of the winnable category should be the one that the preferrers of that category combine their votes on.</div>
<div> </div><div>But honest voting would be a start, wouldn't it. Try it. You might like it.</div><div> </div><div>So, I seem to have provided the answer that you were looking for</div><div> </div><div> </div><div> You said:</div>
<div> </div><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;padding-left:1ex;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid" class="gmail_quote">
<br>
re: "But perhaps you want to take away others' freedom of<br>
association."<br>
<br>
Has anything I've written given you a valid basis for such a statement?<br></blockquote><div> </div><div>Yes. A party is a voluntary association of people who agree about some policy proposals, and work together to publicize those proposals and campaign for candidates who would work to enact those proposals. You seem to be implying that you want to get rid of those voluntary associations, to ban them.</div>
<div> </div><div>My suggestion was: So just don't vote for them. If a party's candidates don't get votes, then that party won't be able to impose its sinister agenda upon you.</div>
<div> </div><div>Mike Ossipoff</div><div> </div></div><br>