quote:

---

Originally posted by Benoit:
Compulsory voting is fundamentally right. Compulsory voting would be wrong if the concept of natural right would mean something. But no right is natural; all rights are instituted by a collective will. Forcing people to vote is simply forcing people to acknowledge that no institution is without a cost. Jehovah Witnesses have no good reason not to vote: God doesn’t speak to them in a more direct fashion that He is speaking to us. Not voting is not a method of dissent at all unless it is done publicly and done in a political system where not voting is illegal. Not voting is simply passivity and passivity is hardly a method for achieving anything except if one is able persuasively to argue that his action of voting would involve a pollution that should be avoided.

---

Fair enough. But lets call it for what it is fascism, and remind ourselves that the author of the OP believes:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Benito:
Whatever the quality of our democracy, all propositions to do something about it bring hope. Even proposing to kill everyone not participating in an election remains only a suggestion open to a constructive debate.

---

From here: Why Compulsory Voting is Wrong

Personally, I don't think suggesting killing anyone who does not put a check mark on a piece of paper, within a specific time frame and at a specific place is even worthy of the term "constructive debate". I think it is clearly insane.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

---

To me, voting is the least important aspect of the electoral process; the most important is developing a will to discuss political matters.

---

But what can be said about the views of a so called anarchist, who is not only a member of a political party, but also turns to the Australian model of voting enrollement as a model, a model that prohibits people from advocating the spoiling of ballots and puts them in jail for making such suggestions.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

Ok, I'll get right on it. I'll fire the guy and call the cops on him. I'll send him right over to Jack and Olivia's place and you can send your donations there. They are offering $5 an hour less real wages though, so not sure its a step up.

By the way, I don't think its "progressive" I think its the best I can do.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

But of course talking through your hat and smearing people go hand in hand. What more can one say about someone who professes to be an anarchist, and then wants to force people to vote in a system wheren advocating the spoiling of ballots gets you jail time.

And you don't live in an urban jungle where you trip over a homeless person every 10 feet. If I offered a place to all the homeless people I know I would be fined by the state more than likely for overcrowding my house. I do what I can. In fact I was almost fined 10,000 dollars by the state because I let some guy stay in my garage for 2 yeras rent free. The neighbors called the cops.

Again, should I call the cops on him after I fire him, so that I can be "progressive" like you?

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

---

This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2007)

---

But more to the point I never said we should adopt the Australian law on spoiled ballots I said that compulsory voting is a good idea. Strawmen are apparently the only ones you can win debates against. I have homeless people living in my neighbourhood as well so I don't get your point.

You are a self righteous arrogant person but then I have my character flaws as well.

But you are just making stuff up on the fly, again, and are having to excuse your previous "support" for the Australian system of force voting, when in fact, golly gee whiz it is clearly a fascist undertaking.

I also linked to a web page from the Victoria voting authority, that in its own report confirmed that it called the police on people distributing pamphlets advising people to spoil their ballots.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fidel:
Oh ya, and we shouldn't force social programs on innocent taxpaying bystanders either. That's another salient nonsensical point we could make.

---

Oh so now you are for compulsory voting too. I don't think the NDP has a policy platform on this yet, perhaps should retract your stand until the Moustache authorizes your statements.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by kropotkin1951:
I feel really stupid now since it is apparent you never have any problems on this board except with me. It must be me who is belligerent and abusive consistently because if you go back through threads it is not you but I who is in constant nasty flame wars with many posters no matter what the subject.

If this is what your advocacy is like in the real world you might want to think about its effectiveness.

---

Yes, in fact, I get along fine with numerous posters. But probably its just the impression you get because you always show up on threads with the rest of the OG, and pile on. Its easy to believe that you are with the consensus when you are in the middle of a crowd of stone throwers.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:
Oh so now you are for compulsory voting too. I don't think the NDP has a policy platform on this yet, perhaps should retract your stand until the Moustache authorizes your statements.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by kropotkin1951:
You sir just don't have any respect for anyone except yourself. I'm done I will now disengage and leave you to your fantasy world where only you are fighting the good fight and everyone else is controlled by fascists.

