I Will Vote No More - Perhaps Forever

Not voting is not an option, edgar!
I became a citizen so I could vote and it bothered me that I could not with being merely a resident alien. For me, there wasn't any other reason, and yes, it's that important. Voting is the only shot we have to change what we believe in, even if it means to only vote "against" something. You're only one person, edgar, but your sole vote could make a huge difference - you may never know, but you cannot leave it to a chance either.

I tried to say before, the issues we vote upon are not the issues that have me worried. We don't vote on taxes on the rich, for instance. They take polls and the politicians see those polls, but the lobbyists are more persuasive than the polls, so they act according to that. The FDA can kidnap a person off of the streets of Ecuador, because they have a vendetta against a man for selling herbal remedies that people the world over consider beneficial and they put him in prison. Jim Humble, discoverer of the MMS treatment, believes he is marked by the FBI for death. His followers are waiting now to see if the tipster is correct. I can't vote for politicians who allow that sort of thing. The public wanted the government to quit adding pork to the bills congress votes upon. So, they quit the add-ons, but set up a semi-secret fund so they can keep on doing it. I don't have time or energy to go into each one of the many reasons I no longer can vote for the two parties in power. It's sort of like Thoreau saying he can no longer support the government for reasons he gave.

OK, ... but in doing so you will merely make yourself a superfluous, self-indulgent man ... something like Thoreau, who complained about everything, but lived off the work of others. Not very good company.

Yes you do, if you're willing to vote for a third-party candidate.

Anyone who doesn't want to vote, shouldn't vote.
Anyone who doesn't care who wins, shouldn't vote.
Anyone who fails to inform himself about the candidates and issues, shouldn't vote.
Anyone who votes just because he thinks it's a "duty", shouldn't vote.

Leave the voting to those believe in it.

See, you have to tie the irelevant to the topic. I work like a dog for everything I get, although I am past the age at which people generally are retired. But you have to always bring in the cultural war.

I said early on that if a good candidate said what I believe I would vote. I am not holding my breath while I wait.

... and if a really bad candidate threatens to enter the White House, why wouldn't that motivate you to vote against him or her, and for the lesser evil?

A slower decay is not preferable to a quickie, to me.

Then I have to admit that your conduct is consequent and consistent with your believes, however wrong-headed I think they are.

You made the Thoreau comparison. I merely said that by so doing you were putting yourself in bad company.

I still work and I am well past retirement age - as are a fast increasing number of Americans. I'm not sure just what constitutes the "cultural war" to which you refer, but do know that we do tax the rich (or at least those who earn a lot) much more heavily than others, and that, at the other end of the scale, we have - with the earned income credit - what, in effect is a negative income tax that actually pays low wage earners.

You appear to want less government interference in at least some aspects of life, but perhaps more in others.

I want a balance that insures we all get a good deal. The wealthiest are not paying a fair share, from what I have read. Particularly, since an argument for the low taxes is the jobs they will then provide. Their profits skyrocket and still they don't hire. Screw em.

I tinnk you are leaving out important factors. Boeing lost billions in business a few years ago because the machinists union in Seattle timed a strike for more pay and increasingly restricvtive work rules to have the maximum disruptive effect on aircraft deliveries to their customers. Not that Boeing needs to expand production for their new airliner series they have chosen to build an additional plant in South Carolina where there is a right to work law that prevents unions to force union membership as a condition of employment. Given a free choice nearly all employees drop union membership. The union plants in Seattle are still functioning and none of the union employees there have lost their jobs. However ther Obunga NLRB is now sueing Boeing because they didn't build their new plant in Seattle and, by their construct, are destroying union jobs. The reality is the union can freely operate in South Carolina, but it can't compel the workers to join so none of them do. Do your really wonder why companies are reluctant to hire in some states?

Companies have every incentive to hire additional workers if there is growth or a profit to be made in their work. U.S. industry has been badly effected by labor unions and environmental law, not by managers unwilling toi hire.

You can't have it both ways.

