Viewer as of 2/25/2022
The previous comments on voting can be found following these newer comments. Because views can change overtime, with one perspective gaining a moment's primary consideration over another related to a particular context... comments about voting, just like any of the other ideas commented on, are not to be viewed as being written in stone. They are not immutable. Different ideas must be proposed and then discussed. From the discussions should arise a concerted emphasis outlined to promote a persuasion to exhibit efforts to bring change about. And though many of us know this, only the first two considerations take place... Very, very few of the discussions in private and on-line, produce an actionable effort. More to the point, there comes a moment when a person has to say that talk is cheap. Opinions are fine, but what are we to do with them if no definitive attempt is made to assert the opinions into practice?
In terms of developing a Cenocracy (a New Government), it should be understood that real changes in governing practice deal with voting. While it is true that the election of a single person who is persuasive enough to get others to go along with their idea(s) can produce significant changes; this situation also revolves around voting. But such an activity is a toss of the dice. The people should not have to wait on the "maybe" chance that such an individual will be voted into office. This is a haphazard means of self-governance. The number of problems a growing population confronts not only on the human but environmental realms as well, requires that we develop a form of government that permits the usage of a type of voting system that will enable the populace to have the best government they can collectively devise. The present forms of government in the world meet only the minimalist of qualification in this respect. We need a Cenocracy which explicitly addresses the deficiencies in the public's ability to vote on any and all issues it deems appropriate.
As is presently practiced in most instances, a single person will get elected to a position in which they alone vote on a particular means of addressing an issue, or do so in conjunction with a few others who have likewise either been voted directly into a position or are selected to a position by someone who was elected. In any respect, a few are designated to represent a larger majority... even if the topics of discussion and the results of the discussion are not representative of the majority opinion. Topics of discussion as well as the discussions themselves, may be at odds with the concerns and considerations of the majority. Then again, the majority opinion is never actually known, because the voting power of the public is severely reduced. If the Representatives truly represent the collective voice of the people, then there should be no argument as to the desire to verify such a view. Only the majority should have a majority of opinion, and not some representative sampling that can be skewed by various ulterior reasons.
Another example, such as practiced by the U.S. Government, is to permit the President to choose a potential Supreme Court Judge who they want the Congress to vote on. While it is the Congress who gets to vote on the selected candidates, the selections themselves are a type of Presidential vote. The public's ability to either select or vote on a particular candidate is not permitted. Hence, this is an instance where the voting power of the public to run its own government is undermined by the practices of the current form of government. The voting power of the public is greatly diminished from those elected to office. It is a formula of government which needs to change.
For those seeking to improve the government by calling for either a definitive restructuring or by way of reducing their asserted call for change by claiming they want to alter the process but not the form (as if the two are completely different aspects of governance... as a means of deflecting assaults from die-hard patriots or traditionalists); a change in the overall voting structure must be addressed. Wanting to merely change a process of governance by way of superficialities involving personnel or departmental authority, is a white washing effect.
Actual changes in governance take place when the voting ability of the people change... Regime changes involving personnel or departmental names/functioning, does not necessarily reflect actual governing improvements. Whereas you can change from one dictator to another and get social reforms, governing improvements beyond such circumstances involve altering the voting ability of the public so that it can vote in desired changes. While this alone does not necessarily guarantee social improvements because the alternatives presented to the public to be voted on may be self-defeating choices; this can prompt the rise of true leadership by those who would provide the public with more viable choices. No less, increased voting power by the public requires an increased level of social self-governing awareness. An idiot population may well vote on an idiotic social reform plan, or be subjected to alternatives that result in self-defeating efforts because they have not learned how to vote more responsibly by calling for more responsible alternatives.
A populace unpracticed with an increased voting ability may well make mistakes, or be set-up by those wanting to persuade such a fledgling public to protest for a return to some previous governing style. No doubt there are pitfalls, but informed guesses are much better at producing possible desirable results than the hit and miss possibilities of awaiting for an insightful leader to emerge.