---

My entire experience of you and your clique has been fascist: the pile-ons, the abuse, the outright smears. Your insistance that I should be forced to get up and vote in your crummy election rather than sleep in, on pain of fine, and eventual imprisonment should I not pay that fine, is entirely in keeping with your psychophantic (sic) personality.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:
Oh so now you are for compulsory voting too. I don't think the NDP has a policy platform on this yet, perhaps should retract your stand until the Moustache authorizes your statements.

---

Oh so now you are for the NDPs $10 dollar an hour mandatory minimum wage and rolling back McGuilty's 25% pay hike for Liberals on permanent vacation in Toronto and sometimes Varadero? Why didn't you just say so? Because I would have nodded up and down in rapid agreement with you.

So, yeah, I am against the NDP for seriously proposing the $10 mimimum wage as if it was something other than a joke.

In fact, I support on principle and in action a minimum, $15 an hour wage. You chatter, I do. Do you see the difference?

Hey, but maybe you are right. I should go along with the party and tell eveyone they are getting a pay cut because the NDP says $10 an hour before taxes is fine. More for me!

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

As Stephen Gordon quite sensibly put it: "Give the poor money."

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:

As Stephen Gordon quite sensibly put it: "Give the poor money."

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

---

He also tried to defend the carbon tax, a policy which has nothing to do with Canada's energy situation versus Sweden - and a policy which was obviously drafted by the Liberal Party apparatus as an afterthought. Canada has more in common with oil and gas exporting Norway, that other Nordic country which also has a carbon tax but was nary mentioned by the not-so big anymore red machine during the election campaign.

That's not a theory at all. That is just bullshit.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fidel:
So what does your rabid anti-NDP rhetoric mean..

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:
I am glad the case has been clearly established as one that proibits freedom conscience, the further imposition of adminstrative controls that limit personal freedom, and the encroachment of the state in the lives of all persons that affords one more opportunity to screen the entire population and to update everyones personal information. Very scary if you have a criminal record. What kind of proofs would be needed? Where you live, or where you work all this information would be screened by the state for the maintenance of this new tool of oppression.

Fair enough. But lets call it for what it is fascism, and remind ourselves that the author of the OP believes:

From here: Why Compulsory Voting is Wrong

Personally, I don't think suggesting killing anyone who does not put a check mark on a piece of paper, within a specific time frame and at a specific place is even worthy of the term "constructive debate". I think it is clearly insane.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

---

As far as I am concerned you should be completely free to say that "constructive debate" includes discussion of a policy of killing people who refuse to put a check mark on a piece of paper, within a specific time frame and at a specific place.

I in turn I reserve the right to point out that "constructive debates" about such things are more in keeping with the tenor of meetings held by deliberative assemblies that established policies that resulted in the collectively pyschotic acts charachteristic of National Socialist Germany.

I also think that such concepts, including the concept that such discussions might be "constructive", should be marginalized with extreme prejudice.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:
I am a firm supporter of freedom of speech. I am glad you are as well.

As far as I am concerned you should be completely free to say that "constructive debate" includes discussion of a policy of killing people who refuse to put a check mark on a piece of paper, within a specific time frame and at a specific place.

I in turn I reserve the right to point out that "constructive debates" about such things are more in keeping with the tenor of meetings held by deliberative assemblies that established policies that resulted in the collectively pyschotic acts charachteristic of National Socialist Germany.

I also think that such concepts, including the concept that such discussions might be "constructive", should be marginalized with extreme prejudice.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

---

Because of the collective nature of every right, even negative ones, you cannot reserve a right only for yourself.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:
Fundamentally backing a $10 minimum wage in Toronto, is saying that you support the starvation wages that employers for the most part already hand out. It is just saying the NDP affirms the status quo.
[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:
No. I explicitly maintained your right to promote the insane idea that killing people for not voting is a concept that lies in the realm of "constructive debate." I also pointed out that the idea should be marginalized collectively. I am doing so now.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Benoit:

An idea cannot be insane, only persons can be such. One notices an idea only when symbols are mastered. An insane person is precisely a person unable to master symbols.

---

Sophistry and conjecture stated as facts.

