There are a lot of issues on the front burner right now that would fall in that bracket and net neutrality isn't the most pressing one by a very long shot so why would you let your vote hinge on that one issue?
It's not a one way street, and never has been. Of course, neither is the disregard of what people say that isn't the supported by concrete, substantive action that it engenders.
And yes, voters cold-calling senators is an incredibly unreliable way to know who cares about what. I am astounded that it is still that efficient. I guess many candidates haven't figured yet that a lot of people can lie.
Personally I wouldn't say "I will vote for you if you do X or Y". Given the current political climate, I would present myself as a republican voter who has doubts "and really, this net neutrality things really makes it hard for me. I don't really see why I should go vote for either side now."
They wont believe someone who pretends they can switch on a single issue but their current fear is that their base won't come on election day.
Every issue in the US is one of tremendous privilege. Recognizing that doesn't change anything.
Off the top of my head I can’t name another issue that has support by majorties of both parties. This is an issue that is most likely to gain sympathy of Republican senators and most likely to result in an instance of the peoples' interest outwaying corporate interests.
Instead of encouragement we have jaquesm here to let us know that you follow American politics pretty closely and we should all concentrate on something else. I do not subscribe to your patronizing attitude.
Are we just supposed to pretend that all issues are equal? People aren't going to die because the nets aren't neutral. People are going to die based on our health care policy, whether we go to war, whether we can prevent nuclear proliferation.
The author of the comment you call patronizing made no statement on whether or not he's happy that people are involved in the political process. I know I'm happy about it, but I also think single issue voting on net neutrality is stupid. These views are not linked.
In summary, net neutrality is important but there are more important issues in America at the moment. It's not patronizing to point that out.
Probably not very many as a first-order effect, no.
> People are going to die based on our health care policy, whether we go to war, whether we can prevent nuclear proliferation.
And a narrow range of corporations with a fairly tight alignment on policy preferences controlling media access affects long term ability of the public to understand thode issues, organize efforts around them, and achieve positive results.
Which is why a lot wide-view activist organizations that aren't particularly focussed on tech issues have made it a priority, when they do normally focus on the issues you have concerns about make it a priority.
Yes, and people are going to die based on our self-driving car policies, our affordable housing policies, our food subsidy policies, our energy policies, our alcohol policies, our gambling policies, our foreign aid policies, etc.
The crippling of the Internet via poor net policies could hamper technologies that ultimately would have saved billions.
You are presumptuous to claim your issues are more important than any of these others.
We know that some people without access to medical care will die. You're saying it's okay to gamble those people's lives on the chance that future lives might be saved. Obviously a balance between spending on research and health care must be struck so this isn't a black and white issue but you would need to put forth a pretty convincing argument that a lack of net neutrality would prevent us from saving billions for me to buy that.
For the record, I do not support single issue voting at all. There is no issue that outweighs the others.
I also think the idea that someone who was going to vote based on a single issue would choose something as trivial as net neutrality is particularly ridiculous when there are so many other issues where life hangs in the balance.
That actually sounds like an argument for allowing patients the option of a "fast lane" to their hospital for telemedicine and monitoring with higher priority than Netflix and YouTube.
This happens every time a double-blind medical trial takes place.
> as trivial as net neutrality is particularly ridiculous when there are so many other issues where life hangs in the balance.
Trivial to you.
>is particularly ridiculous when there are so many other issues where life hangs in the balance.
If immediacy of life is the sole thing driving your decision behavior, you should quit your job and go help people in developing nations. Some people need to do this. But others also need to focus on longer-term things that promote a better economy that leads to new technologies and surpluses to advance the quality of human life.
It’s not a big issue for me but I can see why it is for others. People need to get involved and active. I’m not going to discourage anyone from doing this.
There is always a more important issue on the horizon. There’s always some cause that is more important. We don’t all get up in arms over the same things. To me climate change is the most important issue facing humans. I’ll advocate this position but my arrogance is not so great as to belittle someone else's pet cause.
So I’m not going to tell you that health care policy is a stupid issue to get energized about when the climate is changing.
If someone was going to vote on the single issue of whether or not we should make it illegal to have more than 17,000,000 butterflies in a room smaller than 100'x100' I would have no problem telling them that their pet issue is stupid and there are other things they should care about more.
I don't see why that principle shouldn't hold for other issues. Obviously net neutrality is something we should be concerned about but a single issue voter says it's the only thing we should be concerned about. That's just not true.
