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4th of July Challenge
 
#26
The easiest way to turn people off doing something is to make it mandatory.

There's a specific habit amongst Australian voters of just voting down the length of the ballot, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 with no regard to what candidates they actually like. They just want to not get fined as opposed to actually take part.
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
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#27
Dartz has the right of it - make it mandatory and people will not want to do it any more. Put a penalty on not doing a mandatory action that people don't want to do and people will protest in any way they can.

As for the rest of your post (especially the part about "stopped reading"), read posts 3 and 6 in this thread.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
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#28
That's funny, Rob. I guess that you believe then that in my country we should be having a "Uruguayan Spring" revolt where the people demand that voting should be illegal and we should all go back to being slaves to some military dictator. Any way we can. Just because voting is mandatory. I don't think you get how insulting your remarks have been.
About the "read the whole post" thing: My original post detailed at the end how every effort is made to FACILITATE voting. I was specific about it.You answered by linking to a disparaging macho fantasy about how the way to remove the right of women to vote is to make it mandatory only for them and make it as BURDENSOME as possible so they will realize they aren't equipped to handle it and welcome a return to the old statu quo of being barefoot and pregnant.Frankly, it does not look like you read my whole post. Or else you did and decided to make a strawman argument deliberately. You being canadian (if that was the point you were trying to make) doesn't change that, it just invalidates one possible reason I came up with for not having read or understood my post.
Dartz, thanks for your comment about Australia. It's interesting. And also very sad. I hope it is not too widespread or elections there must be effectively rigged for the first in the list.
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#29
Knowing the US anyway, if anyone did try and implement such a system... it would be made very hard for certain specific people to vote (Usually those demographics and localities that normally vote against the party introducing the system). Not only denying them the vote in this election, but in future elections because, y'know, failing in your civic duty is a felony... and you know what happens to convicted felons,?

If there's one certain in US politics, what can be abused, will be abused.
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#30
Ah, yeah, felony disenfranchisement... Another nice gimmick for vote suppression.
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#31
nemonowan Wrote:That's funny, Rob. I guess that you believe then that in my country we should be having a "Uruguayan Spring" revolt where the people demand that voting should be illegal and we should all go back to being slaves to some military dictator. Any way we can. Just because voting is mandatory. I don't think you get how insulting your remarks have been.
Please stop putting words in my mouth - that's very rude.

If you don't understand what I'm saying, then ask. You haven't done that yet.

nemonowan Wrote:About the "read the whole post" thing: My original post detailed at the end how every effort is made to FACILITATE voting. I was specific about it.
You answered by linking to a disparaging macho fantasy about how the way to remove the right of women to vote is to make it mandatory only for them and make it as BURDENSOME as possible so they will realize they aren't equipped to handle it and welcome a return to the old statu quo of being barefoot and pregnant.
Did we read the same story? That isn't what the one I linked to was saying.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
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#32
Quote:robkelk wrote:
Did we read the same story? That isn't what the one I linked to was saying.
Ehm, yes it does. Or it can atleast be very easily interpreted as such.
Quite frankly, if you made voting as onerous for men as it was for the women in that story they wouldn't want to vote either. As I noted on post 13 in this thread the problem isn't enfranchising the population.
The problem is getting them invested in voting.
That means that you don't require them to vote for every little thing, as well as creating a culture that in some way glorifies casting your vote and let the populace feel that voting actualy has an impact on politics. Getting them invested in the promises the candidates and parties make and forcing those same candidates and parties to actually follow through on them (or explain why they won't) could be part of this.
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#33
yeah that story was F'd up. The women had to vote, but it was still men that decided what to vote on and how often votes were called.

Were women even allowed to compete for the positions they were forced to vote for? Judging by the attitudes of the King and company, probably not.

