America's Last Chance...?

[Knife]

Just be aware of what you are voting for. If you are fine with voting for somebody who thinks a US citizen should have no right to a day in court if he is tortured for seven years in secret by the US military on nothing but the President's say so, or even shot, then go ahead.

But don't complain about getting labelled accordingly.

LOL, I'll be labeled accordingly? Hopefully I get labeled 'doing the best I can with what I got'. I'm no cheerleader for the Obama Administration, while he hasn't proposed stupid shit like his opponents on the other side of the isle, he sure as hell continued enough foolishness to be culpable. I could vote 3rd part, but honestly voting Democrat in my state is a throw away anyway. You are horrified that Obama continued some of Bush's policies, and so am I, but voting for Paul in protest is silly.

[Metahive]

Post Hoc, Ergo Prompter Hoc. Fuck your stupidity with a garden hose, Simon.

Simon didn't commit that fallacy, he just described one of the reasons why Americans are so reluctant to vote for a third party and even considering this, Nader did siphon votes off Gore so Bush becoming president might as well have been partly his fault.

[LaCroix]

Post Hoc, Ergo Prompter Hoc. Fuck your stupidity with a garden hose, Simon.

Simon didn't commit that fallacy, he just described one of the reasons why Americans are so reluctant to vote for a third party and even considering this, Nader did siphon votes off Gore so Bush becoming president might as well have been partly his fault.

So you have the choice between one of two known assholes and a third candidate, who might be a honest one, but at least not a known asshole.

But since everybody thinks that if you vote for the sane 3rd option, the worse asshole will get elected, and votes for the lesser asshole; you are stuck to vote for one of the assholes, because you don't want the greater asshole.

Every time someone repeats this stupid "split the vote" crap, he is destroying the little bit of democracy left in the US.

[UnderAGreySky]

So you have the choice between one of two known assholes and a third candidate, who might be a honest one, but at least not a known asshole.

But since everybody thinks that if you vote for the sane 3rd option, the worse asshole will get elected, and votes for the lesser asshole; you are stuck to vote for one of the assholes, because you don't want the greater asshole.

Every time someone repeats this stupid "split the vote" crap, he is destroying the little bit of democracy left in the US.

It's the Prisoner's Dilemma on a national scale enforced by the stupid (IMO) electoral college rules. Your vote towards the third party count only if more than 50% of the people who are voting in your state do so. And if they don't, your vote is thrown away. The worst thing that could happen in such cases is that your vote gets a much worse candidate elected, as was evidenced in Florida 2000.

The next time around, people look at it and say "I'm not doing THAT again". When you've been ratted out by your fellow felon once, you don't trust them the next time.

Barring either an apocalyptic scenario or a genuine defection of a personality figure (Ron Paul & Obama are the only two people I can think of today), I can't see the rise of a third party in an electoral-college world and I wouldn't vote for one if I had the choice.

[Erik von Nein]

Well, yes, if everyone voted for the third party candidate then they'd get elected. I assume you know the problem, then, is getting the block voters to unstick themselves from whatever party they support long enough to vote for such a third party. If you can't get a significant fraction of the population to vote for such a candidate, such as in the election with Ralph Nader, then voting for that third party is essentially throwing the vote away, especially if the worst of the two candidates gets elected instead (again, Ralph Nader). The key, then, is breaking up those blocks through some means, which is something that should be explored.

Third parties wouldn't be such an awful concept if the presidency wasn't such a horrible winner-take-all scenario. You could argue that enough votes for a third partier would alter the next president's goals in office, but then you'd have to look at how much of Ralph Nader's, or Ross Perot's, platform was adopted by the next president (hint: none). Tossing in for a third party before serious election reforms are implemented (yes, I realize that's difficult) isn't going to get you very far these days.

Yes, it's certainly a sad commentary on our democratic process, but that's exactly where many Americans, especially those not really supporting Obama but most certainly not supporting whoever's the Republican candidate, find themselves. It's simply too simple to say "vote third party" when you could end up with someone worse than Obama in office.

I still maintain advocacy, lobbying (necessary evil though it may be), and loud, clear protests are far more important than protesting via votes. If anything, the election with Obama was a loud, clear protestation of the Bush-era government and what happened? He continued most of the most egregious violations in the name of the War on Terror.