The foregoing comments were added: Wednesday, November 11, 2015
The following comments were last updated: Thursday, December 4, 2014
The following is a short outline of very brief discussions about some thoughts "thrown together" concerning the act of voting. They are not to be perceived as a "set in stone" definitive, since thoughts may be derived from one or more commentators with a generalized "axe to grind"... that becomes impulsively sharpened at a given moment when they are stressed by some other personal circumstance occurring near the time of discussion. Neither are the comments meant as a precursor to a Ph.D. thesis or representative of a "Cenocratic manifesto" perspective. While some things might be thought better left unsaid, others prefer all alternatives to be placed on a "drawing board" for consideration. Not everyone is quickly offended by the usage of some words or ideas... though the words and ideas may shortly thereafter... or sometime later, be excluded from further consideration.
Neither is this page devoted to a history of voting practices. It is more of an exercise in beginning a discussion on the topic of voting by those who have and those who have not taken too much time to think about it. For this is the role the public will be introduced to when the public is permitted to put in their opinions on voting and a variety of subjects that they may well come to vote on when a Cenodemocratic government is the standard by which governance is to be practiced. Granted, there is a learning curve to traverse by both the public and those in authoritative positions. Mistakes may well be made that will require patience for the adjustment to a wide-spread maturity that must take place. Like any profession, the development of proficiency takes practice. We can not expect a Cenocracy to be perfect "right out of the box".
Taking Cenocracy out of the box presently called Democracy requires assembly... and some disassembly of the container in order to get to the more desirable contents. We will leave the box, the container, the crate, for children to play with and imaginatively construct whatever they wish to play at or in, such as a fort, a castle, a tree house, a car, a mountain, a cave, a rocket ship, a tank, or otherwise... Whereas many will think they can decipher "how it fits together" based on some inherent electro-mechanical aptitude or some inclined geo-spatial visualization capacity, others prefer to take the process of construction in a very step-wise manner. They want to be able to identify all the parts, lay out pieces in some order, and then follow instructions which came inclosed in the box. However, as many people know from having sent a package in the mail, they must sometimes improvise because the box used does not necessarily fit like a hat, glove, or shoe. Some even resort to deconstructing a box in order to make it a temporary better fit for the contents. In short, the present democratic box is not a perfect fit for either an evolving society or species, even though some might want to think that there is nothing better to use. During the construction phase, if a part seems to be missing, we may have to fashion what is needed from available resources. Calling the presumed "manufacturer" or its subsidiary suppliers may well lead to a merry-go-round and suggestions from external after-market sources may want us to alter the construction so that it fits their particular product line (what they are selling for their specific interests). Clearly, many of us have long realized that the present form of Democracy is a temporary container holding contents called a Cenocracy that We The People must begin assembling. While the contents may not have been specifically named before, the usage of a name helps to develop an image to be further realized as an actual form.
Democracy was once the disassembled contents of a box that came from Europe. It was assembled by bits and pieces of knowledge used by the pool of talents available in a past age; little realizing that it too was a container which held yet another product to be assembled. This product is a Cenocracy. We of the present have more knowledge and more talent than those of the past. But we often sell ourselves short... thinking that our legislative actions are a reflection of some past deed effected by a forefather. While we of today are the sons and daughters of our forefathers and foremothers, we have our own separate identity. While we can respect their efforts, we can not remain attached to them as if attached with an umbilical cord or holding onto apron strings. We as a nation must let go and move out of their nest. Far too often we have permitted the views of the past dictate to us what we must do... like an over-bearing and over-protective parent whose uncertainties find security through control of one or more others as a means of attempting to persuade themselves that they are right... because others are accepting what they say without question. And those that do question very often attempt to conceal feelings of inferiority by trying to bolster some intellectualized ego perogative— through an attempt to dismantle the box structure by way of complaints, without offering an alternative that everyone can benefit from. Complaints frequently take the form of single-mindedness like someone who can't find a job, who will stop complaining once a job for themselves is found... though thousands of others are without work and have not yet learned how to speak out for themselves... or provide social alternatives which might help others in a similar circumstance.
Psychologically speaking, Cenocracy will lead the people towards a re-examination of events in Democracy's childhood in order to achieve a catharsis for hang-ups that have keep the Nation from moving towards a social self-governing maturity. And examination of the voting process and an attempt to advance alternatives is necessary, since laws are set into practice by way of a voting process... though not typically at the hands of the public through a Nationalized Referendum procedure.
