A wise man once said, "Those who vote in elections decide nothing. Those who count the votes in elections decide everything."

It's a miracle than often happens in the Hispanic world when Socialists are in charge of the elections.

In order to prevent this, big political parties usually have representatives in every polling station, checking the number of people that cast votes and their identity and informing about any irregularity.

T. J. Madison: "A wise man once said, 'Those who vote in elections decide nothing. Those who count the votes in elections decide everything.'"

In some countries and some contexts, but not in others.

Here, votes within political parties (and particularly within one political party) to elect candidates for elections, are deeply corrupt and have been attended with gross criminal violence.

On the other hand, real elections are incorruptible. People volunteer for electoral worker duties for the right reasons, and they do their civic duty cheerfully and well, that's all. Srutineering, that is checking paper ballots for irregularities and counting them, is also on the up and up. I've counted a lot of votes, and I decided nothing, except for occasionally making a judgement and/or deciding whether to agree with or challenge a judgment as to what a voter meant by a sloppily filled-in ballot. (Naturally, all decisions have to be agreed on by scrutineers representing different parties contesting the election.) It's fast, straightforward, and as un-sinister as you can imagine. When you do it, you don't know if you're counting a tiny part of a landslide for or against your side. Nobody could be in a weaker position to cheat shrewdly, and I've never heard of anybody trying it.

It's a beautiful thing to work as a volunteer in elections in a country where elections are honest, whether you do it in a non-partisan way supervising the polling places and bringing in the vote, or whether you do it in a partisan way counting and certifying the vote. To me it's a civic rite that celebrates the essential honesty and decency of the nation, and that people of different parties can apply common sense and work together on the basis of values we all believe in. I strongly recommend anyone of good character to volunteer for such work, at least once. It may make you feel better about your country and democracy.

In a country where that satisfaction is unavailable, because elections really are crooked - I think that's a deep difference. I don't know how to express it, but I can't see how people could feel patriotic in quite the same way I do. You could still hate foreigners and assert the superiority of your crooked country "uber alles" and so on, but patriotism as I understand it? No. When there's no true civic rite of the honest and civil settling of big differences, something that ultimately can't be faked is lost.

I think this is important, though it would be hard to pin down how it is important in practical terms.

DB: Good for you, I have never been free to take a position at the polls, but think it's a great thing to do.

In Texas recently, by the way, the legislature got a lot of unfavorable attention for registering votes of legislators who were not present, and seem to have had other members vote for them. While death wasn't required not to be present, it didn't make the system in that state seem to be on the up and up.

Clearly you do not get out around much. Come to Chicago or Philadelphia. Jokes aside, one of the biggest problems that is not addressed is what will replace Chavez. If the same oligarchical kleptocracy returns to power what real difference will there be? Just like in Iraq we need to figure out how we are going to build a new nation.

A wise man once said, "Those who vote in elections decide nothing. Those who count the votes in elections decide everything."

BTW, that wise man was Joseph Stalin.

Iffy connection prevented me from updated the update above: Chavez is buying fairly new strike fighters from Russia as well as subs.

Watch for pressure on shipping through the Panama Canal.

>>To me it's a civic rite that celebrates the essential honesty and decency of the nation, and that people of different parties can apply common sense and work together on the basis of values we all believe in.

I see. So when one team wins the vote and uses it to legitimize and institutionalize theft from members of the other team, you would have a problem with that, since theft isn't honest and decent, right?

Or am I misunderstanding what you mean by "honesty" and "decency"?

Venezuela has a lot of oil. With that comes corruption. Does not matter who is in power. But the assumtion that the USA can is laughable. It is like Germany invading Poland to create a democracy. To much bad blood to be succesfull even if you assume that the USA has the best interest at heart for Venezuela.

"Maritime Strike Fighters" is kind of an inadequate way to describe the Sukhoi SU-30 family of fighters - which represent Russia's best aircraft. They are in service with a number of countries, and represent the pride of India and China's air forces as well.

I'm assuming we're talking about a SU-30MK variant here, which is the conventional export version. While an F-15E Strike Eagle is a better long-range strike aircraft, in a one on one fight an SU-30MK the edge on any of the USA's F-15s.

It's not just the plane, though. Up against American pilots, backed by their AWACS and other systems, a Venezuelan pilot in his shiny new SU-30 is mincemeat.

the same is not likely to be true for any of Venezuela's neighbours. With a normal operating range of 3,000km, quite a few of them are in range.

Near as I can tell, Chavez is all about a cult of personality not a stable structure. He needs to die yesterday.

I'd have to assume that the purchases aren't meant to intimidate the US, (even is Chavez is truly nuts, I don't think he's nuts enough to think a few pricy toys would seriously affect a direct US attack) but rather Venezuela's neighbors, who might be desuaded from supporting rebels or another coup, even with healthy inducements from the US to do so.

On the other hand, if it came to a shooting war between Venezuela and its neighbors, I don't think the US would have much trouble picking off the flashiest Venezuelan weapons systems without dirtying its hands too much.