When you're forced to do something, but get no benefit from it, that's seems like just another form of slavery.
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin
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#34
I see that the fine art of satire is indeed dead ...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
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#35
Quote:robkelk wrote:

I see that the fine art of satire is indeed dead ...
Blame the internet Rob. Folks will believe anything on the internet because....it's on the internet!
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell
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#36
And coming in quickly during a break in the weekend's schedule, I got a 52. I got half the SCOTUS justices, mainly because I know what Ruth Bader Ginsberg looks like, I went to college with Sonia Sotomayor (and those two make choosing the third female justice easy) and I know that Clarence Thomas is black. Oh, and that Scalia is the oldest man on the court, IIRC. And I have to admit I guessed on 3 of the references in part 12.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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#37
Scalia is the oldest?  Ouch.  I have to admit I resorted a bit of ethnic profiling with regard to him (the picture I thought looked most like a stereotype of Italian), because otherwise I had NO idea.
Of course, being able to match Justices' names to faces isn't in itself really a very good measure of civic knowledge.  It would be more appropriate and useful to test our awareness of whether and how much each generally leans to left or right.  [pause]  Oh, dear.  I wouldn't do enormously well on that measure, either.
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Big Brother is watching you.  And damn, you are so bloody BORING.
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#38
Quote:DHBirr wrote:
Scalia is the oldest?  Ouch.  I have to admit I resorted a bit of ethnic profiling with regard to him (the picture I thought looked most like a stereotype of Italian), because otherwise I had NO idea.
Of course, being able to match Justices' names to faces isn't in itself really a very good measure of civic knowledge.  It would be more appropriate and useful to test our awareness of whether and how much each generally leans to left or right.  [pause]  Oh, dear.  I wouldn't do enormously well on that measure, either.
On the left side - Kagan, Sotomayor, Ginsburg, Breyer
On the right side - Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas
Swing vote, but leans toward the right - Kennedy
Edit: You can points subtracted if you were denied citizenship. No.4, I did not answer ,because non-partisanship is something I have to do., but you get 2 points for everything you answer. No.2 you get 10 points if you say yes.
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell
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#39
44, cold turkey.  And I didn't even TRY the Supremes.  I do wish it would tell me what questions I got wrong, though -- it'd be interesting to know.  And just how many points was each question worth, anyway?
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#40
Quote:nemonowan wrote:
Rob, please elaborate on how a puerile mysoginistic fantasy attack against the british suffragettes relates to the actual, well-functioning, electoral process of a real country (Uruguay)
Or did you reach the word "mandatory" in my post and stopped reading in a pique of  "Me proud yankee! Me not registered or mandated by any government!" ?
 Um.... Rob's an Australian.  HTH, HAND.
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#41
Quote:SkyeFire wrote:
44, cold turkey.  And I didn't even TRY the Supremes.  I do wish it would tell me what questions I got wrong, though -- it'd be interesting to know.  And just how many points was each question worth, anyway?
one of the links at the bottom, after it computes your score, is the option to see what you got wrong. It will also tell you the correct answers and how much each was worth.
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy
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#42
SkyeFire Wrote:
Quote:nemonowan wrote:Rob, please elaborate on how a puerile mysoginistic fantasy attack against the british suffragettes relates to the actual, well-functioning, electoral process of a real country (Uruguay)

Or did you reach the word "mandatory" in my post and stopped reading in a pique of "Me proud yankee! Me not registered or mandated by any government!" ?
Um.... Rob's an Australian. HTH, HAND.
Er... That would be quite the commute to work every day.

(Right Commonwealth, wrong country. I'm Canadian.)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
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#43
Could've also been a typo too.
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#44
Hmm, easy. I got a 67. The only things I "missed" were not having enough cash to do philanthropy, and there not being enough off-year elections in California for me to get the full 20 points. I'm not sure being able to recognize the blurry faces of the nine justices is really the best test for citizenship. I'd prefer to throw in a few questions like "Which of these primates is most closely related to humans" and "what is the value of c in E = mc²", myself.

All of you who aren't American, I'm quite impressed at the scores you got. I can't name a single member of the UK's Supreme Court or High Court, nor anyone who has been elected to serve in Canberra.
-- ∇×V
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#45
Eh, Rob, Rod... I was only one letter off.
_>
(insert emoticon for "totally embarrassed but trying not to show it too obviously" here)
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