Guevarista wrote:

I am probably not the best person to ask but as I understand it to run for president you need the nomination of a party. If you look into there are actually a bunch of other parties out there left wing right wing and broken wing. The larger of these being the libertarians and the green party. The libertarians usually have failed Republicans running which tells you a lot. The greens are to the left of the democrats and neither of these parties get on the ballot in every state. Added to the obvious problem that gives you is these parties have less money for ads. Around election time you see Romney ad Obama ad followed by the local dem and local repub. You don't see ads for other parties. They do not get on the news hardly either and they are not a part of the debates. They simply don't have a voice outside of social networking and word of mouth. In England such a problem could possibly be battled by boots on the ground campaigns but that simply isn't viable in the USA. Then you have the electoral college which actually decides the president. It is a weird set up that most people (especially those that lose the election) see as unfair. Certain states are worth more. It still confuses me and I think that is the point.

Essentially all those noble or daft enough to vote for a third party are already split anyway. Left wing green right wing libertarian. It really is divide and conquer because a bunch of people are not eligible to vote for various reasons then certain people get more of a vote based on state. So if the democrats win a particular state they get twice as many votes as they would for another state.

i-baster wrote:
Since when is it daft to vote for the party that you believe in?
And if this is the case, then I truly wonder why idiots have a go at me for not bothering to register to vote.
Neither Ireland nor the UK have a libertarian party.

Can you see a pattern emerging?

SB, you say voting is a pointless activity but you admit the only reason the great man in my avatar is Deputy PM is because people voted for him.
If the Liberal's hadn't been voted for by a large number of people they wouldn't have got into government, and they wouldn't have exerted any influence whatsoever over policy, so voting obviously does serve some tactical, social, political purpose, if only to avoid complete Right Wing dominance of Government.

I don't really understand why you think the purely symbolic action of not voting is a logical or worthwhile method of democratic participation?

andyh wrote: This is interesting, it shows the disagreement about voting is ideological, Andy and SB continually state belief as the sole purpose or reason for voting, their argument goes along the lines of "I have no belief in the political parties/I don't agree with their ideology, therefore there is no point in me voting".

Me RA and IB earlier in the thread are talking about material reality, I'd wager none of us believe in any party or political ideology, but we know it makes a material difference who gets elected, what we "believe in" is irrelevant the motivation is objective reality, who is in power and who can challenge them, that;s it.

Just because I vote lib dem doesn't mean I don't prefer the greens, and just because I support the working class traditions of the Labour party doesn't mean I always vote for them, they get less votes where I live than UKIP btw so it's pointless.

We should imo make full use of the Democratic means to affect change while they exist, there are countries in Europe at present which are curtailing their democratic procedures under RWA governments.

Mike wrote:
If you prefer the greens then you should just vote for the greens. The more people have your belief in 'compromise' the longer the same situation will remain and nothing will 'change'. Only young people are fooled by this compromise crap and 'change' becaus ethey haven't had time to see it fail again and again....well that and old people who are fucking stupid

I hold various positions dialectically, viewing and interacting non-dogmatically with various existing positions and emerging ones

Mike wrote:

Show us the proof of this.

You yourself have so far said on this forum that;
a) Voting tory is a good idea to speed up collapse.
b) Voting labour to stop the tories getting in.
c) Voting LibDem because you only believe in 10% of their policies (which ofc never came into fruition, just an apology)
d) Believing in green but not voting green because you wanted to stop the tories getting in

I have news for you, the tories DID get in with the help of the libdems.

And you're calling me an idiot

Let's no sugar coat the issue here, this is the level of analysis an angry 13 year old would provide, I'm not saying that to goad you or to cause aggro, I'm saying it because it's true.
It's lazy and with that attitude noone will take you seriously.

That doesn't make any sense at all.
Why would it be about just encouraging those who hate the tories? If people don't vote how do the tories get in?

Your reasoning is circular. It's like an alcoholic who has realised that drink is destroying him. So to get over it he has another drink.
Once you find out that something isn't working (ie. the 'democratic process' you keep harping on about) why are you expecting a different result from doing the same thing over and over again?
It's the most ridiculous reasoning you can possibly muster!

Mike wrote:
That doesn't address the argument at all..... that's the 'level of analysis' I've come to expect from you.

what argument? "all that happens if you vote against a party such as the tories and they don't get in is another party gets in & then they're cunts.
So you're then stuck with another bunch of tossers for another 4 or 5 years & when people have enough they think the same - tactically vote to get them out.
Then you're left with another bunch of cunts for 4-5 years." that isn't an "argument" it's a rant.
You have shown you don't understand the most basic collective democratic realities, as they stand in objective common, shared reality.
You're actually dumber than I thought if you think you can somehow stop everybody voting.
The rest of your post is you looking in the mirror, one side of which people of your ilk externalize to make yourselfs seem better than you are