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 is not because you say to your congressman that you are a one-issue voter that you really are. Elected officials keep lying about their promises, I don't see why this should be a one-way street.
Except that they are in this game for years, and probably can play it much better than you do. But by devaluing citizens input by injecting obvious deception into it, you make it harder for others to make a difference when it does genuinely matter for them. Because on the input side, there's no way to know the difference between somebody who genuinely passionately cares for the issue and somebody who strategically lies about it. And since lying is cheaper than genuinely caring, the optimal strategy would be to assume purported one-issue voter is lying. So what exactly did you achieve by that?
I won't question the fact that they are very good at it and indeed, a lot of elected officials forget their promises immediately after that.
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.
> Elected officials keep lying about their promises, I don't see why this should be a one-way street.
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.
Why do you presume that net neutrality isn’t among the most pressing for OP? There are few issues where a majority of both Republicans and Democrats both agree. It seems like a worthy issue to hinge a vote on.
I would believe it when I see a million people marching in DC for it. This issue is tiny and insignificant compared to major ones in US politics, however you personally and your peer group feel about it. And the "majority" is just a sleight of hand - you ask people "do you want to access all sites on the internet for free", people enthusiastically say "yes" and you interpret it as overwhelming support for a specific highly technical policy decision that these people never heard of, have no opinion of and probably couldn't distinguish pre-2015 internet regulations from post-2015 internet regulations even if their life depended on it. Which it most certainly doesn't, so they wouldn't really care either way.
Because I follow American politics pretty closely for a foreigner and it would appear to me that if the house is on fire the color of the sidewall isn't top priority.
That is mighty patronizing of you to tell someone that their concerns aren’t worthy enough. A majority of Americans who are registered to vote don't. There is an abundance of apathy in the U.S. toward the political process. Here we have someone willing to go so far as to contact their elected representative and you respond as you did.
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.
I'm not a foreigner and I think the comment you're responding to is spot on.
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.
Not all issues are a equal. Clearly not. But what is important changes from person to person. To suggest that your concerns and what constitutes a single voter issue for you is wrong is condescending. Since you think net neutrality is a stupid single voter issue then I suggest it not be one for you. But not everyone has your concerns.
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.
Some people's ideas of what's important are stupid. Everyone has the right to an opinion but that doesn't mean we should treat every opinion as equal.
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 keeping the discussion in the realm of the plausible and feasible. I'd hate for extreme situations to be brought up. A number of people have given reasons for why they think net neutrality is as important as it is to them.
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.
> To suggest that your concerns and what constitutes a single voter issue for you is wrong is condescending.
> 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.
Overall I agree with you. I agree that for me net neutrality is not that important. But in a nation with as much voter apathy, with the growing sense of voting being futile I’ll take a single issue voter that gets galvanized. If everyone were a single issue voter it’d be a mess. With a few people not so much.
I suspect very few people are truly single issue voters. There’s a difference between saying “you should only care about issue X” and saying “I will never vote for someone who doesn’t share my position on issue X.” For example, I doubt many people would vote for someone who supports net neutrality but also includes universal forced child labor in their platform.
> 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.
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.
>People are going to die based on our health care policy
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.
The difference here is that you are guessing as to what might happen.
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.
>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.
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.
> We know that some people without access to medical care will die.
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.
It doesn’t make sense for everyone to focus primarily on the political issue they deem to be the most important, for the same reason that it doesn’t make sense for everyone to choose the career they deem to be the most important. Competitive advantage applies to both of these arenas, and it is perfectly rational and prudent to focus on political issues that you do not believe to be the most important issues facing society, if you have reason to believe that your efforts can make more of a difference in some other political issue.
> Are we just supposed to pretend that all issues are equal? People aren't going to die because the nets aren't neutral.
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.
To many peoole, neutrality isn't a color of the sidewalk issue, it's a house on fire issue, because it concerns control of communication content in a major channel of public communication by a narrow band of actors vs. guaranteed freedom for lawful communication on that channel.
To add to that - we already have fake news along ALL political spectrums, and propaganda and lies coming from fake and legit places, to further be told what we can / can't view because of net neutrality, or for corporations to ban content themselves or make you pay to view certain websites moves us further into censorship territory like China. -- We definitely need to ensure that the internet stays as open as possible, if not we may need to create a new decentralized uncensorable internet like in Silicon Valley where net neutrality cannot be revoked.
