The Popular Vote... - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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User avatar
By BigSteve
#15032949
This is for all of those non-thinking never-Trumpers who believe that, since Hillary Clinton won the popular vote she should be President. Yes, it's true that more voters voted for Clinton than Trump, but here's something to consider:

Image
By B0ycey
#15032951
Something to consider. In democracy if every vote is equal, how it it some votes are more equal than others?

That is not to be seen as an endorsement for Clinton but electoral representation. Is it even democracy if the concensus loses to the minority?
Last edited by B0ycey on 09 Sep 2019 20:33, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
By BigSteve
#15032953
B0ycey wrote:Something to think of. In democracy if every vote is equal, how it it some votes are more equal than others?

That is nothe to be an endorsement for Clinton but electoral representation. Is it even democracy if the concensus loses to the minority?


We're not a pure democracy. We're a representative republic...
By B0ycey
#15032955
BigSteve wrote:We're not a pure democracy. We're a representative republic...


The Russian will be happy to read that the land of the free isn't a pure democracy. :lol:

Which leads to another question. Why is America trying to spread democracy across the world if it doesn't care to sort out its own backyard?
User avatar
By BigSteve
#15032957
B0ycey wrote:The Russian will be happy to read that the land of the free isn't a pure democracy. :lol:


Russia's known this all along. We've never been a pure democracy...

Which leads to another question. Why is America trying to spread democracy across the world if it doesn't care to sort out its own backyard?


It is sorted out in its own backyard. Our system works exactly as intended...
By B0ycey
#15032958
BigSteve wrote:It is sorted out in its own backyard. Our system works exactly as intended...


Sure. But that just means some votes are worth more than others. Hardly democratic.
User avatar
By BigSteve
#15032961
B0ycey wrote:Sure. But that just means some votes are worth more than others. Hardly democratic.


I need to scoot out and do some errands, but I would suggest you educate yourself on what a representative republic is.

Cheers!
By B0ycey
#15032965
BigSteve wrote:I need to scoot out and do some errands, but I would suggest you educate yourself on what a representative republic is.


Why bother. I don't support it as it allows a minority to defeat a majority. Although my point is simply that votes are not equal anyway and as such Trump became President
User avatar
By Wellsy
#15032977
Consensus does give power to a minority but not in the way the electoral college does in that it leads to a stand still rather than a minority winning their way over a majority.
https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Collaborative%20Ethics.pdf
Consensus fosters certain duties and virtues which are not fostered by Majority. The ethic of Consensus is above all inclusion. Discussion will continue until every point of view has not just been heard, but taken account of in the proposal. Even laissez faire supports inclusion in that multiple actions are an alternative to pressing on for actual unity. Consensus does not foster solidarity however, because the dissident minority is free to go their own way and is under no obligation to support the majority in their decision.

Consensus expresses respect for others, for the different. Whereas in Majority, the dissident is tolerated, because after all, the collective can always move to a vote. In Consensus, this option is not open; the collective must continue discussing until the dissidents’ point of view has been incorporated. This can lead to intolerance for persistent nonconformity, but at the same time it denotes respect for the different opinion.

I don’t believe that equality is an ethical principle which is relevant to Consensus; different persons are considered incommensurable rather than equal. Abstract decision making by the counting of votes is discounted in favour of exhaustive efforts to find a creative solution to differences.

There is a serious problem with Consensus however, which has ethical implications; this is the paradox of the status quo: if there is no consensus, then the status quo ante is the default decision. Let’s suppose someone can’t hear what is being said in the meeting and proposes that the air conditioning be turned off; if anyone refuses to agree, then the air conditioning stays on. But let’s suppose the complainant had simply turned it off and then left it for someone to propose that it be turned on – it would remain off. Let us suppose that all the employees in a privately owned firm meet with the owner with a view to transforming the firm into a cooperative; everyone agrees except the owner; so, under the paradigm of Consensus, the firm remains in private hands. Clearly social transformation cannot be achieved by Consensus, because participation in a social order is compulsory, and there is no possibility of opting out.