I am not here to play semantic games. Obviously to say that an "idea is insane", one means that it belongs in the category of those ideas that insane people consider.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:
You are the one who promoting a non-living minimum wage as "progressive" measure.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:

Sophistry and conjecture stated as facts.

I am not here to play semantic games. Obviously to say that an "idea is insane", one means that it belongs in the category of those ideas that insane people consider.

In short, I was being inaccurate in the delivery of my statement because I did not want to be directly rude.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:
No. I explicitly maintained your right to promote the insane idea that killing people for not voting is a concept that lies in the realm of "constructive debate." I also pointed out that the idea should be marginalized collectively. I am doing so now.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Benoit:

Insane people cannot consider ideas; it is precisely why they are acting out.

---

I think you may be having trouble mastering symbols. Of course one who was would not be really capable of judging wether or not they were having trouble mastering symbols. I can see this difficulty.

For example the statement that there are two choices in politics, "violence and morality" followed by the assertion that using the inherent violence in the system to affect a totalitarian formulation of democracy through forced voting is moral, is clearly at odds with itself.

Though, I guess if one were having trouble "mastering symbols" the two assertions might seem compatible, even though they are not.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Slumberjack:

There's nothing constructive in it at all. Marginalizing is far too generous.

---

But if it's possible to kill people for not voting, wouldn't it also be possible to kill them for voting? This is making even less sense than the 22 percenters in Toronto after their thank god it's not real democracy Friday night at the pub

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:

I think you may be having trouble mastering symbols. Of course one who was would not be really capable of judging wether or not they were having trouble mastering symbols. I can see this difficulty.

For example the statement that there are two choices in politics, "violence and morality" followed by the assertion that using the inherent violence in the system to affect a totalitarian formulation of democracy through forced voting is moral, is clearly at odds with itself.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Slumberjack:
Every vote would be a complete success for the agenda of the deliberative council, starting with the vote that would create the death squads, who could then commence killing off those who voted against them. Haven't we seen this model before?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Benoit:

In a discussion forum, I cannot be in a position to use the inherent violence in the system to affect anything.

---

Of course. I am simply getting you to fully articulate your position, since you are much better at advocating for the imposition of the kind of totalitarian proccess you are outlining than I ever could be. I have not spent much time considering the possibility that killing people who don't vote might actually be considered a part of "constructive debate". In fact, come to think of it, this idea has never even crossed my mind.

Imagine, if you will, that Adolph Hitler is at a bar in 1922 chatting up his ideas about the Jewish conspiracy. After all a beer hall is a kind of "deliberative assembly", I am sure you will agree. Well, imagine that rather than everyone listening attentively and nodding their head in agreement, someone comess along and says something like: "Adolph is really having trouble mastering symbols", and started mocking him.

Well, in that case perhaps the Beer Hall Assembly might not have transformed its perfectly harmless, yet idiosyncratic, paranoid and fascist concept into a comprehensive policy of tyrrany followed by wanton mass extermination.

I would really like to be that guy in that Beer Hall. Perhaps I am being a little grandiose in my expectations of myself, but I'd like to think that is where I am coming from, in this case.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Slumberjack:
Every vote would be a complete success for the agenda of the deliberative council, starting with the vote that would create the death squads, who could then commence killing off those who voted against them. Haven't we seen this model before?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:
I have not spent much time considering the possibility that killing people who don't vote might actually be considered a part of "constructive debate". In fact, come to think of it, this idea has never even crossed my mind.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:
Imagine, if you will, that Adolph Hitler is at a bar in 1922 chatting up his ideas about the Jewish conspiracy.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Benoit:

Me too because threatening the lives of would-be non-voters is a fair but extreme way to make them appreciate their lives more carefully.

---

Appreciating life to the fullest in Cambodia.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Will Hiscock:
I think we do enough forcing people as is. Don't know and don't care? Don't vote. I think it is a fundamental right, and I can't imagine not voting. But I give a rat's ass, which many don't - fine. How about motivation not force.

Besides forcing people to vote does not make them informed and does not ensure they will be true citizens - which IS the goal.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:

Appreciating life to the fullest in Cambodia.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:
Forced voting would be a very good reason not to go to the poll.

