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Phemie
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Unfortunately, now that the Supreme Court has struck down the ban on physician-assisted death for anyone who wants to die, I think that horse has already left the barn.
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UnumCorpus
Guest
Here is some information for you. This article explains what stance each party has taken on physician-assisted suicide:
ctvnews.ca/politics/where-canada-s-political-parties-stand-on-assisted-suicide-1.2223916
It seems that it is only the Conservatives who are outright against it. The Liberals and the Green Party are definitely for it, and the NDP hasn’t made a definitive stance on the issue (though the article states that they view the debate in “a positive light”).
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seagal
Guest
We are truly living in the culture of death.
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Sy_Noe
Guest
Oh ok. I was confused because 3 political parties, liberals, and a political candidate, Stephen Harper were all mentioned.
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Murmurs
Guest
It is of course an entirely valid choice to not vote, either. I’m not sure quite how the Canadian system works but I assume that there is generally not a “none of the above”/re-open nominations (“RON”) option on the ballot paper.
When none of the available options are suitable (if say support of abortion rights is a red line, though given the general consensus in Canada it’s probably not a sensible red line from what I understand!) - it’s IMO entirely reasonable not to cast any vote.
The way the electoral system effectively works at least in British general elections, is that spoiled ballots (eg writing “you all suck” on the ballot) aren’t seen as expressing a political opinion quite as much as not voting at all. People not turning up to vote clearly express extreme distaste in the options available, whereas a spoiled ballot is merely counted and then forgotten about, and no conclusion might be drawn from it (because a “spoiled” paper might also be one where it’s just not quite clear enough for whom one has voted).
So not casting a vote at least where I am from, is a valid form of expression, and frankly one which as time passes has to be more and more considered because the entire conceit of democracy on which our leaders depend for their power, is based on large numbers of people putting Xs next to their names. Not voting sends a message of dissatisfaction - and being apathetic about all the options, is also expressive dissatisfaction and not being inspired by anything, and so still means the same thing.
tl;dr - we always are told we must vote, “people died for that right”, etc… in fact, when every option is in one’s opinion awful, not voting is an equally moral option.
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Phemie
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No, there is no such option on our ballots.
I’ve spoiled my ballot once by writing “I can not vote for any of these candidates.” I know that it didn’t mean squat to anyone but me but I simply couldn’t put an X by any name in that election. I actually cried when I did it, so much do I believe in voting.
Actually, not casting a vote is seen as apathy, not taking a stand for something.
In 4 provinces there is an option to “refuse” or “decline a ballot.” It’s a form of protest that can be used in provincial elections in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta and those ballots are counted unlike those which are spoiled by writing something on them. There has been talk of allowing this in federal elections after a protest, primarily in Alberta, saw people eat their ballots during the 2000 federal election in protest for what they saw as unfairness in the process.
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Andreas_Hofer
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That’s not how I read the Catechism:
2239 It is the duty of citizens to contribute along with the civil authorities to the good of society in a spirit of truth, justice, solidarity, and freedom. The love and service of one’s country follow from the duty of gratitude and belong to the order of charity. Submission to legitimate authorities and service of the common good require citizens to fulfill their roles in the life of the political community.
2240 Submission to authority and co-responsibility for the common good make it **morally obligatory **to pay taxes, to exercise the right to vote, and to defend one’s country:
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Murmurs
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I’m not sure that submission to legitimate authorities (although that’s such a measly broad phrase because based on at least some activities of virtually any government I can think of, there’s some pretty hefty de-legitimating stuff going on) means one has to vote. Unless you live in Australia or a few other countries, authorities do not require you to vote under penalty.
What I was trying - and probably failing! - to express, is that one might have a situation where the best contribution towards a more moral, truthful and just society is not to participate in an election (except by choosing not to participate): that it is a morally valid choice to refuse to vote.
§2240 runs under the assumption that casting one’s vote actually significantly matters. It is not equivalent to supporting the functioning of civil socieity through (eg) paying taxes or defending it through (eg) serving in the military at a time of national threat. Elections to the Canadian House of Commons, like the US House of Representatives, the British Commons, etc, is done entirely on a plurality (“first past the post”) system:
*]This means that an *individual *vote means very little, and has ~0 impact on the result.
*]The impact may be worse than 0, if still small - especially (and here I betray my scant knowledge of Canadian political parties), if a party whose candidate wins the seat ends up being very different in power compared to what they claimed they would be (eg the Liberal Democrats 2010-2015 in the UK.
*]Depending on where you live, voting might take a while (especially if you do it properly and actually read about and think about the options in advance, which is what we should all do) - therefore when the actual impact of the time one spends casting a vote (~0) is considered, the value of that time in doing something else might be more positive (especially if it’s employed doing something to benefit society in some way), and so the expected value of 1-2hrs of spare time is probably higher for almost any individual, than the expected value of voting.
This argument at least makes sense from a kind of consequentialist perspective (and if one is sef important enough to value one’s own time highly!) - instead even of spoiling one’s ballot, one is using one’s time to do something that one actually thinks is positive for the world, or at worst positive for a small group of people.
The Catechism makes casting a vote a kind of moral duty, and is similar to the often articulated “people died so you could…” argument (the latter is of course in one sense true). The argument I’ve just outlined doesn’t entirely undermine this. However the moral-duty-to-vote perspective is absolutely as much a reason NOT to vote - what if you (the would-be voter) DON’T WANT to confer legitimacy on the electoral system?