While there are those who assert it is their choice of whether to vote or not, and still others who use their vote as a means of making some statement, but instances frequently represent the buying of a lottery ticket. They hope that their decision does not work to their disadvantage, and hope that their "opinion" is heard loud and clear. Yet, if a statement is not actually articulated in a language that others can decipher, or that it is muted by the "voice" of someone else's choice, the vote has been wasted. It's no wonder that some people choose not to vote, when they can see no change in the way things are, but specifics are often lacking in what they want changed.
In terms of voting, those who prefer to have their opinions viewed as singularly more important, more educated, more wise, more intelligent, more experienced, more intuitive, more qualified, more informed, etc., are practicing their own version of elitism when they present such references with an attitude implying a reason to exclude one or more others, and give preference to themselves... or they will react as if being slighted. Standards of voting have been various exercises in arrogance. For example, saying that it is a "right" that someone identified as a citizen is eligible to vote, is actually a lie because the word "citizen" is further defined by other standards such as age, mental capacity, incarceration, etc..., that may generally be called voting restrictions. Such restrictions can take place by easily acknowledged occurrences, or are less obvious by way of accepted legislated practices. The "Electoral College" system used in the United States to elect a President is a voting restriction because it does not permit the public to directly choose the person they want. And this situation is coupled with the fact that election campaigns require a potential candidate to have access of millions of dollars in order to advertise. Both mechanisms prevent the average citizen from an actual FULL participation in government. It is a Representative model. In short, it denies the ability of the common man and woman to Vote, to have an actual voice... in a larger sense of application. The vote is symbolically synonymous with a voice.
To such an occurrence of voting restriction must be added the ridiculous notion of permissibility to even carry out a "vote of the people" (to let the people collectively speak), by way of a Referendum, since the present process requires that a certain percentage of "eligible" voters request that a Referendum on a particular issue take place. In other words, you can be a citizen and yet be ineligible because you haven't registered to vote and declared some political affiliation. Being a citizen does not automatically equate with being eligible to vote. Yet, a referendum Of, By and For the people can be denied based on the restriction that a certain percentage of eligible voters did not request it. In other words, it is one thing to deny a person the ability to vote because they didn't register to vote (choose not to speak), it is quite another to deny a Referendum, as if it were a person, the ability to speak, because a certain number of eligible "voices" deny it to speak. The "voter eligibility" standard for use in determining the right of a Referendum is elitist, biased and perhaps even giving evidence of an underlying prejudicial exclusionary principle that is a lingering characteristic of the self-centered voting attitude adopted by the Forefathers... which preferenced land owning white males... excluding Blacks, Women and Native Americans. We need a new form of Democracy which will provide us with a better standard of the Referendum and the Citizen's right to vote. This can be accomplished with the adoption of a Cenocracy.
The present usage of the referendum is formulated on what may be labeled an "accreditation standard" which measures value based on a "eligible voter" percentage. This percentage is an inaccurate count of the actual "voice of the people" that a democracy is supposed to be Of, By and For. The "eligible voter" percentage standard for accrediting an idea as being "proper" for the purposes of a Referendum, distances a percentage of the population from being able to speak. The present political process utilizes the existence of a lack of voter participation as a means of maintaining control of governance in the hands of a few. If we were to reverse the standard and say that a Referendum will take place by the greater percentage of eligible voters who do not vote against its occurrence, then the public can have their collective voice be accurately counted. The present process favors the government, not the people. The present process is akin to the old judicial standard for determining the guilt or innocence of somewhat claimed to be a witch or practicing that which was thought to be evil: If they survived after being dunked in water they were guilty and would be dunked for a longer period... but if they drowned, they were deemed innocent. This is the same nonsense being used in the present Referendum voting process.
To say that something is true if its value is determined by a majority of eligible voters is based on the false presumption that all those who are eligible to vote, will indeed vote, without there being any restrictions, barriers or reasons not to vote... Particularly when the greatest restriction and barrier to voter participation is that their collective voice does not merit the value of automatically becoming the law of the land. Otherwise, the Referendum would be used as a standard practice, instead of as an auxiliary one. It is widely felt that it is a waste of one's time voting if the collective vote of the people is later re-modeled or re-worded or renounced by later legislative action to minimize its effects. The people need a means to counter-such after-vote actions and prevent their laws being tampered with, conspired against, diluted or otherwise riddled with added-on legalistic loop-holes, without their say so. If laws are to be changed, dismissed or created, the people must have a direct means of 'speaking their peace' (piece... or in common parlance, one's two or three-cents worth).
