[OT] "The Condescending UI" (was: Do we need Win95/98/Me support?)

[foobar]

On Tuesday, 24 January 2012 at 23:17:15 UTC, Nick Sabalausky 
wrote:
> "foobar" <foo at bar.com> wrote in message 
> news:teutlxbmxkyzvyrqgyiy at dfeed.kimsufi.thecybershadow.net...
>>
>> There is this phenomena in the US where some people feel that 
>> they have the right to be ignorant but they ought to realize 
>> that this isn't a core human right and it slowly degrades 
>> society in such a way that they lose all other rights and 
>> freedoms. People should educate themselves and be responsible 
>> for their votes and actually do vote. In my country (Israel) 
>> an elections with ~67% of people voting was the lowest 
>> percentage ever and usually it's closer to 80%. in the USA 
>> it's closer to 50%. That isn't even a majority of the 
>> population!
>>
>
> I agree that if someobody's *going* to vote, they have a moral 
> responsibility to be informed about what it is they're voting 
> on (and the biased handwavy-propaganda-with-no-real-information 
> we get bombarded with from each side doesn't count). And it's 
> *absolutely* best to be informed and then vote.
>
> But real legitimate information (as opposed to 
> non-informational emotional, and frankly patronizing, 
> propaganda: And I mean propaganda quite literally) is 
> surprisingly difficult to find in this supposedly free country. 
> The real information is essentially hidden by those who prefer 
> us to vote emotionally - that way we're more easily swayed. And 
> the US is such a goddamn rat race, many people just simply 
> can't afford the time to dig through the mountains of bullshit: 
> they're too busy trying to keep the bills paid.
>
> And if for that reason, or any other legitimate *or* 
> illigitimate reason, when somebody *isn't* informed, it's 
> downright socially irresponsible for them to vote (but many do 
> anyway, and that's part of why american elections have 
> degenerated into little more than popularity contests).
>
>> The current situation is directly connected to the ignorance 
>> and lack of caring by the people. After all, a democratic 
>> government comes from the people and represents the people. 
>> Clearly, the citizens of the USA didn't care enough.
>
> It's not so much apathy. Mostly, we've just lost faith in 
> politicians (and not without reason). Besides, to borrow from 
> South Park, we're usually faced with a choice between a giant 
> doucebag and a shit sandwich: We all lose no matter how the 
> vote turns out. At the very least, that 50% turnout is a big 
> vote for "We need a candidate who doesn't have their head up 
> their ass."

All I can offer is my local experience and the common sense that 
if you ain't gonna fix your problem yourself no one else would do 
it for you (and yes, I do realize that's hard, takes time, money, 
effort, determination, etc while you still have to pay those 
bills)
In our local political system when people aren't pleased with 
current parties they just start new ones. Granted that this isn't 
perfect and has many problems  and we have way too many parties 
*but* on the other side, it also means that some parties lose 
relevance and disappear while new ones emerge. Hence it's more 
dynamic and can adapt better to change. I think this general 
pattern can be applied in various degrees to many EU countries. A 
good example would be the pirate party in Sweden. This is like 
Kirk's solution for the Kobayashi Maru scenario :)

In that sense, I don't subscribe to the notion that the only 
option is to select between two kinds of smelly shit cause you 
are left with shit in your hands no matter what and that is 
clearly not the definition of democracy.