[Julhelm]

What about voting in a third party into congress and the senate where they can actually make more of a difference? Or is that too throwing the vote away?

[SirNitram]

What about voting in a third party into congress and the senate where they can actually make more of a difference? Or is that too throwing the vote away?

Laying a foundation for a party? Doing more than parading around in the Presidential races? That's sensible son, and American third parties don't hold with sensible!

[Channel72]

The whole "lesser of two evils" versus "vote third party" debate is just a debate between pragmatists and idealists. Pragmatists work with the facts on the ground, whereas idealists insist on sticking to pure principles no matter what.

I'm more of a pragmatist, but like most people I'm not entirely consistent. For example, I actually vote - despite the fact that my vote is practically useless, since the electoral votes coming from my state are pretty much guaranteed to go the Democrats. If I were a consistent pragmatist, I either wouldn't vote at all, or I'd move to a swing state where my vote might actually make a difference.

The idealist position is appealing, because it carries a sense of moral superiority. And Formless has even argued that the idealist position (voting for a 3rd party) has a practical dimension as part of a long-term strategy to legitimize 3rd parties. But of course, there's little reason to believe any third party candidate has a chance in hell in the short-term without serious financial backing (like Ross Perot had), and the long-term future is filled with way too much uncertainty to really justify any voting strategy intended to eventually, some day, legitimize some third party. But we learned the hard way from the 2000 election that 3rd party candidates DO have the effect of just sucking votes away from the less crappy mainstream candidate, with potentially disastrous results. The political landscape in 2012 isn't really any different in regard to 3rd parties. You simply can't argue, practically speaking, that voting for a 3rd party isn't tantamount to sucking away votes from the Democrats, at least in 2012. So call it cowardice if you want, but as a pragmatist I know where I have to stand.

When Third parties are routinely dismissed with the following circular reasoning fallacy:

The number of votes a candidate receives decides his electability

I (a voter) perceive third parties and independent candidates to be unelectable

therefor I and all other voters should not vote for third party or independent candidates

This is not circular reasoning. This is an observed social phenomenon that actually occurs, in reality. Taking note of it and voting accordingly is simply pragmatism, not some form of "circular reasoning." Yes, it sucks. And yes, if everyone keeps participating in this feedback loop, nothing will ever change. But that doesn't change the fact that without serious social momentum or financial backing (i.e. more than just a few thousand individual protest votes), practically speaking, the currently observed fact on the ground is that third party candidates just suck away votes from the mainstream candidates.

Therefore, I would only vote third party if I had some accompanying strategy that went beyond my individual vote - such as a financially backed attempt to start some kind of social movement over the Internet, or whatever.

[Simon_Jester]

D13, it's beside the point. The argument here isn't "Nader is a bad person and should feel bad." It's "The left's most recent experience with voting for a third party further left than the Democrats did not end well." People said in 2000 that there was no difference between Bush and Gore, it didn't matter who won the election, so we should vote Green to show the Democrats that they need to move left to be kept honest.

We found out that there was a difference, that it did matter, and that the Democrats responded to a right-wing victory by moving farther right, not by trying to consolidate their base. Nearly every avowed reason for voting Nader would have been served at least as well by voting Gore, if not better.

Now, the existence of a Nader vote didn't guarantee disaster. Any number of other things could have gone right and avoided this fate, could have made the Nader vote totally irrelevant. But most of them are small, non-repeatable phenomena: details about Bush, or about Gore, or about the political atmosphere of 2000. Things that won't happen again the same way.

Only the "vote third party!" issue keeps cropping up election after election. A prudent person would bear that in mind, because history sometimes repeats itself.

Any sane person would at least stop and think carefully about voting third-party with this in mind. The danger of splitting a party and having the opposition waltz into office is a historical fact, one that should not be dismissed lightly or without good reasons. It's happened before, it can happen again, and saying "that's circular reasoning, go fuck yourself with a garden hose" like Formless did is a sign that one hasn't thought the matter through.