While expertise may no doubt surface during a general discussion seeking some definitive "best" value, it has no place when general comments are initially being asked for, taken, and placed up for review. Posturing one's own views by projecting some purported label of professional distinction is not actually warranted for purposes of examination of a perspective by the general public. Applied in the present context of discussion, such self-esteemed perspectives want a collective vote of confidence from the general public, but don't want the general public to have a similarly esteemed voice as expressed by a voting process of referendum. The myriad comments offered by the general public are devalued not only because the public is not permitted to arrive at any concerted opinion, but that the valued opinions to be considered do not surface for long, due to the currently practiced political process, and those that do— are permitted a louder voice because they actually amount to very little in terms of developed policies, procedures, or laws. In other words, those who think they have better ideas also think it is a waste of time to promote considerations they believe have little, if any chance of survival in the current political process. Thus, we need to change the process.
If one prefers to esteem their perspective in each and every regard and expect a similar level of reverence from like-minded others, then the discussion is not really meant for those whose mind are differentially oriented. Likewise for those who wish to impress upon others that they have some unique talent, giftedness, genius or general aptitude for a given task such as developing government policy; by presenting information in a format of language meant to obfuscate the simple structure of an occasion into something difficult to comprehend. The word "doublespeak" is sometimes used to describe the language employed by politicians who are pretending to communicate an understanding of a problem and its resolution, but actually have little grasp of a situation other than to describe a circumstance as if having heard it as a story several generations removed from its origin... like someone using an official public ceremony to plant artificially fragranced plastic plants as an answer to the problem of a drought because they are too busy being involved with "more important" matters, which helps them to conceal an underlying laziness about turning on a garden sprinkler.
Promoting the vote for accepting a Cenocracy is the nurturance of a life form from which can emerge different fruit and vegetable bearing views that the present political environment suffocates with varying forms of artificiality. Yet, overall voting remains problematic with respect to its actual usage as an individual, much less collective public voice. If not when, where, how and by whom conducted, then the results of a vote are sometimes questioned. Throughout history we have examples of voting taking place by those thinking they are privileged to participate, or that permission to do so was granted as a gift, or as a charity, and not necessarily as a birth right. The problems not only involve what is voted on, but by how that which is voted on thereafter becomes written into policy or law. No less, problems occur when such a policy or law is to be interpreted by those whose inclinations may be biased... despite a claim for infallibility or Constitutional decree such as in the case of Supreme Court Justices. And, we might want to also include those problems with the selection of a candidate, as the result of a vote... which very often leaves the public with selecting between the lesser of two evils because processes and procedures makes it unlikely, or impossible for a larger pool of candidates to be provided. In effect, conditions under which a vote takes place can be an exclusionary means for including the existence of an active form of prejudice being practiced in governing processes... which could, but do not address. The public indeed is dealt a hand from a stacked deck to favor the process and procedure over the people themselves.
...Such a public mindset is considerably troublesome when it becomes a persistent, self-defeating prophesy for the public and Nation as a whole. But such a perspective goes from bad to worse by becoming culturally-entrenched when a chosen candidate does not produce some result that may be due to an over-valued and unrealistic expectation. While the circumstance has various personal dimensions of origination such as unachieved goals, an unexpected medical issue, loss of income, or some other personally defined loss; these circumstances become compounded by being suffused and inter-mingled with many examples of negative human conduct occurring in various sectors of society as displayed by media reports. It is a disheartening and sorrowful level of despair, or (so -to- speak), a widespread poverty of hope that may be caricatured as a beast of burden trudging along with a basket filled wealth of hopelessness and helplessness traveling along a road of false democracy. This falsity breeds a public weariness brought about by a brow-beating wariness of government sponsored illusions to conceal personalized ulterior motives which reinforce inactivity or legislate laws that result in both anti-government and anti-public sentiments. More often than not, these sentiments are left unspoken and instead are worn as a heavy hat that other thoughts yield to and cast one's vision downward... preventing the people from seeing anything but a detour, coin-flipping crossroads, or dead end sign— because the present form of democracy has put an unforeseen set of blinders on them.