Aside... I think we now know where all the dead voters of Chicago go for their summer vacation. :-)

>>Near as I can tell, Chavez is all about a cult of personality not a stable structure. He needs to die yesterday.

Very well then. What is your plan?

T. J. Madison: "I see. So when one team wins the vote and uses it to legitimize and institutionalize theft from members of the other team, you would have a problem with that, since theft isn't honest and decent, right?"

Yes. However the problem would arise only after the elections. During them, my aim would be to conduct them as honestly, fairly and efficiently as possible, and that's all.

"Or am I misunderstanding what you mean by "honesty" and "decency"?"

Not so far.

>>Not so far.

None of the national democracies I'm seen operate on voluntary contributions for its citizens. This means that the governments use resources coercively extracted from the population.

After an election, those representatives then decide how much money will be taken from the population, (including those who voted against them) and how it will be redistributed. This is thievery.

Now, here in Texas, when people come to your house to rob you, it is usually considered socially acceptable to shoot them in the chest with a shotgun. But when the robbers are the "police" acting on behalf of a "duly elected democratic government" come to collect "taxes", the situation is a little different.

That's what I mean by legitimizing and institutionalizing theft from one group (the minority who lost the election) to another group (the magjority who won the election).

If I vote in one of your elections for someone who is committed to not robbing me, and that person loses (the typical result), this does NOT mean that I have consented to robbery at the hands of the victor and his constituency. But advocates of democracy seem to think it does.

OK, that's the point at which we completely differ. I don't buy the taxation as theft thing at all.

And my point wasn't about that.

My interest is in clean elections. I think they have great moral importance.

I don't think you can have the dead voting and the impact is limited to who wins that election.

>>I don't buy the taxation as theft thing at all.

Interesting. I'd like to hear your definition of what theft is.

>>And my point wasn't about that.

The nature of the system for which the elections are held are much more important than whether or not these elections are "fair" in the one-man, one-vote sense. We would not be particularly interested in whether the vote to elect a Mafia Don had fully accurate counting, for example.

T. J. Madison: "We would not be particularly interested in whether the vote to elect a Mafia Don had fully accurate counting, for example."

I would. I take pride in honest elections, even when organised crime has won them, as it sometimes has. (link)

I understand that financial corruption is very important. Especially when it spills into the political arena and poisons that well too, as seems to be happening in Canada. (link)

But corruption of the electoral process, as has happened in the Philippines, is profoundly important in its own right. (sorry - I'm still looking for the story I read on this, so no link) It can rot your state. Rot can be slow - or very fast. It does not have to be easy to recover from.

With a basically healthy democracy, where people are still committed to fundamental democratic values, maybe Al Capone can do what he wants today, but not in future.

Politicians who don't respect the system, who buy their own personality cults and think it's all about whether they win and never mind how, do more harm than they know.

Hugo Chavez seems to be a prime offender against healthy democratic values, in all sorts of ways.

Joe Katzman:
You are going out on a limb by calling for the death of a government leader. You just kicked someone off this site for threatening people whom post here. I think there are many people whom have a list of people they would like to treat like you did. do you really want to go there? If it is what you want, should not you make a case first for this solution.

>>You just kicked someone off this site for threatening people whom post here.

Note that Mugabe, Osama Bin Laden, and Chavez don't post here. Maybe if they came here to defend their views and positions more tact would be in order?

>>With a basically healthy democracy, where people are still committed to fundamental democratic values, maybe Al Capone can do what he wants today, but not in future.

All Al Capone has to do is make sure that majority who voted for him perceive that they get more back in loot than they are forced to pay in, presumably at the expense of the minority. This system of mutual plunder is quite stable, as we see in the US. None of this requires election fraud, though it certainly helps.

What really stabilizes the system is rational ignorace. This is where one person's vote matters so little that it's not worth their time and energy to figure out what's going on. This phenomenon makes influencing the mob with propaganda much easier, and is the main reason why democratic accountablity is so feeble.

T. J. Madison: "If I vote in one of your elections for someone who is committed to not robbing me, and that person loses (the typical result), this does NOT mean that I have consented to robbery at the hands of the victor and his constituency. But advocates of democracy seem to think it does."

You seem to assume here that I am an advocate of democracy. That's right, I am.

I'm also very interested in history, especially the long fight of civilisation (literally: cities, and states with a key urban component, sedentary living and industries such as mining, and the many improvements that can come from evolving bodies of recorded knowledge) against nomadic barbarism and its heirs. From this point of view, statism is a non-issue (and the answer is yes of course) and raising taxes is a non-issue (and the answer again is yes of course). I have no more interest in discussing whether it is legitimate to raise and spend taxes than I have in whether it is legitimate to raise and harvest crops.

T. J. Madison: "All Al Capone has to do is make sure that majority who voted for him perceive that they get more back in loot than they are forced to pay in, presumably at the expense of the minority. This system of mutual plunder is quite stable, as we see in the US."

I don't agree at all with your characterisation of American democracy.

I'm sorry, but I don't think our assumptions or interests match.

My interest in this thread was the importance of clean elections, and the (negative) importance of the corruption of the electoral process. I said my piece. I have nothing to add.