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> Nix ... engineered a highly successful grassroots campaign to "increase apathy" so that young Afro-Caribbeans would not vote. 1. He did this via speech. Free

> Nix ... engineered a highly successful grassroots campaign to "increase apathy" so that young Afro-Caribbeans would not vote. 1. He did this via speech. Free speech is a good thing even when the speech is bad, even when spoken by foreigners, even when it's illegal. 2. To the extent that this campaign succeeds it will tend to remove voters that are a) more suggestive, b) more prone to apathy. That would seem to improve the overall quality of the voting pool. The drive to get everyone to vote seems to be more about justifying the result than improving it.

pianoben 8y ago
I'm astonished to hear this said so openly. Whom is a representative democracy supposed to represent - only educated, upper-class, "quality" folks? We rightly consigned that idea to the dust bin, along with poll taxes, literacy tests, etc. If you want to improve the _citizenry_, a better approach would be to support civic education. edit: s/What/Whom/
- kanox 8y ago
  > I'm astonished to hear this said so openly. Increasing "voter apathy" is a 100% legitimate democratic tactic, even for foreign powers.
  - moorhosj 8y ago
    Can you further explain what you mean by "legitimate" in this sentence? In it's context, it could be taken a number of different ways.
  - TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
    No, it isn't. The whole point of democracy is to canvas opinion. If you influence opinion on an industrial scale using significant sums of cash that aren't available to most citizens, that's not true democracy - that's you buying power with money.
  - drugme 8y ago
    even for foreign powers. Not in the view of U.S. campaign law.
- andrewla 8y ago
  Democracies are supposed to represent everybody, and I don't think the GP would disagree. The things you cite as being consigned to the dust bin are all structural remedies -- changes to how elections are run with the intent of removing voters from the rolls and preventing people from voting. Apathy-inducing speech is not that at all -- people have to make the choice to not vote; nothing is preventing them. Where there are things preventing them, we as a nation should be doing our utmost to remove those barriers. But not voting is a perfectly valid statement to make in a democracy. It can be a statement of lack of confidence in any of the candidates, or a statement of deferring to an electorate that you feel is more knowledgeable. For example, I will almost always abstain from voting for judgeships or DAs (I live in NYC); I have absolutely no means by which to judge the performance or resumes of these individuals except in very rare circumstances.
  - pianoben 8y ago
    My take is that there is a civic, if not legal, obligation to participate in our democracy. The speech in question is working to suppress the mechanism by which we influence our own society. That it's an effort by a private party, and not the government itself, is immaterial to my point. I view this and similar efforts as direct attacks on the fabric of our society, aiming to reduce the influence of underrepresented people, to the advantage of the well-represented. In that respect, it's no different from disenfranchisement (or "structural remedies", as you so euphemistically put it).
- PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
  >Whom is a representative democracy supposed to represent - only educated, upper-class, "quality" folks? I think there is an valid question to what extent should people and views be represented. The simplest idea is that everyone is equally represented, but every voting system I've ever heard of has a minimum age, meaning that we think you can be too young to be represented. Also, anyone who supports a non-mandatory system also supports, perhaps not knowingly or willingly, a system where the apathetic are not represented. So, we already have a system where we think it is okay that apathetic and young individuals aren't represented, is it really that astonishing to suggest that some people think other groups should be included or that they want to change the boundaries of the already excluded groups? In my mind, as soon as a society makes it acceptable to look at a 17 year old and say "You are too young/inexperienced/immature to vote", that society has legitimized unequal forms of representation.
pulisse 8y ago
> He did this via speech. Free speech is a good thing even when the speech is bad, even when spoken by foreigners, even when it's illegal. I'm not sure you've thought this through. There's no line whatsoever? Speech is good even when it's, say, fraudulent? If I send mailers to voters registered with the opposite party that look like they're from the board of elections but give the wrong date for the election, or the wrong polling place, that's a good thing? How? What value is served? > That would seem to improve the overall quality of the voting pool The drive to get everyone to vote seems to be more about justifying the result than improving it. You're assuming that the value of democracy is as a means of arriving at optimal policy. A lot of people think there are normative aspects of democratic participation, such as ensuring that government actions reflect the values and desires of those governed. And even sticking with the sort of instrumental frame you're operating with, your analysis is too static. Bringing people into the political process improves voter quality, as those who start out apathetic become less so through participation, and those who are less informed become more so.
Jedd 8y ago
Though it's difficult to technically fault what you say, I find it unsettling. Here in AU we have some significant differences to elections - eg. compulsory voting, Saturday polls. The annoying thing is that this doesn't appear (on average) to deliver superior administration.
- byproxy 8y ago
  I can't see how compulsory voting is a good thing. Voluntary voting, I feel, has the effect of filtering out those that can't be bothered to vote and would therefore vote poorly (that is, based on whims and more susceptible to misinformation) if made to. I don't know that people who do choose to vote in a voluntary system have done their diligence on the people and issues they are voting for, but they at least meet a certain level of caring enough to go to the polls or mail out their ballot. Then again, it'd be nice to think compulsory voting would increase levels of civic engagement and make people interested in how government works and effects them.
  - edmundsauto 8y ago
    One possible fallacy here is that people who vote have done their due diligence. I don't think that's a given, especially with how many 1-topic voters there are in the US.
  - Jedd 8y ago