Along with these blinders some readers might include the metaphor of a harness that becomes fashioned into a type of bad luck charm for which is sought some equally proportionate good luck charm in the form of more government action... because government policies do not empower the public to have a collective individual voice and have their will become the law of the land. Instead, the government breeds dependency and strips away efforts towards establishing creative self expression... though a few do acquire some semblance thereof. Unfortunately, despite well-meaning intentions, the public is subjected to more-of-the-same by way of receiving a new saddle, new bit, and overall new harnessing measures... even the drivers may change, they still rely on the same methodology of traveling around in a circle like a horse being walked by a rotating machine. The machine in this case being the form of democracy being used. Changing its color, speed, name or reversing its direction, does not necessarily change the underlying pattern of routine to benefit the horse. The horse must be permitted to drink from the trough it prefers... because it is commonly taken as a point of fact that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.
Under such a system of governance as the type of democracy being practiced, attempts at expressing one's individualism frequently occur by engaging in some form of inebriation (drugs, alcohol, extremism, etc...), or criminality. In effect, such activities are reflections of compensatory attempts to regain a muted voice of self expression. Everyone else defines their rights of liberty, freedom, equality and justice by way of some selectively rationalized isolationism (even though they may be in close proximity to hundreds of others), with or without one or more specific participators. In short, the public's voice is being muted by a form of democracy that expects the public to vocalize a parroting of the visions illustrated by our historical forefathers and mothers; which were in fact, in many cases, little more than fanciful illusions and delusions of grandeur because they were contoured by a democracy based on hypocrisy. While we have tried to dispell the effects of their hypocrisy by way of enlisting the aide of amendments to the Constitution, such as redefining the Right to Vote, one of the foremost hypocrisies remain: That of actual self-Representation.
Just because a country began with a particular formula of Representation, does not mean the formula is to be held as an inviolable standard. Like voting, the type of Representation presently being used needs to be modified by an amendment... even though the quantity of amendments needed for a changed world actually calls for a new Constitution to be written... by the whole of a nation. Whereas colonial Americans made a Declaration of Independence in order to gain self-representation for the purposes of making decisions and voting on measures deemed necessary for the enhancement of their lives, those in the government of today can not see the present circumstances as requiring a new form of government that can be formed by making a Declaration For Greater Independence. They erroneously think that some revolutionary form of change is going to take place if certain people acquire a particular government position. Most often, simply replacing one candidate for another, irrespective of what political party they belong to, does not accomplish some dramatic result for improving the lives of everyone. Candidates, including the President, primarily perform the function of an office manager... someone who maintains a status quo or effect a change effecting the lives of others without these others being given a chance to voice their collective opinion by way of a Referendum. Very few are what may be referred to as a "Path finder", in that they have no real applicable vision for improving circumstances, other than to interpret themselves as a representation of some historical idea or ideal, though the actual reality may be far from this truth because it is a self-engendered exaggeration.
With respect to voting as an exercise in self-representation, such cherished individualism frequently becomes a practiced segregation because governments create policies, procedures and laws which permit an application of prejudice under the guise of distorted truth. This prejudice is illustrated by laws of the land uniformally being the product of vicarious forms of representation, such as a Congress, Parliament or Council, instead of by the people themselves... as if the people were a bunch of village idiots, though these same idiots are permitted to vote in the so-called more intelligent, more wise, more knowledgable Representatives that otherwise claim themselves to be "one of the people"! Whereas on the one hand the people are said to be able to participate in their government by voting in their choice of a Representative, but the representative value of their own voice is not a viable choice! If the people must have a Representative to make decisions for them, then it stands to reason, by this same convoluted logic, that the Representatives taken from the public at large, because they claim to be one of the village idiots (when it suits them); that they too should likewise have Representatives... which of course is the people themselves. If the situation wasn't so serious it would be comical, though some readers might prefer to say that it's so comical it is serious!