It is ok for net neutrality to be someone's number 1 issue as long as they recognize that they are likely viewing issues from a position of tremendous privilege.
China and India are both worse to be poor in, which still makes it a position of privilege compared to a significant portion of the world population. That's why "check your privilege" is such a stupid statement.
I see the death of net neutrality as a first step toward extremely effective censorship of electronic media. Media control like what sinclair is doing is already dangerous enough. Restoring net neutrality is close to top priority.
The analogy is closer to the house being on fire, but the landlord 100% won't budge on that, so you might as well ask them for a glass of water, which you have at least some chance of getting.
> so why would you let your vote hinge on that one issue?
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.
Ok, I see. So this is the local equivalent for voting for a small party in a country with many more parties in the running for a coalition. That makes some sense, but at the same time it would mean that you are also voting for a lot of stuff that is reprehensible and probably against your own interest. Because once the votes are counted your vote will not be counted as a 'single issue' vote but as a total mandate for whatever that party is up to, they'll see their compromise on an issue that probably hardly moves the needle on their end as a clever tactic to get votes like yours.
Republicans are reprehensible? By your logic we can never make any progress unless citizens vote for a platform perfectly aligned with their own values. That degenerates to everyone voting for themselves.
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.
I'm not sure I follow your logic. First off, he didn't say that Republicans are reprehensible. He said that voting for a Republican implies that you are voting for a lot of reprehensible stuff (by proxy through your Republican representative). Reprehensible doesn't mean "I don't agree with". Over the years I've had disagreements with both parties (and have voted for members of both parties). However, with the increased polarization in Congress, I don't think it is unfair to say that Republican behavior and the Republican platform has largely become reprehensible. That certainly doesn't mean all Republicans politicians have reprehensible views - just that they are too cowardly to vote against their party when they should be doing so.
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.
I understand exactly what the parent's point is. I'm just continuing the discussion. The implication (and the sibling comments agree) is that you shouldn't vote for a party if you don't agree with everything about the platform. I'm defending the GP in this case arguing that I wish collectively we would focus more on single issues and less on broad sweeping platform stereotypes (e.g. reprehensible republican). I initially commented because I've put some thought into this recently. I even commented last week here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17028256
> I understand exactly what the parent's point is. I'm just continuing the discussion. The implication (and the sibling comments agree) is that you shouldn't vote for a party if you don't agree with everything about the platform.
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.
You are again conflating disagreements with "reprehensible". I disagree with lots of politicians on lots of issues. I find very few of those positions to be actually reprehensible.
I think we actually agree. Or at least that's what I'm saying too. I didn't use reprehensible, the comment I was responding too did. My point is your point, just worded differently.
Well I am extrapolating based on the way the argument was presented, yes. I don't disagree with the essence of what jacquesm said. I think that's what's not clear. I am quibbling with the idea that we should call the republican platform reprehensible in an academic discussion about single issue voting in the US. Why? Because reprehensible carries an implication of blame and it has clearly distracted from the argument and caused at least me to extrapolate from jacquesm's comment in a way that may not have been intended.
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.
You said that the Republican platform has reprehensible policy. You then criticized single issue voting because when you do so you pull in the entire platform, reprehensible policy included, which you suggest ends up being a net negative, despite whether you agree or not. Now consider another person. If they are a republican and vote for their party, even if they disagree with the reprehensible pieces, they still end up having a net negative impact on society because of their platform choice, by your logic.
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?
Get involved in grassroots politics. Support municipal or state-level candidates who have potential to be federal candidates down the road. Doorknock for candidates who you feel represent you. Tell your friends and family who you're voting for and why. Vote in primaries. Always vote in general elections.
I mean, that's not exactly an either or thing... For the average voter with a family and career you have:
* 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..
Vote for the one that matches your interests the best. I don't understand why you would do anything else (unless you're trying to make a symbolic statement). The two-party system is not going to go away tomorrow, and it certainly will not go away because you refused to vote.
Yea... we really need to fix that one of these days with instant runoff voting. It's going to be hard to get done since both primary parties won't be in favor of it, maybe if we get public financing of elections it'll be easier.