    I suppose like many things it comes down to what you grew up with. Very few people in Australia think we should move to a voluntary voting approach, and I don't see much inclination in the US or UK to move to a compulsory voting approach. This despite the absence of a clearly favourable outcome in any of those nation states -- which makes me think it might not really matter, other than perhaps hopefully requiring more effort and money to manipulate a larger number of voters. But again, no evidence of that either. Whether compulsory voting leads to a more informed population, as you suggest may happen, I'm not sure if it's true, or how you'd test for that.
jchw 8y ago
>Free speech is a good thing even when [...] it's illegal. ...well, that's a new one for me.
rhizome 8y ago
1. "Doing X is good, even if X is illegal" is not a great stance. 2. Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc. Try again.
torpfactory 8y ago
I disagree with your position that 'Free speech is a good thing even when the speech is bad...' on the premise that intent matters in democracy. In this case, 'free speech' was really 'paid speech' whose intent was not to argue the relative merits or problems of one policy or candidate but cynically targeted with the intent to achieve a specific outcome for a client. It makes no difference if the speech is domestic or foreign, legal or illegal. Taken to an extreme, the ecosystem of speech and ideas that democracy relies upon becomes a wilderness where it becomes impossible to discern who is articulating their real opinions and who is simply making a bad-faith argument in which they do not necessarily believe in order to get a paycheck.
- exceptione 8y ago
  > Taken to an extreme, the ecosystem of speech and ideas that democracy relies upon becomes a wilderness where it becomes impossible to discern who is articulating their real opinions and who is simply making a bad-faith argument in which they do not necessarily believe in order to get a paycheck. I think you are making a lot of politicians homeless now if you would forbid this.
  - eli_gottlieb 8y ago
    Sounds like a brilliant idea, then.
dahart 8y ago
> Free speech is a good thing [...] even when it's illegal. What do you mean? Illegal speech is, by definition, not free speech. Not all speech is free. And why would it be good in general to say things in public that are illegal to say?
- krapp 8y ago
  So the American founding fathers weren't engaging in free speech when they declared independence from England (an act of treason against the crown?) No one protesting an authoritarian regime or an unjust law is exercising free speech when its illegal to do so? Books, art, music, any expression considered subversive by the state, none of that is free speech? The law does not define free speech, it can only limit it, as any law can only limit rights, not define them. There is a great deal of historic precedent defending illegal speech as free speech.
  - PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
    I think the legality and the morality of free speech aren't connected. You can have legal but immoral speech and illegal but moral speech (such as the example you give). It is possible to have speech that is, regardless of legality, wrong and something not to celebrate or call good (say someone encouraging a suicidal person to attempt).
  - dahart 8y ago
    > The law does not define free speech What is the first amendment then? It’s also the other way around. Freedom of speech is defined as speech that has no negative legal ramifications, among other things. Look it up. > So the American founding fathers weren’t engaging in free speech when they declared independence from England (an act of treason against the crown?) Correct, as you pointed out. It was an act of treason from England’s legal point of view, punishable had they gone back to England. It was also written in the middle of a war, and is a declaration of secession. This is a pretty wild example to try to use. I’m confused what makes you think this is a demonstration of freedom of speech in any way? It’s almost completely the opposite, it’s a demonstration of successful speech against the law. England did not offer the freedom for this speech, and freedom of speech wasn’t establish in the United States as a legal concept until after the country was formed. You seem to be confusing having strong reasons to take a moral stand with actual freedom. If there are negative legal consequences, then you don’t have freedom, by the definition of freedom. People can and do risk choosing to take actions knowing there are negative consequences, but that’s not the same thing as having the “freedom” to take those actions. > Books, art, music, any expression considered subversive by the state, none of that is free speech? “Considered subversive” and illegal aren’t the same thing. If it’s illegal, then you don’t have freedom to say it. When people say “America is a free country” they don’t mean you get to do anything at all, they mean we have fewer laws limiting personal freedoms than other countries. But there are still lots of illegal things you shouldn’t do that if you do will result in punishment. > There is a great deal of historic precedent defending illegal speech as free speech. No, there are some specific cases of speech, and some specific classes of speech, that were illegal and have been changed, and for good reasons. There are also types of speech that remain illegal and probably always will. Slander and libel, among others, are not protected classes of legal speech, for good reasons.
kevindqc 8y ago
>To the extent that this campaign succeeds it will tend to remove voters that are a) more suggestive, b) more prone to apathy. You forgot c) That are Afro-Carribbeans This is targeted. It doesn't just remove all suggestive apathetic voters. It targets only the ones that vote the "wrong" way.
mikeash 8y ago
1. The right to free speech is good. Individual instances of free speech can be bad. These two stances are perfectly compatible: belief in the goodness of the right to free speech only means you think it’s bad for the government to punish it, not that every use of it is good. 2. Another way to put this is that it will tend to remove voters who are more open-minded and who have interests outside politics. Fanatics and crazies will vote no matter what. Getting more ordinary people to vote is good.
drugme 8y ago
Free speech is a good thing even when the speech is bad, even when spoken by foreigners, even when it's illegal. It seems you're confusing "has a right to exist" with "is a good thing".
- PhasmaFelis 8y ago
  Is there a name for the "X is not actually illegal, therefore X is good" fallacy? I see it a lot on the internet.
b_t_s 8y ago
If you remove the more apathetic voters, what does that leave? Raving fanatic partisans. Which leads to a broken gridlocked government. Which leads to increased voter apathy and efforts to disenfranchise the "enemy" party. First they came for the voting rights of the young Afro-Caribeans, and I did not speak out.