One stark example of a problem with a voting procedure is the laughable perversity of democracy expressed by the usage of an Electoral College for the selection of a President in the United States. The excuse, used as a "reason" to use this format is that it provides a compromise between the alternatives of a popular vote, appointment, or inheritance. Even though there should be no need for the people to make such an accommodation, particularly without ever being given an opportunity to vote on this ridiculously noted "equality" framed with a democratic scroll around its borders, it is incredulous to think the American public would stand for such nonsense. There is no need to accommodate or compromise their right to have the collective choice of their will to be manifested. They should not be subjected to a pathetic exercise of public vote manipulation. Something is terribly wrong with the design of a democracy which defines liberty by way of restricting it from being collectively exercised. What is wrong with Americans? They have fought so often for various freedoms for others only to sacrifice and permit its expression thereof to be enslaved by an antiquated system of social self-governance? The world's peoples laugh hysterically at such an hypocrisy of democracy.
Voting, characteristically, is a privilege of citizenship that very often is guaranteed by a Constitution, which may include an additional provision as mandated by a Bill-of-Rights.
A Privileged citizenship, in terms of voting, is presently perforced as an act of charity endowed by the State to every child as a potential right to be exercised, though voting age is standardized by given laws to exclude those who have not reached a particular age, or some other criteria might well be used.
The usage of the word "charity" in the presence sense, by way of an historical reflection, gives an acknowledgment to the fact that voting was "bestowed" on one or another selective group, by yet another selective group acting as the "State", and was not necessarily acquired by way of a vote in a Referendum involving an entire citizenry or inhabitants not 'privileged' by being recognized as a voting citizen.
Whereas The "State" in a Peoples government should be represented by all the people, it has often been implicitly, if not overtly viewed and accepted as representing a select authoritative few.
While the "act of charity" as a provisional right to vote when one has reached a given criteria, such as age, can be guaranteed, the privilege for guaranteeing the charitable act as a Bill-of-Rights mandate is not ensured without the participation of each individual casting a one person- one vote voice of approval or negation.
Refusal to vote should rightly resort in at least the loss of the privilege to vote for a given period of time, instead of requiring a fee to be paid for a right not to have to vote...
Considerations for a loss of citizenship and many of its privileges, including the right to vote, is already effected by periods of incarceration. While such losses have been considered to be an effective deterrent to some activities, its application in non-criminal cases would then have to create a system of laws in terms of a dichotomy, which may or may not be of value in particular situations... so long as it is approved of by the people in a referendum process.
Incapacitation or inability to cast a vote due to circumstances beyond human control does not typically invalidate a person's citizenship and accompanying rights.
Whereas a person may reject to exercising their right to vote, they do not have a similar right to reject a compliance with a law they had an opportunity to vote against.
Voting, with respect to government and governing issues in a government that is predicated on the premise of being a government that is Of, By, and For the people, should be a privileged act of self-representative citizenship that must be owned, operated and maintained by the people.
A person could be given the right to vote on a National issue in any National venue, thus requiring the usage of interactive National identity recognition processes. Attempts to deliberately vote more than once under the same name or some alias, can be addressed by measures involving vote tampering. An "Absentee" voter status does not apply since the person is not, in effect, absent from the nation if they are within its jurisdiction.
A person could also be given the right to vote in a different city or state, but that the "temporary" change in venue for the purposes of voting for or against a specific issue or candidate, will need to be effected at the beginning of a year and have some residence there for at least six months, if not longer.
A deliberate tampering of any part or portion of the voting procedure should be considered as treason when such is against:
- A person's privilege to vote their own conscience.
- The voting collection process.
- The voting tabulation, results and public display thereof.
Any act of tampering by a public servant in any capacity should receive the appropriate legal penalty. (If such a person was under orders, or manipulated by a superior, the determination must be made whether the superior, the actor and the superior, or the actor alone should receive the penalty as proscribed by law under the circumstances in which it occurred.)
If the superior is an internal corporation or government/entity, incredibly harsh sanctions, such as the loss of all contracts, tax supports, etc., must be applied. In the event.)
Any act of tampering by a non-public servant citizen should, depending on circumstances, receive the death penalty or life imprisonment with no chance of parole or pardon without a nationally 'referendumed' decision. (If under orders, or manipulated by a superior, the determination must be made whether the superior, they and the superior, or they alone should receive the appropriate legal penalty. If the superior is a corporation or government/entity, incredibly harsh sanctions, such as the loss of all contracts, tax supports, pension, etc., may well be applied.)