---

No it would not be a good reason if one is allowed to secretly spoil his ballot.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Benoit ]

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Benoit ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Benoit:

Me too because threatening the lives of would-be non-voters is a fair but extreme way to make them appreciate their lives more carefully.

---

So, you think killing people for not participating in a sham democracy is fair?

And you think the state threatening to kill someone will make them appreciate their lives more? I suppose all those Jews in Germany really appreciated their lives.

And if I still refuse to participate in this oppressive and violent system, you think killing me is fair?

quote:

---

Originally posted by Benoit:
error

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fidel:
It's settled then. And I might add that our stooges in power are regressing when they accept large dollar donations and gifts under the table from corporations and rich people. And in the same vein, our elected officials shouldnt be forcing corporate welfare handouts on profitable energy companies and banks. It's absolutely repressive. I can only imagine what would happen if they refused to accept billion dollar taxpayer handouts from the peons.

---

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by genstrike:

So, you think killing people for not participating in a sham democracy is fair?

And you think the state threatening to kill someone will make them appreciate their lives more? I suppose all those Jews in Germany really appreciated their lives.

And if I still refuse to participate in this oppressive and violent system, you think killing me is fair?

Really?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Benoit:

Basically people don't vote because they are too busy working. But when people don't vote, we see now what is happening to them: they end up working for nothing: the politicians are only bailing out corporate executives while the people are losing their houses and pensions.

---

Those are salient points you've made. And I must repeat something I did read about better participation rates in Nordic and Scandinavian countries. They tend to have higher participation rates because Swedes and Danes have something worth protecting from right wing political agendas, namely their well-funded social welfare states. They turn out in droves on the one day that counts every four years or so.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Benoit:

Learn something about fascism. Fascism is about personally cult. It is about totally identifying yourself with the leader. For a fascist there cannot be more than one candidate to vote for.

---

Hardly. Fascism is primarily the idolatry of the state as the embodiement of "nation".

The state in it National Socialist form is founded on the idea that Furher (the leader) is the emodiement of the Reich (the state) and therefore it's people. That's Hitler, not Musolini.

Musolini is the founder of the Fascist movement, and it primary ideologue. The leader is not primary in his concept and the state is absolut. Italian fascism is closely linked to "corporatism", In Italian, traditionally, a "corporation" would be one of a number of "civic assemblies". How closely does that track your notions of "deliberative assembly?" In fact Italian fascist corporatism claimed to be a direct heir of anarcho-syndicalism. This fact also tracks your ideas as well.

quote:

---

The keystone of the Fascist doctrine is its conception of the State, of its essence, its functions, and its aims. For Fascism the State is absolute, individuals and groups relative. Individuals and groups are admissible in so far as they come within the State. Instead of directing the game and guiding the material and moral progress of the community, the liberal State restricts its activities to recording results. The Fascist State is wide awake and has a will of its own. For this reason it can be described as " ethical ".

---

Benito Mussolini fromTHE DOCTRINE OF FASCISM

Where do you think you are? A second year German philosphy class? Its fine to promote your fascist ideas here, but please don't promote falsehoods.

They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Benoit:
For a fascist there cannot be more than one candidate to vote for.

---

But what if Canadians only ever had the real choice of choosing between two political parties delivering very similar corporatist and banking agendas for the last 140 years in a row - or roughly twice as long as Soviets ruled the USSR?

I think our autocrats perhaps should begin anew by threatening small fines for not voting just to arouse a few hypnogogic non-voters(41% of eligible voters apparently) to the general idea of democracy before restarting the federal study on electoral reform.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Benoit ]

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Benoit ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Benoit:
error

---

quote:

---

The keystone of the Fascist doctrine is its conception of the State, of its essence, its functions, and its aims. For Fascism the State is absolute, individuals and groups relative. Individuals and groups are admissible in so far as they come within the State. Instead of directing the game and guiding the material and moral progress of the community, the liberal State restricts its activities to recording results. The Fascist State is wide awake and has a will of its own. For this reason it can be described as " ethical ".

