posted
I regularly vote for people who wouldn't enact my will over people who would because I consider those who wouldn't better people.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Everyone is trying to take over the world. The right, the left, religious and areligious, black and white, everyone wants to make major changes to the current world order such that their will is done and their needs are met.
I'm not.
You do realize that by denying it you are only providing evidence, neh?
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Bob and Fugu, you both vote to elect politicians who 're most likely to act in the way you would like them to act, when stacked up against the choices you've got.
The politician you vote for is (presumably) going to do some things differently from the other guy, and thus other people will not be getting their way. Even if your will is 'leave people alone so long as they aren't hurting anyone', you are voting-exercising political force-to try and get that will done more often throughout the world.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
What on earth are you talking about?! I have voted for people explicitly working against causes I support over people explicitly working for those same causes because I thought the former person was a better person, even though their policy positions were counter to mine.
Which is exactly what I said before, and pretty much not what you just said.
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posted
Look, it's more than specific policy-and I realize how this sounds-but you are trying to put the people you want into office by your vote, fugu. For whatever reason-be it direct policy choices, or the greater good, or whatever.
I'm not saying it's a bad thing, just that it's something everyone does. If given the option to exercise power, everyone will try and remake the world according to their principles which will by necessity be different from those of other people.
I don't mean whim, I don't mean greed, I mean those things and their principles.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Well duh I vote for people I want in office, but that's not at all equivalent to people who think the way I do or try to enact my will, which is what you were talking about.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
I can see why you came to that conclusion, but that's only part of what I'm talking about.
It appears to me that your will is not limited to having your way on specific issues in politics. Your will also includes things like doing what you can to make sure good people are elected to public office.
In other words, you want the world to be a better place. That's your will. You exercise that will by voting for people who will, you think, do so-at least, I don't expect you'd vote for someone who is a good person but who would do bad things to the world-and thus you're trying to exert control over the rest of the world.
That's all. It's not a bad thing, and I realize it sounds like I've constructed an argument that means no matter what you say, I'm still correct-and I suppose I have. But it's what I believe.
Good people can try to take over the world, too.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Doing what is my will is not the same as voting for people to enact my will, still, not at all.
Your original position is far from what you have moved to now, which does pretty much amount to "you vote for who you choose to vote for", a position I cannot find myself disagreeing with for some reason.
And that I would not vote for someone who I thought was doing something evil does not mean I will not vote for someone I think is doing something bad (at least in the weak sense).
If excluding from support a small number of publicly expressed opinions and supporting someone who disagrees with me strongly on a number of issues is enforcing my will on the world, I am befuddled as to those words actually meaning anything.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Looking back you are correct-I spoke wrongly. I used the words 'make major changes to the world', and I shouldn'tve.
I do believe, however, that it is your will to put good people in office whenever you can. Your idea of good people, and that someone, somewhere, will disagree with that idea.
Why on Earth vote for someone if you don't think they're going to do something you want, even if it's as intagible as not being a scumbag?
Who have you supported who disagreed strongly with you on a number of issues, exactly? And who were they running against? And why, exactly, did you vote for them?
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