Ballot spoiling isn’t the answer because even if it is a signal to the political class that one is dissatisfied, it doesn’t say why (no one except vote tellars looks at what’s written). Not voting is a better signal as there are actual demographic data on who didn’t vote, whereas you can’t find out who spoiled their ballot. If one party sees their demographic base isn’t voting, they should (theoretically) realise that they aren’t doing enough - this is almost impossible if everyone turns up and then spoils the paper.
…going to cut here before I hit the character limit…I apologise for this long essay wherein I’m just trying to explain what I mean better!..
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Murmurs
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…Part II…
One could argue I suppose that in an election one is choosing between perhaps bad options and one party or candidate might have something going for them, even if they also have some policies one doesn’t like one bit - they may have an immigration and housing policy that appeals strongly, even if they will cut health care spending and introduce a same sex marriage law (or whatever, I just made that up
). Or one may have personal respect for one’s local MP/Representative and one believes they do a lot of good locally, in which case even if one dislikes his/her party one might one to vote for them (maybe one could vote for a pro-choice Democrat in the US, because the amount of good they do locally exceeds the amount of harm nationally given that their party would support some hypothetical pro-choice initiative with or without their being in the House). If either of these (some good policies/good local candidate) is at all the case - I absolutely think one should vote, and it’s on this basis that I’ve voted in every national and local election since I was old enough. One might not feel this is the case.
However - one is not choosing between some bad options in a one-shot game. Because elections happen again and again every few years, one is choosing them in an ‘iterated’ or ongoing game. One’s choice this time has a (minuscule) impact on the options available next time.
So IF one cares about the tiny impact one’s choice has (say because making these choices contributes to social cohesion or improvement, as others in the thread have pointed out including Andreas who quoted §§2239-40 of the CCC) - then a long-run optimal position might still be to vote if no candidate is good enough, because it STILL influences what happens next time (hopefully being an incentive for more inspiring policies from one party which in future one can eagerly support).
One should, I believe, take a “you have a moral duty to do what will lead to best outcome for society if everyone did it” view of one’s actions. In the long run, withholding votes might be the best thing to do, because it would force would-be politicians to actually earn votes by promising and implementing good policy, rather than rely on the fact that we’ll vote for them because they aren’t as bad as someone else.
Here in the UK, the logic I’ve used would collapse if say UKIP were a more serious force in UK politics (I can’t think of an equally loopy but alarmingly popular party in Canada, sorry!). If one was in Germany in 1933, one probably wouldn’t feel that so little was at stake. Equally, and which is the same thing but backwards, if someone really, really amazing who one believed would make the place much better, came along - either way the expected value of one vote would be higher, even if the likelihood of a single vote making a difference is much the same
Our guiding principle, at the end of the day, is to treat people with love. Except in the Hitler case (Godwin’s Law!) or in the Jesus-for-President case (absurd, I know), I don’t see that the act of voting is actually an automatic embodiment of that principle.
All that said, in the time I have spent constructing this argument, were today an election day in the UK, I could have made it to the polling station, voted, come home, and made a cup of tea, so frankly I think the default position for anyone in a democratic country like Canada or Great Britain would be to vote. If one doesn’t, it should only be because one actually cares about the outcome anyway.
One could argue I suppose that in an election one is choosing between perhaps bad options and one party or candidate might have something going for them, even if they also have some policies one doesn’t like one bit - they may have an immigration and housing policy that appeals strongly, even if they will cut health care spending and introduce a same sex marriage law (or whatever, I just made that up
). Or one may have personal respect for one’s local MP/Representative and one believes they do a lot of good locally, in which case even if one dislikes his/her party one might one to vote for them (maybe one could vote for a pro-choice Democrat in the US, because the amount of good they do locally exceeds the amount of harm nationally given that their party would support some hypothetical pro-choice initiative with or without their being in the House). If either of these (some good policies/good local candidate) is at all the case - I absolutely think one should vote, and it’s on this basis that I’ve voted in every national and local election since I was old enough. One might not feel this is the case.However - one is not choosing between some bad options in a one-shot game. Because elections happen again and again every few years, one is choosing them in an ‘iterated’ or ongoing game. One’s choice this time has a (minuscule) impact on the options available next time.
So IF one cares about the tiny impact one’s choice has (say because making these choices contributes to social cohesion or improvement, as others in the thread have pointed out including Andreas who quoted §§2239-40 of the CCC) - then a long-run optimal position might still be to vote if no candidate is good enough, because it STILL influences what happens next time (hopefully being an incentive for more inspiring policies from one party which in future one can eagerly support).
One should, I believe, take a “you have a moral duty to do what will lead to best outcome for society if everyone did it” view of one’s actions. In the long run, withholding votes might be the best thing to do, because it would force would-be politicians to actually earn votes by promising and implementing good policy, rather than rely on the fact that we’ll vote for them because they aren’t as bad as someone else.
Here in the UK, the logic I’ve used would collapse if say UKIP were a more serious force in UK politics (I can’t think of an equally loopy but alarmingly popular party in Canada, sorry!). If one was in Germany in 1933, one probably wouldn’t feel that so little was at stake. Equally, and which is the same thing but backwards, if someone really, really amazing who one believed would make the place much better, came along - either way the expected value of one vote would be higher, even if the likelihood of a single vote making a difference is much the same
Our guiding principle, at the end of the day, is to treat people with love. Except in the Hitler case (Godwin’s Law!) or in the Jesus-for-President case (absurd, I know), I don’t see that the act of voting is actually an automatic embodiment of that principle.
All that said, in the time I have spent constructing this argument, were today an election day in the UK, I could have made it to the polling station, voted, come home, and made a cup of tea, so frankly I think the default position for anyone in a democratic country like Canada or Great Britain would be to vote. If one doesn’t, it should only be because one actually cares about the outcome anyway.
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