The long term consequences of this are very clear, and yes, they are bad. But except in strange conditions (safe states, for one), third party votes for the presidency will do more harm than good. If you really want reform, build machinery to hijack your own party. Stage primary challenges to force your party toward your wing's goals. Run for state governments, or for Congress, on a third-party platform. Do anything but try to bang heads with the two established parties in a winner-take-all election where either of them has five to ten times more supporters than you do.

[Simon_Jester]

Democrats voting Republican cost Gore the election- but every Democrat who voted Republican was endorsing the outcome: namely, Bush winning the election. They got what they wanted.

Republicans voting Republican- likewise.

They got what they wanted. People staying home cost Gore the election- but if you stay home on election day, that's equivalent to "I am indifferent to the outcome." In which case the outcome doesn't matter to you, so who cares? They wanted nothing, and got something they didn't care about.

The only class of voter who contributed to the defeat of Gore in Florida without getting what they wanted was people who voted for left-wing third parties. They got the worse of the two mainstream candidates, the one less likely to do anything they actually wanted done. Instead, they got a man who for eight years stood as the symbol of corrupt, incompetent, warmongering neocon government. A president so bad, he helped drive Hunter Thompson to suicide.* Nixon squared, or Nixon cubed.

That's not a moral failing on the part of the Florida third party voters. But a sane person's actions will be determined by the outcomes they desire- and voting Green did not get the Florida left what it desired. It got them the opposite of what they desired, the outcome least in line with what they wanted. Instead of a tireless anti-corporate reformer, they got a schmoozing pro-corporate trust fund boy.


*This is not entirely serious, but not entirely unserious.

[Formless]

And why not? If they had voted for Gore then Bush wouldn't have been elected.

Answer this question: Why does no one blame Al Gore's voters for Bush being elected? Oh, right, because if we place causation in an election on the people who didn't vote for the winning candidate (including those who didn't vote at all), then it becomes tautological that they "helped" the winning candidate win the election. That kind of reasoning is not particularly productive, and using it to argue that people should not vote for third party candidates is either in fallicious, or outright in bad faith.

Alternatively, we could admit that Bush won the election because 1) our first past the post system didn't allow Nader voters to fall back on Gore and thus get a preferrable candidate over Bush and 2) Bush just plain had a lot of voters on his side. Considering that Bush won a second election all on his own, I find attempts to blame Green party/Nader voters for his first term to be In Bad Faith. Our country ended up with the candidate it got, later learned to like, and later learned to hate.

[If you're voting as a protest why not, instead, just protest?

Its not a protest vote. As I said, its a long term strategy that starts with electing third party candidates to as many other positions as possible in the hopes of changing people's perceptions from "third parties SUCK, they will never win a presidential election!" to "we're responsible for who we elect, and these guys have some good ideas." People often complain that politicians are always in election mode. I think the real tragedy is that voters aren't in that mindset. They only engage with the political process for a single election, and it doesn't occur to them that there will be other elections.

And you know what? You can also protest in addition to that. I think Occupy is a damn good idea. But this change in perceptions also has to happen, or else we've surrendered control over our political process and should stop acting surprised when we get shitty presidents and other politicians "representing" us.

[Darth Fanboy]

Curious OP, as I didn't think Ron Paul would resonate with too many Canadians (maybe Albertans).

[Formless]

Post Hoc, Ergo Prompter Hoc. Fuck your stupidity with a garden hose, Simon.

Simon didn't commit that fallacy, he just described one of the reasons why Americans are so reluctant to vote for a third party and even considering this, Nader did siphon votes off Gore so Bush becoming president might as well have been partly his fault.

If that is all Simon is here for, he needs to shut his goddamn mouth. I am arguing with the logic people are using against Third Parties, and do not need it to be explained how perceptions got that way.

But besides, I've heard the "Ralf Nader stabbed Al Gore in the back!" narrative often enough that I consider anyone who even so much as brings it up in this context little more than a concern troll, whether they realize it or not.

This is not circular reasoning. This is an observed social phenomenon that actually occurs, in reality.

Except that Rahvin (and YOU with your attempt to play the Pragmatism card) did use it verbatim (if in far more words) in this thread as an argument. Shut up, idiot, or learn some language skills (specifically, English).