The electoral college is still based on majority vote but limited to the states themselves that results in the discrepancy at the national level.
But in regards to the quote in the OP, Mr Washington is quite right that consensus doesn't equal what is true and right.
Because it lacks the necessity between the opinion and the object which it is about.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/pilling/works/capital/pilling4.htm#Pill5
Hegel rejected this Kantian view of the concept on the grounds that it was confined to what he called abstract identity or abstract universality. Some aspect common to a range of objects is isolated (abstracted) as that which is ‘general’ to them, to be set against a ‘particular’ which, on this view, can exist on its own. The necessity of the aspects chosen can never be demonstrated and, given that this necessity cannot be established, these ‘aspects’ out of which the general is constructed must remain ultimately arbitrary. In short, regularity in appearance is not sufficient to establish necessity. This Hegel points out when he notes the inadequacy of the consensus gentium as a proof for the existence of God. The fact that everybody agrees with the existence of God, is no necessary proof for God’s existence. Unless the nature of this individual consciousness is thoroughly explained and its inner necessity established, the proof is inadequate
...
Hegel objected to the Kantian method of arriving at concepts because it made it impossible to trace the connection between the individual and the particular. All objects not included in a class were set against those standing outside this class. Identity (conceived as a dull sameness) and opposition were placed into two rigidly opposed criteria of thought. The direction Hegel took in trying to overcome the limitations imposed by such rigidity of thinking led to far richer results, and it was a method which guided Marx throughout Capital.

For Hegel a concept was primarily a synonym for the real grasping of the essence of phenomena and was in no way limited simply to the expression of something general, of some abstract identity discernible by the senses in the objects concerned. A concept (if it was to be adequate) had to disclose the real nature of a thing and this it must do not merely by revealing what it held in common with other objects, but also its special nature, in short its peculiarity. The concept was a unity of universality and particularity. Hegel insisted that it was necessary to distinguish between a universality which preserved all the richness of the particulars within it and an abstract ‘dumb’ generality which was confined to the sameness of all objects of a given kind. Further, Hegel insisted, this truly universal concept was to be discovered by investigating the actual laws of the origin, development and disappearance of single things. (Even before we take the-discussion further, it should be clear that here lay the importance of Marx’s logical-historical investigation of the cell-form of bourgeois economy, the commodity.) Thought that was limited to registering or correlating empirically perceived common attributes was essentially sterile – it could never come anywhere near to grasping the law of development of phenomena. One crucial point followed from this which has direct and immediate importance for Capital. It was this: the real laws of phenomena do not and cannot appear directly on the surface of the phenomena under investigation in the form of simple identicalness. If concepts could be grasped merely by finding a common element within the phenomena concerned then this would be equivalent to saying that appearance and essence coincided, that there was no need for science.


As such, the issue of voting is a rather abstract procedure that in itself isolated by the process by which people form themselves into a social subject (ie social movements, lobby groups etc) doesn't constitute the will of people and is incredibly narrowed in what extent it is deployed.
Such a democratic principle in everyday life is rather absent and as such, there is little experience in regards to the validity of majority decision making unless one is active within some sort of organization that relies on it as an ethical principle of decision making.
Although it should be distinguished that the ethics of a decision making process doesn't guarantee the ethics of the decision that results from the process.

Regardless, there are a great deal of criticism's to be made of the sterility of liberal democracies in any variation for how effectively they result in a true representation of the will of people organized in their vision for change, because there can be little said of representation for people considered only as individuals. As is the poverty of the view of voting analysis that treats people and groups only as passive demographics rather than simultaneously as social subjects. Because me being a white man doesn't in itself essentialyl determine the content and nature of my voting preferences, it only uses demographic data as a proxy for prediction but it's based on a particular concept of the human subject that is overly formalized and static, a human being rather than a human doing.
User avatar
By BigSteve
#15033046
B0ycey wrote:Why bother. I don't support it as it allows a minority to defeat a majority. Although my point is simply that votes are not equal anyway and as such Trump became President


Exactly.