Any act of tampering by a non-citizen should receive the death penalty. (If under orders, or manipulated by a superior, the determination must be made whether the superior, they and the superior, or they alone should receive the death penalty. If the superior is a corporation or government/entity, incredibly harsh sanctions, such as the loss of all contracts, tax supports, etc., must be applied. A state of War can only be sanctioned by a national referendum.)
Those who attempt to vote by any deliberate falsification of identity should be viewed as having committed treason against the people.
- Every citizen should automatically be registered to vote and the legal age of voting determined by a national/international referendum.
For example, to deny the right of self-representative citizenship to those who are socially viewed as old enough to serve in the military or get married, and yet have not reached the legal voting age is a serious infringement-of-civil-rights when these same individuals may be taught citizenship in schools and are expected to:
Act like an adult with social responsibilities... or
Believe their citizenship is the best in the world and think accordingly in a civic-minded manner... but are denied an ability to vote... or
Claim it is their duty to sacrifice their life, if necessary, ...for a country that denies them the ability to vote. Equal Rights means Equal Rights and not an exercise of an elitist double-standard hypocrisy. It is a fault-ridden methodology of social standards pedagogy bought and paid for by a ruling elite that insidiously undermines society's desire to teach students civic-minded honesty, openness, and fairness. Persons that are socially deemed too immature to vote their own conscience should likewise be considered similarly too irresponsible for dating, much less military service or marriage. Such double-standard denials are no less than State-defined competency voting measures with no citizen-approved test ever being administered.
Every citizen has the responsibility in exercising the maintenance of citizenship rights through an act of voting.
Those who deliberately refuse to vote, not based on any physical or mental incapacity, should be registered as a non-voting citizen and removed from the privileged status of receiving benefits that citizens as a whole have procured through the collective efforts of voting. But voting for or against a political candidate is different than voting for or against a specific provision. For a simplistic form of comparison, voting can be looked upon as paying one's Union dues. However, in context, it should be seen in the light captured by the notion of "Union" when one speaks of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or the Union when one makes reference to the collection of states in America.
For example,
If a country practices social medicine, this privilege of citizenship can be denied those who deliberately refuse to vote on public issues.
Those who refuse to vote and commit felonies can be denied legal due process and receive penalties not governed by laws intended for citizens who commit felonies.
Those who refuse to vote could be denied standards of law guaranteeing a minimum wage.
Those who, in any way, shape or form deliberately cause, create, or interfere with a competent person's attempts to vote, should be viewed as committing an act of treason and receive the appropriate penalty as determined by law.
Such deliberations may involve:
Attempting others to agree with their view that one or more people are mentally incompetent when they actually aren't.
Attempting to stall or delay a person's attendance at a place and time of voting.
Attempting to alter or insure a certain voting outcome through some form of manipulating vote tally procedures and methods.
A person (or group) that is found to be mentally incompetent to vote, (whether they are pretending to be or actually are), should be "institutionalized" by way of legal observances. "Institutionalization" is to be defined and ratified into law by the people. Those found to be mentally incompetent to vote and thus unable to receive standard citizenship privileges may not be a danger to society and can thus be cared for in residential treatment facilities (as opposed to incarcerated hospitalization), or even by family members suited to providing such care.
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Privileged citizenship should never be viewed as a a guaranteed act of charity for those who do not honor valued rights gained by so many who lost their lives trying to acquire cherishable freedoms. Whereas voting is a privilege of citizenship, citizenship is not necessarily a privilege given or taken by a vote of the total citizenry permitted to vote. |
All voting ballots should contain the selection (some wording to the effect of) a "No Measure Confidence" which indicates that the voter has no confidence in any of the measures being provided. In the circumstance of voting for a person, the selection a (some wording to the effect of) "No Candidate Confidence" should be provided. In the event that the majority of voters choose (some wording to the effect of) a "No Confidence Selection," there also should be provided a "Write-in Provision" in order that their alternative choice, if any, can be made known. If local politics is bogged down by a stalemate, it may be necessary for a larger body of people to get involved in order to address issues requiring a perspective and objectivity that is obscured by those too close to a situation.