---

Benito Mussolini fromTHE DOCTRINE OF FASCISM

quote:

---

Originally posted by Benoit:
Not voting is free riding: non-voters want the protection of a state for free.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Benoit ]

---

"Individuals and groups are admissible in so far as they come within the State."

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:

The liberal State restricts its activities to recording results.

Benito Mussolini

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Brian White:
Which party would benefit the most if voting was compulsory? Not the cons, they all vote already.

---

The Fascist Party, regardless of what colour of lawn sign they stick in their yard.

The arguement for principled non-voting becomes clearer the more we can see that Fascist ideologies are embedded deeply in the thinking of party activists, from any of the "official parties", that receive regular payments from the state for each vote they get authorizing the state.

What do the "official" parties get now? $1.85 per vote that they secure? or something like that?

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

The advocates of democracy said, we will accept the authority of the state again if you give us the right to choose our leaders. That was the compromise that held the social order together and is still doing so today. It is not something you owe to the state, it is something the state owes to you, your authority that recompenses you for the authority you give up to the state.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Brian White:
Which party would benefit the most if voting was compulsory?

---

It would possibly be a brand new party dedicated to getting rid of this legislation. Anyway, this is the way things are done in a non-fascist society.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Benoit ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:
The state in it National Socialist form is founded on the idea that Furher (the leader) is the emodiement of the Reich (the state) and therefore it's people. That's Hitler, not Musolini.

---

It is possible that German fascism included the idea of ein volk ein reich ein fuhrer, and whose "nation state's needs" were to project power across international borders for the purpose of corporatist needs and not so much out of ordinary folk's needs. Emil Kirdorf and der future fuhrer decided they needed financial backing if SDAP were going to overcome terrific odds against them with half a dozen socialist and communist parties poised for election.

Ernst Rohm believed that a second workers uprising to takeover the factories was the next logical step for national socialism. The very idea frightened Germany's industrial and banking elite, and so the socialist wing of the party were murdered in the middle of the night. Exnay on the ocialism say. Corporationists stood idly by and counting the weeks to zero labour costs in the new lebensraum to satiate corporate appetites for money and power, and a new lust for world domination from Berlin to New Jersey.

Noticably, other parties, and persons who are not part of the official party structure are punished by the state for participating as candidates, because they get no money returned if the do not collect enough votes.

Compulsory voting does the same thing, but demands that all persons legitimize the state by using a totalitarian instrument to totalize the ideology of democracy society wide.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:
No one questions the fact that all the main parties in Canada simply function as extensions of the state in Canada because they are paid to promote the process upon which it legitimizes its existance: democracy.

Noticably, other parties, and persons who are not part of the official party structure are punished by the state for participating as candidates, because they get no money returned if the do not collect enough votes.

Compulsory voting does the same thing, but demands that all persons legitimize the state by using a totalitarian instrument to totalize the ideology of democracy society wide.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

---

A state is relative to all other states. If you weaken your own state, you will be captured by another one.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Benoit ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Benoit:

A state is relative to all other states. If you weaken your own state, you will be captured by another one.

---

Yes, yes Luddendorf, and all that rot about "Der totale Krieg." Nothing un-fascist about social darwinism. Quite the opposite. Again par for the course. I bet you even think you understand Clauzewitz.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:

Yes, yes Luddendorf, and all that rot about "Der totale Krieg." Nothing un-fascist about social darwinism. Quite the opposite. Again par for the course. I bet you even think you understand Clauzewitz.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:
Forcing people to vote is not about "co-operation".

---

don't

want

your

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:
I

don't

want

your

generosity.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:
Forcing people to vote is not about "co-operation".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Benoit:

To be left alone, inside a society, you have to do something.

---

Just because the social is fundamental does not mean that all things need be absolutely wedded to the social, using a totalitarian device backed up by violence. There is the issue of degree. Your conception is "absolute" like Musollini's, it it totalitarian in concept, fascist in effect.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fidel:

I think that it in this case, our autocratic old line parties actually prefer low voter turnouts and not to arouse sleeping interests for electoral reform.

---

Did not the recent federal election with its historically low turnout produce one of the largest percentages of non-old-line MP's (NDP and Bloc) in the Commons ever? And the lowest % of popular vote for the Liberals and Conservatives combined ever?