[Erik von Nein]

Answer this question: Why does no one blame Al Gore's voters for Bush being elected? Oh, right, because if we place causation in an election on the people who didn't vote for the winning candidate (including those who didn't vote at all), then it becomes tautological that they "helped" the winning candidate win the election. That kind of reasoning is not particularly productive, and using it to argue that people should not vote for third party candidates is either in fallicious, or outright in bad faith.

Because that wasn't what we were speaking about. You wouldn't blame Al Gore's voters for helping to elect Bush because they voted for Al Gore. I should say, as Simon did, that every Democrat who voted for Nader in protest of Al Gore helped cost Al Gore the election, though it wasn't just those people. Al Gore helped cost Al Gore the election. But every little bit contributes.

Alternatively, we could admit that Bush won the election because 1) our first past the post system didn't allow Nader voters to fall back on Gore and thus get a preferrable candidate over Bush and 2) Bush just plain had a lot of voters on his side. Considering that Bush won a second election all on his own, I find attempts to blame Green party/Nader voters for his first term to be In Bad Faith. Our country ended up with the candidate it got, later learned to like, and later learned to hate.

Of course our election system doesn't work well. I mentioned that earlier. And obviously Bush had more voters on his side, otherwise he would have lost. That's not in argument here, just that voting for a third party to protest Al Gore helped to result in Bush's election.

I'll concede, though, that I don't have a breakdown of whom voted for Nader in protest of Gore, though, so my argument isn't the most sturdy. But I don't see how it is in bad faith to claim that those protesting Gore by voting Nader helped to elect Bush, merely by taking more votes away from Gore. And I'll certainly concede for now that Nader's voters didn't help Gore lose until I've some numbers. When or if I will is certainly up in the air.

Its not a protest vote. As I said, its a long term strategy that starts with electing third party candidates to as many other positions as possible in the hopes of changing people's perceptions from "third parties SUCK, they will never win a presidential election!" to "we're responsible for who we elect, and these guys have some good ideas." People often complain that politicians are always in election mode. I think the real tragedy is that voters aren't in that mindset. They only engage with the political process for a single election, and it doesn't occur to them that there will be other elections.

And you know what? You can also protest in addition to that. I think Occupy is a damn good idea. But this change in perceptions also has to happen, or else we've surrendered control over our political process and should stop acting surprised when we get shitty presidents and other politicians "representing" us.

I agree, starting off with positions that aren't President and aren't dug into such ridiculous opposition camps would be a much better start, and you most certainly can do both. The few Independent Representatives and Senators are a great start, and more effort needs to be directed toward smaller elections, basically abandoning the Presidency until more realistic campaign reformation can take place.

[Simon_Jester]

Answer this question: Why does no one blame Al Gore's voters for Bush being elected? Oh, right, because if we place causation in an election on the people who didn't vote for the winning candidate (including those who didn't vote at all), then it becomes tautological that they "helped" the winning candidate win the election. That kind of reasoning is not particularly productive, and using it to argue that people should not vote for third party candidates is either in fallicious, or outright in bad faith.

If I vote for candidate X, and candidate Y wins, then I did not get what I wanted. Poor unhappy me.

But it takes a special kind of mindlessness to argue that this means I should be blamed for candidate Y winning. If I had not voted for X, the result would be fewer votes for X, which would not help X achieve a victory over Y. Y would win anyway, just by a bigger margin.


If I vote for candidate Y, and candidate Y wins, then Y's victory had a good deal to do with the outcome of my action. And I got what I wanted. Lucky me.


If I don't vote at all, and candidate Y wins, then I (and people like me) could have stopped candidate Y, by voting for candidate X. But if I cared who won, I would have voted. So I got what I wanted- namely, no say in the outcome of the election. Lucky me.


If I vote for candidate Z, and candidate Y beats candidate X by a narrow margin, and Y is less like Z than X was, I have not gotten what I wanted. I didn't even get the next best thing to what I wanted. I got the opposite of what I wanted. Poor unhappy me.

And if the election was close enough, then as a matter of brute fact, I could have avoided this fate, and gotten at least part of what I wanted. I could have voted for X, who would then beat Y, and give me something a little bit like Z instead of being totally unlike Z.


