well do you think uh i mean i wonder the assumption is that it is a problem uh and i've never actually had too many people explain to me why it's a problem though i have the same instinctual feeling that it's a problem
and uh but it's not clear to me that it is
uh but
um it's a problem if those voting don't represent the population demographically or in terms of their opinions but if those who don't vote if you made them vote and it those who don't vote would have voted exactly the same way
you know in other words if forty percent had voted for that person and sixty percent for the other just like everyone who did vote it's not clear to me that it is really a problem
um
that's that's interesting because i had thought i have feel that it's a problem also but
um-hum
i see your point on that
i mean i i assume that those who don't vote i mean if you look at the break down of those who don't vote they tend to be you know poor blacks for example vote very little and things like that and i assume that they would vote differently
if they were voting than your average voter but i don't know if that's the case in fact i've heard of studies that suggest that that isn't
uh
apparently they don't think it's a problem
uh i guess not i'm i i vote religiously i really do um i guess i guess i'm a fan of democracy and uh
that's right um
but it's funny because here in California things are getting uh increasingly democratically oriented in in the sense of people being able to vote for things i mean we have these initiatives state initiatives now
the first really popular you know wide spread one was uh Proposition Thirteen which was a uh tax revolt against property taxes uh
right
but it's funny because here in California things are getting uh increasingly and you know now we're and that was whatever ten years ago and now we're up to Proposition a Hundred and fifty or something like that i mean we've just
there were apparently voters who just threw up their hands after the last voters pamphlet because they were asked being asked to make decisions
on topics that would have three different competing
proposals and you had to vote for you know yes or no on each of them and no one could make heads or tails out of some of them and it was incredibly complicated and difficult
and a lot of people revolted against that they said we don't want to have to decide all these things that's why we hire people who uh you know to to make these decisions for us
i i kind of feel the opposite though i wish we were given an opportunity to vote on more things i think our elected officials say they are speaking for us but they're not speaking for me
yeah
i do too
uh-huh uh-huh yeah i wouldn't mind having oh more votes than i get to have frankly anyone who doesn't vote it's fine with me as long as i can have their vote
that's true
that would make me happy though maybe not in a in a deep philosophical sense but in a selfish sense it probably would
i don't know it's interesting uh some countries voting is obligatory uh it is in Australia for example yeah
well
is that true i didn't know that i was thinking that is one solution to it
yeah
i don't know how i feel about that
but i don't that's not really democratic not what i'd consider truly democratic as
well Australia considers itself every bit as much a democracy as the United States and it's not for me to say that they're not um they they feel i mean here you have the right to vote and they simply define it as a duty there
is uh-huh
uh-huh
you know we have just as we have a right a duty to pay taxes
you know is that democratic i mean we don't have the right to pay taxes in this country we have the duty to pay taxes and in that country it's a duty to pay taxes and it's a duty to vote on how those taxes are spent
it's a duty right
and it's not clear to me that that's so much less democratic
um
uh-huh
i don't know but part of me rebels against that but then i'm an American
uh
it that's
it's complex question when you start thinking about it isn't it
yeah
yeah and some people don't vote i mean there is like three or four percent of Australians don't vote and i think they're eligible eligible for a fine i don't know if they actually are fined or or what happens
but you're eligible for some sort of fine if you don't vote
that's interesting i have people here that i know that have never registered to vote
uh-huh
and i think
i think they feel they can criticize if they don't
i told them if they don't vote they don't have the right to criticize
yeah i sort of see uh
well i that's how i feel i mean if you if you vote and your guy looses well you least you least tried and you can say something but if you don't vote i sort of feel like
part of me and it's kind of a nasty part of me feels like well if you didn't vote you get what's coming to you you know and certainly that's true in the overall i mean no one individual that's true for but for the population as a whole i sort of feel that way
that's right i feel it
when they especially when someone they they don't vote for someone because
they don't like any of them and then the person gets in and they don't like him and he turns out to have been worse than her that they might have voted for or something like that and you know i say well
