Comment Re:This is because of net neutrality (Score 1) 536
Again, what does this have to do with net neutrality?
Again, what does this have to do with net neutrality?
How on earth would you enforce this idea that everybody votes? Fines? Prison time? How?
How about you go and look at how it's actually implemented in the countries that do that?
TL;DR version: it's fines, but in practice it's virtually unenforced. The fact that it can potentially be enforced, and very occasionally is, seems to be sufficient to drive turnout over 90%, which is "good enough".
Would you allow people to hire proxy services to cast their vote when they cannot be present for some reason that comes up on election day?
No, you just allow people to excuse themselves provided they had a good reason to not vote.
Of course, what IS ridiculous is this idea that we can somehow force people to exercise their right to vote in a country where we cannot universally require photo ID's.
Photo IDs aren't relevant here at all. There's a list of eligible voters, and there's the list of people who voted. When you come and vote you tell your name and it's put down there. Sure, in the absence of ID you can put someone else's name there, and then they'll be marked as voted - but you won't be, so you might get fined. I can't think of any realistic scenario where you'd actually need to check ID to enforce this to a "good enough" level.
But sure, we can have universal photo ID requirements, too. So long as they're free of charge and readily issued, I don't see a problem.
The real problem here is folks don't get taught that it is their civil duty to vote. Really, all they get taught is that it is their civil duty to protest and riot and junk like that. Most are so disillusioned by politics that they feel OUTSIDE the system, when in fact the PRIMARY way to get change is to VOTE. Most cannot be bothered, most think their vote doesn't count, when the truth is that only a vote not cast is the one that doesn't count. So your solution is to pass a new law? Yea, that's the absolute wrong move.
Can you explain how this is different from requiring people to do jury duty? It's also their civil duty, and it also carries fines etc with it if you don't do it.
So then can you explain the difference? It would seem to me that forcing people to make a (sometimes life-or-death!) decision on the immediate fate of someone else is not principally different from forcing them to make a decision on the overall government policy. Either one can be seen as a duty of a citizen of a free state.
Especially since mandatory voting only means mandatory appearance in practice, you don't have to actually cast a vote at all, you just have to sign for your ballot.
Do you believe that jury duty also "goes against freedom"?
If not, then what's the fundamental difference between that and mandatory voting?
Um, not showing up to the polls is effectively saying "NONE OF THE ABOVE"
Except it's not. The point of having "none of the above" on the ballot is that, if most people choose that, elections are considered failed and have to be redone with new candidates. Given turnouts of under 40% in midterms, this would be directly applicable. The idea that you can have a legitimate government elected by less than half of those eligible to vote is ridiculous.
What an absurd setup. If there is a vetted list of candidates in the first place, why not just print all the names on the ballot?
If you want to start banning tech on the grounds that it is only accessible to the rich(er) folk and confers advantages, we should probably start with the Internet.
Fascists economics are economics run by the state, with a number of state-backed corporations. However, the meaning of the word "corporation" in fascist parlance is very different from the regular meaning of that world in English language. It's supposed to be more of an association based on some common industrial affiliation, to act as a single body (hence "corpora") representing the common interests of its members, rather than as a profit making engine. For example, industrial associations are fascist corporations, but so are trade unions and trade guilds (which fascists pushed as an alternative to unions). The proper translation of this term to modern English is "corporate group", in sociological meaning of the word.
This is very different from the present corporation-dominated Western capitalism. Such existed back then, too, and fascists were very much against it.
90% of the work is trivial. But there's a lot of it, so it still takes up most of the time.
If you go around Iceland asking for dóttir to ravish, I suspect it won't be long before you get a taste of some öxi delivered by an angry víkingr.
Well, do you still have elections?
Why bother, though? Since, as you've said, Iceland is tiny, the cost of such an operation would far exceed the gains to be had from forcing long copyright terms on them.
So what you're saying is that the Piraty Party of Iceland is basically the political wing of Alestorm?
His statement is still true, though. Even the most right-wing liberal European parties are nowhere even close to fascism (which doesn't believe in liberties for businesses at all).
Can you show an example of how the New Right supports Italian corporatism (which has a very distinct meaning of the word "corporation")?
New York... when civilization falls apart, remember, we were way ahead of you. - David Letterman