This is what happened to Nader voters in Florida. They got the opposite of what they wanted, the result that matched their desires the least. Had they instead banded together for Gore, they could have gotten a result that was at least less bad.

This is not a blame game. It is not a moral failing, it is not "Nader evil waaah." This is arithmetic. Simply adding and subtracting.

You seem to want to turn it into a blame game, though, because your argument depends on dismissing the whole problem out of hand. Which is stupid. The only way it makes sense is if you're looking for a low-effort way to express dislike of politics, without actually having to do anything with a chance greater than zero of affecting the system.

Why bother to think about the outcome of your vote, or the consequences of your action, when you can "register your protest" by checking off a box on a piece of paper instead of doing something hard like writing a check or carrying a sign?

Alternatively, we could admit that Bush won the election because 1) our first past the post system didn't allow Nader voters to fall back on Gore and thus get a preferrable candidate over Bush and 2) Bush just plain had a lot of voters on his side.

Those are both true. It is nonetheless true that if even a significant fraction of the Nader voters had voted Gore in Florida, we would have gotten President Gore, not President Bush. The results would probably have been better from the point of view of the Green Party, and they would certainly be better from the point of view of people who share some but not all of the Greens' beliefs.

Considering that Bush won a second election all on his own, I find attempts to blame Green party/Nader voters for his first term to be In Bad Faith...

If that is all Simon is here for, he needs to shut his goddamn mouth. I am arguing with the logic people are using against Third Parties, and do not need it to be explained how perceptions got that way.

But besides, I've heard the "Ralf Nader stabbed Al Gore in the back!" narrative often enough that I consider anyone who even so much as brings it up in this context little more than a concern troll, whether they realize it or not.

Oh, horrors, I am now one of the damned. However shall I look myself in the mirror?

[Thanas]

Just be aware of what you are voting for. If you are fine with voting for somebody who thinks a US citizen should have no right to a day in court if he is tortured for seven years in secret by the US military on nothing but the President's say so, or even shot, then go ahead.

But don't complain about getting labelled accordingly.

What would you advise for American voters?

Get active in politics and don't vote for torturers. Don't vote for Paul as he has too many faults himself, but don't condone these politics with your vote.

Just be aware of what you are voting for. If you are fine with voting for somebody who thinks a US citizen should have no right to a day in court if he is tortured for seven years in secret by the US military on nothing but the President's say so, or even shot, then go ahead.

But don't complain about getting labelled accordingly.

The fear of the tiny chance of being tortured until I die by my own government is a lot smaller than the fear of some lunatic whose whole plan is imploding the economy causing me to go hungry and homeless. I'd like both justice and food, but if I have to pick, I'll take the food.

The fear of the tiny chance of the SA being the barbarians the press makes them out to be is a lot smaller than the fear of some socialist whose plan is to increase the taxes causing me to go hungry and homeless. I'd like both rule of law and work, but if I have to pick, I''ll take the work. - some citizens in a central European nation, 1933.

Same mindset. Yet somehow, no problem on part of the entire USA blaming them. Not saying Obama will turn into some dictator, far from it, but sacrificing liberty for food has never worked for democracies.

LOL, I'll be labeled accordingly? Hopefully I get labeled 'doing the best I can with what I got'. I'm no cheerleader for the Obama Administration, while he hasn't proposed stupid shit like his opponents on the other side of the isle, he sure as hell continued enough foolishness to be culpable. I could vote 3rd part, but honestly voting Democrat in my state is a throw away anyway. You are horrified that Obama continued some of Bush's policies, and so am I, but voting for Paul in protest is silly.

Not saying you should vote for Paul. Don't vote then or vote for a candidate who you believe in. Donate to organizations who try to stop this crap like the ACLU. But if you vote for Obama, you do legitimize his politics, all of them, through that vote. Every vote for Obama is a vote for decreasing civil liberties, for torture and for state-sanctioned assassinations.

[General Brock]

Curious OP, as I didn't think Ron Paul would resonate with too many Canadians (maybe Albertans).