If we elect a government who reinstates net neutrality and proceeds to immediately launch a nuclear missile at Moscow, will the 20 minutes that half of the US population got to enjoy net neutrality matter?
Thank you for definitively letting me know that
Obviously net neutrality is something we should be concerned about but a single issue voter says it's the only thing we should be concerned about. That's just not true.
Your argument has been convincing. Convincing enough that I'll be sure to consult you on other issues in the penumbra of the hierarchy of human concerns to see if they merit being single voter issue. Perhaps you can make a flier for those of us not in the know.
> Since you think net neutrality is a stupid single voter issue then I suggest it not be one for you.
This argument seems to have finished on the wrong point.
It isn't that net neutrality or any other issues have more or less value (although they intrinsically do -- that's for the individual to decide). Instead it's that single issue voting is severely short-sighted since the very same politician may support several other policies contradicting your own well-being.
Yes the example above is extreme but this is what it attempts to convey.
Yes, it's not true because what you said is wrong. All a single issue voter has said is that single issue determines their vote. They doesn't say that's the only thing "we" should be concerned about. They don't even say that's the only thing they're concerned about.
Voting is not some kind of distilled expression of pure belief or priorities, it's a practical action subject to tactics, strategy, and trade-offs.
Single issue voters make policy, and this is a case where the small weight of my vote could tip a scale and actually accomplish something.
Plus, I hate our current state of extreme polarization, and I value politicians who have the independence to go against their party. If he'll do that, it's another aspect I'd like to reward.
Everyone in America faces this dilemma, it's the problem with our two party system.
* Two parties
* Candidates to choose from in those parties with slightly different platforms trying to capture appeal based on big-ticket trending issues
* No one person you could possibly agree with on all things unless you are voting for a hardliner and blindly drink the party koolaid
So I mean really, if your vote is all you can offer and you have no hope of getting someone from your preferred party elected, the next best thing is to try to support your preferred candidate.
I mean, so there are two games going on here. The biggest lie is that politicians have convinced the public that they are in the same fight to get their party in control. Except really you have:
* Politicians trying to get their party in control and stay elected
* Citizens trying to get things they care about addressed, improved, whatev
It's the whole "We won't vote for Hillary 'cause Democrats even though we don't like Trump" problem, but it goes both ways..
IMO absolutist stances like this miss the entire point of politics which is to strike compromise in the face of disperate ideologies. Sure the two party system is broken, but the way to make progress is to focus on relevant issues one at a time instead of the entire platform.
The OP is suggesting that he wants to use his vote to encourage a Republican to do the right thing on a very narrow issue. The parent is effectively saying this focuses on a single tree instead of the entire forest. In a two-party system you are effectively voting for the entire platform and not for a single issue, so I have no idea why you consider his critique absolutist.
You then treated "reprehensible" as meaning the same thing as "not perfectly aligned".
Your followup treated "reprehensible" as meaning the same thing as "don't agree with everything".
We might agree on some things, but we clearly do not agree about what jacquesm was saying, because I think the original comment was fine.
I understand that some people will choose to minimize negatives while some will choose to advocate for positives when stepping up to the poll. We all agree on this idea and this has nothing to do with whether one person diesagrees with or isn't fully aligned with a platform. (This is where I'm losing your argument which seems to be harping on this idea.)
My meta commentary is that viewing the other side's policies (_some_) as reprehensible distracts from the politics and pushes people towards the minimizing negatives game because it inflates the impact of negatives because of the association of blame that comes with a term like reprehensible. "If you are republican and vote for their reprehensible platform then you are to blame." Now it's not just about disagreement, it's about social justice. And for that reason I prefer, of late, when people focus on advocating for positive change rather than voting against negative change. That is where the semantics do come in.
A response to this point would involve asserting that their policies are indeed reprehensible and we should treat the entire platform in such a way.
No, the implication was that you should maximize your agreement with one of the platforms available (two here). One issue voting most likely doesn't do that.
Strawman.
I'm not sure what other conclusion someone is supposed to draw. That's how the stereotype you used works. I'm not republican, I don't care. But I do know republicans and I know that calling the platform reprehensible isn't helping anything or changing any minds.
I can excuse it if you were only intending to present an academic example supporting your general point about single issue voting in a two party system. I often do the same and have fallen into the same trap before. But if that was your intention it was lost one me. Maybe work on slightly more finessed phasing to avoid the downvotes in the future?