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: brookmere ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:

Just because the social is fundamental does not mean that all things need be absolutely wedded to the social, using a totalitarian device backed up by violence. There is the issue of degree. Your conception is "absolute" like Musollini's, it it totalitarian in concept, fascist in effect.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

---

It is a question of degree since going to the poll is a very easy action relative to the power it guarantees to you.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Benoit ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Benoit:

To be left alone, inside a society, you have to do something.

---

quote:

---

In our state the individual is not deprived of freedom. In fact, he has greater liberty than an isolated man, because the state protects him and he is part of the State. Isolated man is without defence.

Benito Mussolini.

---

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Benoit:

A state is relative to all other states. If you weaken your own state, you will be captured by another one.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Benoit ]

---

quote:

---

The right to national independence does not arise from any merely literary and idealistic form of self-consciousness; still less from a more or less passive and unconscious de facto situation, but from an active, self-conscious, political will expressing itself in action and ready to prove its rights. It arises, in short, from the existence, at least in fieri, of a State. Indeed, it is the State which, as the expression of a universal ethical will, creates the right to national independence

Benito Mussolini

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by brookmere:

Do you have any empirical evidence that there is any correlation between low voter turnout and electoral success for the Liberals and Conservatives versus the NDP or PQ/BQ, either at the federal or provincial level?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:
Hardly, since it is impossible to make it compulsory without a proposed manner of enforcement.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:
Everyone is all excited by the idea of voter supression, so now they think if everyone would vote they would vote NDP.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Benoit:

My own proposition is making voting compulsory with only a quite large tax credit so much so that the punishment of non-voters would simply be a relative impoverishment.

---

That is not compulsory.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:

That is not compulsory.

It is still very bad, since it skews the system to the advantage of the economic elite who use tax credits.

---

It would be a refundable tax credit.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Benoit ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Benoit:

It would be a refundable tax credit.

[ 06 November 2008: Message edited by: Benoit ]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:
Oh you mean pay people to vote? How silly is that since you tax them anyway. Basically you are just fining people for not voting.

Now, if I were to refuse to pay the portion of my tax that went to your tax credit, on principle, I would be looking at tax fraud.

---

The state, as you envision it is the absolute fascist state, of the kind proposed by Benito Mussolini, qouted variously above. And here:

quote:

---

The Fascist conception of the State is all embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value.

Benito Mussolini

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[ 07 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by Benoit:

Yes. After maintaining an army, taxing and minting money are other prerogatives of the state.

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I believe financing for Hitler project was arranged by several western financiers and one governor of the Bank of England at the time. Later, the Nazis relied on marauding into and looting gold and bank deposits of other nations with the help of Banksters for International Settlements, which started out as a shadowy outfit holed up on the second floor over some bakery in Basel Switzerland. And Keynesian-militarism was born. We've since privatized money creation in 1991, and so debt-driven money creation has everyone reliant on a private banking cabal for economic fuel.

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The Fascist conception of the State is all embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. -- Benito Mussolini

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And so since those extreme violations of sovereign borders that was WW II, we have the UN to come to the aid of bullied nations. We have WTO and IMF to project fascist power across international borders and installing pre-selcted central bankers in countries where they were never citizens of before, or who were simply educated in ways of dominant revenuers.

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Originally posted by Fidel:

I was talking about increasingly low voter turnouts coinciding with paternalistic governments in Ottawa and Toronto.

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By what criteria is the current government in Ontario more "paternalistic" than that of Bill Davis, John Robarts, or Grew Drew for that matter?

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Originally posted by brookmere:

Isn't a minority government less paternalistic than a majority pretty much by definition? Or are you just going by your personal opinion of the government of the day?

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Not when we have two old line parties with somewhere less than 43 percent of registered voter support between them propping up each other's big business and bankster agendas, no. Even that might be considered a phony majority coalition now that full-fledged phony majorities are hard to come by for either of the two high powered big money parties. And I don't wonder why our obsolete electoral system has caused this overall democracy gap and lack of voter enthusiasm.

[quoteI might add that a lot of people regarded the Rae government as rather paternalistic too.[/QUOTE]