Well, there is a site, although I'm not sure how genuine it is:

Link: http://www.canadavotesronpaul.com/

There is some curiosity and appreciation for him on the Canadian right-of-centre, given the tone of this article:

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/01/21 ... 20522.html


Some Canadians could be accused of knowing more of what goes on in the United States than Canada, which is not surprising given the close economic relationship with superpower next door. However, we are very diverse in reaction to that knowledge. We may have rep for being 'socialist', but social programs are sometimes more a utilitarian concession to the limits of the private sector than rooted in ideology.

Ron Paul's appeal just as an underdog with a reputation for integrity would resonate. Ron Paul does have natural charisma and comes across as a very real and genuinely compassionate person. Although the newsletter scandal obviously kills that dead if for shock alone for many, no few more would give the guy a break because they're more than a little jaded on hypocrisy from a politician. Then there is the appeal of the consistent direction of Ron Paul's moral and fiscal responsibility rhetoric, even if disagreement on the actual policies. While a few are all for those policies.

Canadians are pragmatic and idealistic, usually in that order, and the degree to which they are informed on Paul would colour any Ron Paul sentiment.

For myself, the qualities of forthright honesty and willingness to listen and be reasonable matter most, and I know with some certainty where Ron Paul is coming from and why and confidence he'd not waffle or outright lie off in unexpected directions. I'd vote Ron Paul, just because he's the only one who seems capable of laying such a foundation of trust (insofar as that can be) even over Canadian political leaders, all of whom have come off as disappointingly out of touch, arrogant, and patronizing in their own way.

[Simon_Jester]

Get active in politics and don't vote for torturers. Don't vote for Paul as he has too many faults himself, but don't condone these politics with your vote.

So, in the 2012 election... don't vote? Or vote for whom, exactly?

Yes, I heard you when you said "get active in politics." I just want to be clear on what you're trying to mandate for the 2012 election. Because this election cycle, more or less no matter what happens, is going to resolve to Obama vs. Romney/Gingrich/Paul.

And anyone who votes for any of the above either gets "labeled accordingly" as pro-torture, or is voting for a damn fool who should be kept out of office altogether, am I right?

For myself, the qualities of forthright honesty and willingness to listen and be reasonable matter most...

He's certainly forthright. I'm not convinced Paul is especially honest (which requires internal consistency), or willing to listen (say, to experts who think he's making a mistake). The notion that he is willing to "be reasonable" is laughable when you yourself are lauding him for sticking to his guns at all costs.

...and I know with some certainty where Ron Paul is coming from and why and confidence he'd not waffle or outright lie off in unexpected directions.

...Why doesn't where he's coming from matter more than how firmly you know where he's coming from?

Up to a point, yes you can say that it matters more whether a politician has honor and decency than what their platform is. But there has to be a limit to that. A theoretically 'decent' man who is ignores or refuses to care about suffering caused by his actions isn't really decent at all.

[General Brock]

He's certainly forthright. I'm not convinced Paul is especially honest (which requires internal consistency), or willing to listen (say, to experts who think he's making a mistake). The notion that he is willing to "be reasonable" is laughable when you yourself are lauding him for sticking to his guns at all costs.

Its closer to say he sticks to his principles at all costs, the newsletters being the only question mark. Someone like that may be reasoned with using principles they have been consistent with on discrete expressions of policy. He is not nearly as arbitrary in his stated thoughts or discernible actions as most politicians, because he does not stray far from those principles.

...Why doesn't where he's coming from matter more than how firmly you know where he's coming from?

Where he's coming from is the right of the individual to personal liberty, and that's just another way of saying human rights.

Up to a point, yes you can say that it matters more whether a politician has honor and decency than what their platform is. But there has to be a limit to that. A theoretically 'decent' man who is ignores or refuses to care about suffering caused by his actions isn't really decent at all.

Ron Paul's record as a lawmaker do not indicate a disregard for the consequences of his actions worse than anyone else, and in many cases he has demonstrated he can be far more conscientious if not proactive. His consistent and often lone opposition to Americas recent spate of foreign wars, being the most obvious example, and his open opposition to the war on drugs and the racist prison-industrial complex another.

[Thanas]

Get active in politics and don't vote for torturers. Don't vote for Paul as he has too many faults himself, but don't condone these politics with your vote.