pianoben 8y ago

I'm astonished to hear this said so openly. Whom is a representative democracy supposed to represent - only educated, upper-class, "quality" folks? We rightly consigned that idea to the dust bin, along with poll taxes, literacy tests, etc. If you want to improve the _citizenry_, a better approach would be to support civic education. edit: s/What/Whom/

kanox 8y ago
> I'm astonished to hear this said so openly. Increasing "voter apathy" is a 100% legitimate democratic tactic, even for foreign powers.
- moorhosj 8y ago
  Can you further explain what you mean by "legitimate" in this sentence? In it's context, it could be taken a number of different ways.
- TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
  No, it isn't. The whole point of democracy is to canvas opinion. If you influence opinion on an industrial scale using significant sums of cash that aren't available to most citizens, that's not true democracy - that's you buying power with money.
- drugme 8y ago
  even for foreign powers. Not in the view of U.S. campaign law.
andrewla 8y ago
Democracies are supposed to represent everybody, and I don't think the GP would disagree. The things you cite as being consigned to the dust bin are all structural remedies -- changes to how elections are run with the intent of removing voters from the rolls and preventing people from voting. Apathy-inducing speech is not that at all -- people have to make the choice to not vote; nothing is preventing them. Where there are things preventing them, we as a nation should be doing our utmost to remove those barriers. But not voting is a perfectly valid statement to make in a democracy. It can be a statement of lack of confidence in any of the candidates, or a statement of deferring to an electorate that you feel is more knowledgeable. For example, I will almost always abstain from voting for judgeships or DAs (I live in NYC); I have absolutely no means by which to judge the performance or resumes of these individuals except in very rare circumstances.
- pianoben 8y ago
  My take is that there is a civic, if not legal, obligation to participate in our democracy. The speech in question is working to suppress the mechanism by which we influence our own society. That it's an effort by a private party, and not the government itself, is immaterial to my point. I view this and similar efforts as direct attacks on the fabric of our society, aiming to reduce the influence of underrepresented people, to the advantage of the well-represented. In that respect, it's no different from disenfranchisement (or "structural remedies", as you so euphemistically put it).
PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
>Whom is a representative democracy supposed to represent - only educated, upper-class, "quality" folks? I think there is an valid question to what extent should people and views be represented. The simplest idea is that everyone is equally represented, but every voting system I've ever heard of has a minimum age, meaning that we think you can be too young to be represented. Also, anyone who supports a non-mandatory system also supports, perhaps not knowingly or willingly, a system where the apathetic are not represented. So, we already have a system where we think it is okay that apathetic and young individuals aren't represented, is it really that astonishing to suggest that some people think other groups should be included or that they want to change the boundaries of the already excluded groups? In my mind, as soon as a society makes it acceptable to look at a 17 year old and say "You are too young/inexperienced/immature to vote", that society has legitimized unequal forms of representation.