It's easy to find web sites that say the following:

For the past three decades, the power of labour and the working class has been declining in America (which currently has the lowest union membership density and lowest collective agreement coverage of any other developed nation). The resulting. shift in wealth. has given corporations and wealthy individuals greater control over the government and the policies it chooses to (or not to) pursue.

Specific policies supported by those in power have meant increasing job losses in the public sector, growing job insecurity, a weakening of regulatory protections and reduced safety nets and benefits. These conditions in turn, have led to major increases in social inequality, poverty, income inequality and social fragmentation,. all fundamental determinants of heath.

I don't see it your way at all.

This is undeniably true. Indeed it is actually worse than you suggest in that the majority of union membership now is in government service, which, for the most part (federal and many states) doesn't permit collective bargainning over wages. However the major reason for the decline has been the econoimic collapse of most of our heavily unionized industries - steel making, heavy manufacturing, textiles, etc. This was mostly the result of the inflexibility of the unions in adjusting to needed modernizations, including automation and other processes designed to increase productivity. (The last strike by the UAW against GM was to prevent the investment of several billion dollars worth of automation in two assembly plants in Flint Michigan so they could compete with modern Toyota plants in Kentucky. The conversion woult have cost the union some jobs and required the change in some work rules, but it would have saved the plants and most of their jobs. The union rejected the change and went on strike. GM closed the plants forever a year later.) Absent such productivity improvements it is just a matter of time for negotiated wage increases to kill the competitive potential of the industry - and the industry itself. This is, in fact what happened and why the companies involved died and were replaced by foreign competitors.

Given the widespread and flagrant abuse of public finances at the hands of (mostly state) government workers and legislators in their employ, the growing public outrage against them is fully justified. The Fire Chief of a small suburb nearby (Orinda) retired about eight months ago at age 51 with a pension of $260 thousand/year. He did that by exploiting union negotiated provisions for unlimited accrual of sick time and vacation and other similarly created provisions basing retirement pay on the last year's earnings. These are provisions that invite such abuse and which almost no one in the private sector - at any level - gets. Such occurrences are widespread in California and they are the basic cause of the state's precarious financial condition.

In contrast Labor Unions in Germany have worked with companies to tie compensation to productivity and avoid such abuses. The result is Germans work longer and harder than their French neighbors, but their industries are stronger, unemployment is far lower, and employment opportunities for the young (and everyone else) much greater. Overall prosperity is higher than all their European neighborts. The point is that unions can be either enlightened and smart or self-serving, stupid and effectively Mafia- like protection rackets. Ours unfortunately have been the latter.

I don't have any ties with unions and don't know anybody that does. It's no secret that profit is god and the working stiff's a cog.

I'm in a union, ed...

IATSE

it's more complicated than Ob1 makes it out to be.

as are "right to work" laws.

I joined the Teamsters to work in NYC, in 1968. They protected us and the people I was with did their jobs very well. It's people. Some union folks are great and some are corrupt, just like business people, teachers, scientists -

I think your view of Democracy is the misguided one. Well, you are right about the not cut each other's throat part. But you are wrong in your implication that people aren't going to violently disagree.

Democracy gives us a way to make decisions about our bitter disputes without killing each other. It doesn't magically make our bitter disputes go away.

The first major dispute was abolition. Some people adamantly believed that owning slaves was a God-given right and essential for their way of live. Some people believed that slavery was a real evil.

How do you resolve this with your view of democracy? You have two sides who feel passionately. Everything you do will be considered as a win by one side and a loss for the other.

Well, you could come up with a series of "compromises", letting blacks be counted 3/5ths and establishing free and slave states kept in a numerical balance. These compromises didn't work.

Slavery wasn't the only issue. There was the right of women to vote. There was civil rights. There was monopolies. There was labor laws including child labor.

Any significant issue is an issue to fight for. Homosexuals aren't going to sit down with anti-gay preachers to negotiate for their rights. And anti-gay preachers aren't going to sit down with Homosexuals to negotiate the fate of a nation going against God.

Democracy provides us a way to fight our battles without cutting each others throats.

Abortion, Immigration, Healthcare, Education, Privacy. There are still battles to be fought.

We will forcefully disagree on every issue that calls ideological preference into play. No argument there. I am arguing for a level playing field.