So, in the 2012 election... don't vote? Or vote for whom, exactly?

Vote for decent local candidates who opposed the politics. Or, if you vote for Obama, just be honest enough to admit that you don't care if your country tortures and killis innocents. Or don't vote.

Yes, I heard you when you said "get active in politics." I just want to be clear on what you're trying to mandate for the 2012 election. Because this election cycle, more or less no matter what happens, is going to resolve to Obama vs. Romney/Gingrich/Paul.

And anyone who votes for any of the above either gets "labeled accordingly" as pro-torture, or is voting for a damn fool who should be kept out of office altogether, am I right?

How would you label somebody who does not think torture and assassinations are bad enough to stop supporting a politician?

[Channel72]

Except that Rahvin (and YOU with your attempt to play the Pragmatism card) did use it verbatim (if in far more words) in this thread as an argument. Shut up, idiot, or learn some language skills (specifically, English).

You're seriously confused. Circular reasoning is arguing for some position by using the conclusion as a premise. That's entirely different than arguing for a position by pointing out observed facts, you moron. The argument is:

(1) Third party candidates do not have enough support to win elections
(2) Voting third party siphons votes from second-choice mainstream candidates
(3) Therefore, voting third party is likely to backfire by helping to elect an undesired mainstream candidate

This isn't circular, you idiot, because the conclusion isn't in the premise. (1) and (2) are fucking observations about reality, and (3) is a conclusion drawn from those observations.

The reason you're hopelessly confused is because observations (1) and (2) are true precisely because of a social feedback loop resulting from the perception that (1) and (2) are true. But that doesn't make this a circular argument, any more than arguing that you should sell a stock when everyone starts to perceive that the company is doing badly.

You can attack the premises themselves, like Destructionator XIII is doing, but you can't say this is circular reasoning.

[Broken]

It's the Prisoner's Dilemma on a national scale enforced by the stupid (IMO) electoral college rules. Your vote towards the third party count only if more than 50% of the people who are voting in your state do so. And if they don't, your vote is thrown away. The worst thing that could happen in such cases is that your vote gets a much worse candidate elected, as was evidenced in Florida 2000.

As someone who currently lives and is registered to vote in Florida (although I wasn't here in 2000), I hate to say that I'll likely end up voting for Obama again, if only because the thought of a Republican getting the chance to nominate one or two more conservatives to the Supreme Court gives me chills. Obama has disappointed again and again, but when your alternatives are any Republican currently in the primaries or a protest vote for a third party (lets be honest people, NO third party candidate is organized and visible enough for a shot at winning the 2012 presidential race, especially given the amount of money that is going to be thrown around) that might help get a Republican elected, its a fairly painful situation.

What about voting in a third party into congress and the senate where they can actually make more of a difference? Or is that too throwing the vote away?

Laying a foundation for a party? Doing more than parading around in the Presidential races? That's sensible son, and American third parties don't hold with sensible!

Yeah, I'd love to see some third parties doing the real grunt work of trying to get a party off the ground instead of expecting the entire population to have an epiphany and come running to them.

[D.Turtle]

On Ralph Nader's votes, here's what Wikipedia has to say:

[snip]

There's more too - they talk about the other side - but I don't want to paste it all so check out the link.

If the exit polls from the first paragraph are accurate, if Nader wasn't there, Gore may have won, though this still doesn't say why they voted for him; whether it was protest votes or whatever.

The problem with the 2000 Florida results is that there were a lot of things that went somewhat wrong that could have changed the results significantly. You had things like the result being reported early - while the polls in some counties were still open, the counting/not counting of overseas ballots, misleading vote machines, voter rolls being purged, etc. Some of them favored Gore, others favored Bush, but they all could have easily resulted in a difference of thousands of votes in either direction.

It is simply not possible to conclude that if Nader had not run, Gore would have won.

[Simon_Jester]

On Ralph Nader's votes, here's what Wikipedia has to say:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_nade ... ontroversy

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There's more too - they talk about the other side - but I don't want to paste it all so check out the link.

If the exit polls from the first paragraph are accurate, if Nader wasn't there, Gore may have won, though this still doesn't say why they voted for him; whether it was protest votes or whatever.

