I'm not asking you to give them your support. I'm asking you to make your opinion known.
People spoil ballot papers to indicate dissatisfaction with the candidates on offer. They don't vote because they can't be bothered to get off their arses. By choosing to not vote, you're indistinguishable from the lazy tossers, is that what you want to get across?
I'm not "getting across" anything by either voting or not voting. And there are dozens of reasons people have for not voting; anyone who assumes all non-voters are lazy tossers is clearly a judgemental fucktard. I don't much care about the opinions of judgemental fucktards.
Sorry, your post seem to imply that you were wanting to make a point of your dissatisfaction with the current system. If you do want that, then not voting fails horribly.
It's not that people assume that non-voters are lazy tossers, it's that they are indistinguishable from lazy tossers. Everybody knows that some percentage of non-voters do so as a "protest", the problem is that nobody knows what that percentage is, and therefore they have no voice. The percentage of people who deliberately spoil their ballots is known to be far higher, and the fact that people care enough to get out and go to the polling station and still not vote for a candidate has far greater weight, and gives those of us who argue for electoral reform a greater voice
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I made the point here, not at the polling station.
You might as well say that lazy tossers are indistinguishable from people who are not voting as a protest -- it would be just as crazy and inaccurate to assume that anyone who didn't vote was an anarchist deeply dissatisfied with the system, as to assume they were all apathetic. Why is the latter somehow a more justifiable assumption than the former?
I suppose the obvious question (genuinely curious here) is...
If you don't think that a representative democracy is a good way for a country to firstly organise/manage its operation/running and then secondly decide what laws its inhabitants should live by, which way do you think it should be done?
Or is your disagreement more fundamental? Do think disagree with the actual concept of society organising itself through governments and laws?
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I have voted personally, but only because my MP is Chris Grayling and I want to be able to say his return to parliament is none of my doing...
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People spoil ballot papers to indicate dissatisfaction with the candidates on offer. They don't vote because they can't be bothered to get off their arses. By choosing to not vote, you're indistinguishable from the lazy tossers, is that what you want to get across?
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It's not that people assume that non-voters are lazy tossers, it's that they are indistinguishable from lazy tossers. Everybody knows that some percentage of non-voters do so as a "protest", the problem is that nobody knows what that percentage is, and therefore they have no voice. The percentage of people who deliberately spoil their ballots is known to be far higher, and the fact that people care enough to get out and go to the polling station and still not vote for a candidate has far greater weight, and gives those of us who argue for electoral reform a greater voice ( ... )
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You might as well say that lazy tossers are indistinguishable from people who are not voting as a protest -- it would be just as crazy and inaccurate to assume that anyone who didn't vote was an anarchist deeply dissatisfied with the system, as to assume they were all apathetic. Why is the latter somehow a more justifiable assumption than the former?
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If you don't think that a representative democracy is a good way for a country to firstly organise/manage its operation/running and then secondly decide what laws its inhabitants should live by, which way do you think it should be done?
Or is your disagreement more fundamental? Do think disagree with the actual concept of society organising itself through governments and laws?
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My disagreement is more fundamental though -- I would prefer mutual aid and contracts to governments and laws, in the long term.
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* Yourself, who has given this issue time and thought and come to the active conclusion not to vote,
* Other people I've spoken to, who simply never give their democracy (or facsimile thereof) any thought, and just let the vote passively pass them by.
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