With respect to the United States, voting is seen by many as being less than the IDEAL of Democracy it purports to. In a recent (and following) article, though many readers would claim it to be hypocritical since it comes from a Russian, whether they are a politician or not, several FACTUAL faults of the American voting system are pointed out. However, counter-arguments with respect to the faults of the Russian voting system are also FACTUAL. Yet, neither cultures do anything to correct the faults. Politicians like the faults because they believe it provides them with leverage against the public. Both the American and Russian peoples are forced to participate in rigged systems.
By Gabriela Baczynska and Timothy Heritage of Reuters
Possibly in tit-for-tat with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vladimir Churov, head of Russia's Central Election Commission, slams U.S. election process.
MOSCOW - Tired of being lectured on democracy, the man known in Russia as "The Magician" for overseeing fraud-marred elections won by Vladimir Putin turned the tables on Wednesday by lambasting the U.S. electoral system.
Using language usually reserved for U.S. and European criticism of Russia, Vladimir Churov said American voters will choose a president on Tuesday under an electoral system that is flawed and undemocratic.
Churov, a Putin ally, may still have been smarting over U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's suggestion that Russia's parliamentary election last December was "neither free nor fair."
"The U.S. presidential election is not direct, not universal and not equal, and it does not safeguard the secrecy of voting," Churov, who heads Russia's Central Election Commission, wrote in the government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta's online edition.
"The electoral system and electoral laws in the United States are far from perfect. They are contradictory, archaic and do not correspond to the democratic principles the United States has declared as the basis of its foreign and domestic politics."
He cited a long list of shortcomings such as U.S. methods for registering and identifying voters, vote monitoring which he said was inefficient and mechanisms for casting ballots which he described as questionable.
Washington is unlikely to enjoy being taken to task on democracy by an official from its former Cold War enemy, which also condemned its human rights track-record earlier in October.
The conduct of elections in Russia, which emerged from decades of communist rule in 1991, has regularly been criticized by foreign observers, including the United States.
The irony was also not lost on some Russians. A message sent on a Twitter account pretending to be an official comment by the Russian Foreign Ministry likened Churov's comments to the head of a Russian car company criticizing U.S. automobiles.
RIGHTS GROUP DISMISSES "PROPAGANDA"
A leading human rights activist described Churov's five-page article as "state propaganda" intended to deflect attention from Russia's own democratic failings.
"What is really important is the spirit of the law and of democracy and of elections," said Grigory Melkonyants, deputy head of Western-funded election monitoring group Golos. "Nobody can question that in regard to the United States. Elections there produce totally legitimate authorities, unlike here."
Note: Grigory Melkonyants gives the United States an "A" for practicing some nebulously described "spirit of the law" which, in his mind, magically produces legitimate authorities. What nonsense! Any absurdity can be legitimized. If you're the only sane person in a room full of crazy people, than the opinion of the majority is viewed as sanity and the person who is sane is viewed as insane... but not dangerous to the collective opinion. In other words, America practices a shoddy form of Democracy. America's fallacious Democracy is moralized into something great because it has few recorded abuses... but oh so many occur... it just hides them better than other countries. When it is caught, it trumpets the excesses of others more loudly or starts a war to cover up its criminalities.
Churov, 59, dismissed opposition allegations of widespread fraud in the parliamentary election won by Putin's United Russia party last December and the presidential election in March.
Opposition leaders started referring to him as "The Magician" when United Russia held on to its parliamentary majority. Churov dismissed the allegations and said Putin's victory reflected the popular will.
At least some of his views on the U.S. electoral system are shared by others in the political establishment in Russia.
The Foreign Ministry last week said the U.S. State department liked to preach to the rest of the world on democracy and human rights but hinted that it was not always quick to apply these principles on its own soil.
This was a reference to efforts in Texas to ensure international election monitors do not violate a law that bars unauthorized people from entering polling stations.
Russian officials remain sensitive to U.S. criticism and are quick to respond in kind when the
opportunity arises, despite attempts by U.S. President Barack Obama - who is in a tight election race against Republican Mitt Romney - to "reset" ties four years ago.
The two veto-wielding U.N. Security Council members still disagree on a number of issues ranging from the conflict in Syria to missile defense.