D13, it doesn't matter exactly what thoughts flowed through the minds of individual Nader voters. It might matter if this were some kind of moral culpability, if I were trying to say Nader (or those who voted for him) are evil or stupid or something.

But I'm not. I've said so before, and it looks like you didn't believe me.

Florida Nader voters in 2000 got the worst possible outcome from their point of view, assuming they wanted a Naderlike candidate to win. They got the least Naderlike candidate on offer. And though they had no way of knowing it in advance, they could have avoided this. If they had changed their votes to Gore, and nothing else at all had changed, Gore would have won and they would have gotten a better outcome. That was within their power. But they chose not to do so, for reasons of their own.

I don't really care why they chose that way. That's not the point, and it's totally irrelevant now. It doesn't matter that Nader wasn't trying to throw the election to Bush. It doesn't matter that the people who voted for him didn't want to throw the election to Bush. It doesn't matter which other states Gore won or lost. It doesn't matter that some other third party candidate could have also won the election for Gore by throwing their voter base behind him. It's all water under the bridge now.

What matters is that the 2000 election illustrates how small third parties can indirectly flip the outcome of an election. When I talk about voting for third parties, I bear cases like that in mind. The power of small third parties matters even in a parliamentary system- look at the way Likud affects the Israeli parliament, out of proportion to their numbers and voter base. And it doesn't always work in obvious, straightforward ways.

I think it's important to think through the consequences of my vote with that in mind.

Me, I live in a state so blue that Democratic presidential candidates barely even bother to campaign here. I have flexibility. I could have voted Nader in 2000 (well, 2004; I couldn't vote in 2000) without having to worry about flipping my state over to Bush. But the only reason I can do that is because I know damn well that for every person in the state who votes third party, ten or fifteen more will vote Democrat, versus about eight to twelve Republicans.

If I'd lived in a swing state like Ohio in 2004, I would not even have thought about voting for Nader over Kerry, because I wouldn't want a repeat of Florida in 2000. Not because there's anything wrong with Nader as a man, or with the Green Party as a party, but because it's delusional to vote as if I lived in a world where they had the resources and organization to put their man in the White House, or indeed do much of anything but act as a spoiler in close-run presidential races.

That's not always the case of third parties. Ross Perot ran as an independent in 1992 and did quite well. He was successful, obviously had plenty of money, and for a while was actually the leading candidate with a plurality of 39% in opinion polls. He managed 19% of the popular vote in the elections, but so widely distributed that no electoral votes went to him, and almost no precincts reported for him- looking at a map, about the only area he won was rural Maine and a few counties here and there in Texas, Colorado, and so on.

If he hadn't botched his campaign, he might even have won- and chunks of his support base and platform were later recycled by both parties, so even in defeat he had a real impact on American politics.

That's an example of what a third party can do if it has resources, motivation, and competent management. I don't see anything like that in the 2012 election cycle, and I don't like to be yelled at by people like Formless for not trying to shut my eyes and pretend it exists when it doesn't.

[Akhlut]

What about voting in a third party into congress and the senate where they can actually make more of a difference? Or is that too throwing the vote away?

Laying a foundation for a party? Doing more than parading around in the Presidential races? That's sensible son, and American third parties don't hold with sensible!

The Green Party consistently puts up candidates for every level of office, from city council to state senate and representatives to US presidential candidates.

That's an example of what a third party can do if it has resources, motivation, and competent management. I don't see anything like that in the 2012 election cycle, and I don't like to be yelled at by people like Formless for not trying to shut my eyes and pretend it exists when it doesn't.

The thing is, though, how are the Democrats going to change if they consistently win by shifting to the right? How is "hold your nose and vote for the lesser evil" a good personal policy for people to take? Why should I throw my lot in with Obama and company if I simply disagree with them less than I do with whichever crazy and/or soulless son of a bitch gets nominated by the Republicans? How many votes should people throw at the Party of Compromise Everything before it gets to be too much? At this rate, a third party will never be able to take even a single state representative seat with this sort of logic, because every election can be looked at through this perspective.

So, given that, how am I supposed to actually vote my conscience if my options are, speaking with extreme hyperbole , between Franco and Hitler?