The way the system is set up, that can happen. If you choose to remain ignorant of what a representative republic is (and, by your own admission, you do) don't whine when you don't like the outcome...
User avatar
By Hindsite
#15033053
B0ycey wrote:Why bother. I don't support it as it allows a minority to defeat a majority. Although my point is simply that votes are not equal anyway and as such Trump became President

That is a good thing in the case of Hillary Clinton.
Praise the Lord.
By B0ycey
#15033066
BigSteve wrote:The way the system is set up, that can happen. If you choose to remain ignorant of what a representative republic is (and, by your own admission, you do) don't whine when you don't like the outcome...


Well I live in a representative Monarchy. I am aware of the problems of it as it is worse here than America in terms of vote value. I am not whinging even if I am aware of the obvious democratic error. Although even if I did, as long as a support a different system I have a justified reason to complain actually.
User avatar
By BigSteve
#15033095
Rugoz wrote:Sounds like something a kindergarten teacher would say.


It was spoken by a great American, and it's very true...
User avatar
By BigSteve
#15033096
B0ycey wrote:Well I live in a representative Monarchy. I am aware of the problems of it as it is worse here than America in terms of vote value. I am not whinging even if I am aware of the obvious democratic error. Although even if I did, as long as a support a different system I have a justified reason to complain actually.


There's no error in our system. Period. It works as the founders intended it to...
User avatar
By Rugoz
#15033164
BigSteve wrote:It was spoken by a great American, and it's very true...


It's also utterly trivial and it doesn't address the issue of who gets to decide what is right or wrong.
#15033167
BigSteve wrote:This is for all of those non-thinking never-Trumpers who believe that, since Hillary Clinton won the popular vote she should be President. Yes, it's true that more voters voted for Clinton than Trump, but here's something to consider:

Image


Nice quote, it applies wholly and absolutely to Tramp and those who uncritically support everything he does..IMHO.

That said, I'm not a fan of Clinton or your Dem party.

Now your Democratic party are fielding some really questionable candidates, like Biden et al. And Tramp just cancelled primaries...trying to eliminate debate and reason.

It looks like your country's not in a good place right now.

Did you hear about the FEMA scandal wrt Hurricane Maria? Such public corruption is commonplace only in Africa, but it looks like your country is in the swamp right now. It's quite sad to see for us on the outside.
User avatar
By BigSteve
#15033191
Presvias wrote:Nice quote, it applies wholly and absolutely to Tramp and those who uncritically support everything he does..IMHO.

That said, I'm not a fan of Clinton or your Dem party.

Now your Democratic party are fielding some really questionable candidates, like Biden et al. And Tramp just cancelled primaries...trying to eliminate debate and reason.

It looks like your country's not in a good place right now.

Did you hear about the FEMA scandal wrt Hurricane Maria? Such public corruption is commonplace only in Africa, but it looks like your country is in the swamp right now. It's quite sad to see for us on the outside.


Your response could be no more irrelevant and off topic...
User avatar
By BigSteve
#15033192
    Rugoz wrote:It's also utterly trivial and it doesn't address the issue of who gets to decide what is right or wrong.


    The American voters did that.

    Even though Clinton got the votes from enough idiot leftists to give her the "popular vote", enough good Americans saw fit to remind those leftist idiots that majority doesn't always rule...
    By Presvias
    #15033221
    BigSteve wrote:Your response could be no more irrelevant and off topic...


    Yet it was you who posted the quote referred to and it was you who referred to Dem prez candidates, as did I.

    I'm thinking you have no good response to my post and so go for the attempted dismissal.

    Maybe it will surprise you to learn that just 5% of EU citizens - according to a poll - have faith in your country's direction and recent polls show that Trump's got record low levels of support...even multi fox news polls have confirmed such.
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