you know voting for the lesser of two evils is still important
i think it is too sometimes it is a difficult choice you don't feel as though you have much of a choice but
yeah yeah i mean you
i mean it's it's funny because technically you do i mean you have the right to do a write in candidate but of course that's that's not really a vote
it doesn't really gain anything
um
yes it really really doesn't and
so it's it's a complicated situation but i would like to see i don't know i
i i'm i'm thinking of actually moving to Australia and and perhaps perhaps i'll call you back and let you know what how the Australian system works i mean not because of the vote i mean i'm not thinking of moving there because of the voting but just because of a job opportunity and uh i
is that girl
now because
oh i see
i'm interested are you a TI employee i'm interested not okay i just wondered
i
no i'm not
and uh so i'm i'm really quite quite curious how that would work to have both i mean you know and i believe in the in a certain uh Soviet block countries you are are obliged to vote too in fact it was even pretty much spelled out who you did vote for up until fairly recently
and
that's what i think of when i think of you're obliged to vote but when you actually really are given as much choice as you are in this country with its two party system um
i don't know i kind of part of me is wary and part of me likes the idea of having it be more of a duty
well uh maybe they should
um
perhaps that would be a solution if they were required to vote at least for their first three or four years after they become of voting age required to register and vote for four years and perhaps
um-hum um-hum
um-hum
they would be indoctrinated that this is their duty
uh-huh uh-huh well that's a thought
or certain privileges come from voting which aren't that important but are nice to have i don't know the right to write your
maybe it should go with a drivers license
yeah that's see that's an example of a right not a not a actually that's considered a privilege not a right
that is a privilege right
yeah but technically people most people technically it's a privilege but most people think of it as a right i mean in other words if the government denies you
driving denies you a drivers license people get very upset but actually it's a privilege which is allowed to be revoked
it is
that's correct
and fortunately voting isn't that
maybe it should maybe it should be
except well except if you're a felon if you're a felon it is taken away from you i mean they will take away your right to vote under certain circumstances
uh-huh
that's right
uh
so gosh so we don't have a great solution yet do we
that's
don't have a great i i think i checked that as a question i'd be willing to discuss too
but i i also i also i don't know if you've uh read any of the um oh what do they call those the uh the early republican
uh republic documents uh when they were arguing through constitutional law written by Hamilton and all those people um oh Hamilton i think it was Hamilton who wrote number ten or something where he was arguing for a republican
no no i haven't
not in the sense of the Republican party now versus a democratic uh government and arguing successfully why the United States should be a republic not a democracy
right
which indeed it really is a republic not a democracy
where he defines democracy democracy as everyone votes for the issues and a republic is people vote for someone who then in turn votes for the issues so as you vote for representatives
uh-huh
and the whole idea was um
presumably those who get voted in would be wiser than the average person and and a specialist and able to make more informed decisions and can protect against the tyranny of democracy
because just as you can have a tyranny of a single um you know bad ruler or something you can have a tyranny of the majority
uh-huh
and uh he makes a very uh passionate good argument for why you don't want some things decided by democratic process because anytime you have a majority
um they can change the law in a democratic a fully democratic process and there are cases when you don't want that to be the case um
oh you know a candidate if there's some minority that people don't like because of you know racial hatred or something like that the majority can just simply vote again vote against them and cases like that he argues need to be constrained and and actually i agree
right
except that i don't trust the people who are appointed to vote
sometimes i think we have that right now with Congress
yeah well i i mean i feel that
i think they're looking after their own
my you know
self preservation more than they're actually looking after the good of the country
yeah well their job is to be reelected by in large and so they work on that job
and there's also an antigovernment mood in the country you know where government is misspending your dollars and and they're all fools and you know throw throw the bastards out that kind of thing and there's a notion that somehow
right yeah
if someone isn't as much as a government person they're less corrupt and they're more likely to be good which is really strange because i mean if i'm hiring a plumber i want a real plumber i want someone trained in in it i'm very like