pulisse 8y ago

> He did this via speech. Free speech is a good thing even when the speech is bad, even when spoken by foreigners, even when it's illegal. I'm not sure you've thought this through. There's no line whatsoever? Speech is good even when it's, say, fraudulent? If I send mailers to voters registered with the opposite party that look like they're from the board of elections but give the wrong date for the election, or the wrong polling place, that's a good thing? How? What value is served? > That would seem to improve the overall quality of the voting pool The drive to get everyone to vote seems to be more about justifying the result than improving it. You're assuming that the value of democracy is as a means of arriving at optimal policy. A lot of people think there are normative aspects of democratic participation, such as ensuring that government actions reflect the values and desires of those governed. And even sticking with the sort of instrumental frame you're operating with, your analysis is too static. Bringing people into the political process improves voter quality, as those who start out apathetic become less so through participation, and those who are less informed become more so.

Jedd 8y ago

Though it's difficult to technically fault what you say, I find it unsettling. Here in AU we have some significant differences to elections - eg. compulsory voting, Saturday polls. The annoying thing is that this doesn't appear (on average) to deliver superior administration.

byproxy 8y ago
I can't see how compulsory voting is a good thing. Voluntary voting, I feel, has the effect of filtering out those that can't be bothered to vote and would therefore vote poorly (that is, based on whims and more susceptible to misinformation) if made to. I don't know that people who do choose to vote in a voluntary system have done their diligence on the people and issues they are voting for, but they at least meet a certain level of caring enough to go to the polls or mail out their ballot. Then again, it'd be nice to think compulsory voting would increase levels of civic engagement and make people interested in how government works and effects them.
- edmundsauto 8y ago
  One possible fallacy here is that people who vote have done their due diligence. I don't think that's a given, especially with how many 1-topic voters there are in the US.
- Jedd 8y ago
  I suppose like many things it comes down to what you grew up with. Very few people in Australia think we should move to a voluntary voting approach, and I don't see much inclination in the US or UK to move to a compulsory voting approach. This despite the absence of a clearly favourable outcome in any of those nation states -- which makes me think it might not really matter, other than perhaps hopefully requiring more effort and money to manipulate a larger number of voters. But again, no evidence of that either. Whether compulsory voting leads to a more informed population, as you suggest may happen, I'm not sure if it's true, or how you'd test for that.

jchw 8y ago

>Free speech is a good thing even when [...] it's illegal. ...well, that's a new one for me.

rhizome 8y ago

1. "Doing X is good, even if X is illegal" is not a great stance. 2. Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc. Try again.

torpfactory 8y ago

I disagree with your position that 'Free speech is a good thing even when the speech is bad...' on the premise that intent matters in democracy. In this case, 'free speech' was really 'paid speech' whose intent was not to argue the relative merits or problems of one policy or candidate but cynically targeted with the intent to achieve a specific outcome for a client. It makes no difference if the speech is domestic or foreign, legal or illegal. Taken to an extreme, the ecosystem of speech and ideas that democracy relies upon becomes a wilderness where it becomes impossible to discern who is articulating their real opinions and who is simply making a bad-faith argument in which they do not necessarily believe in order to get a paycheck.

exceptione 8y ago
> Taken to an extreme, the ecosystem of speech and ideas that democracy relies upon becomes a wilderness where it becomes impossible to discern who is articulating their real opinions and who is simply making a bad-faith argument in which they do not necessarily believe in order to get a paycheck. I think you are making a lot of politicians homeless now if you would forbid this.
- eli_gottlieb 8y ago
  Sounds like a brilliant idea, then.

dahart 8y ago

> Free speech is a good thing [...] even when it's illegal. What do you mean? Illegal speech is, by definition, not free speech. Not all speech is free. And why would it be good in general to say things in public that are illegal to say?

krapp 8y ago
So the American founding fathers weren't engaging in free speech when they declared independence from England (an act of treason against the crown?) No one protesting an authoritarian regime or an unjust law is exercising free speech when its illegal to do so? Books, art, music, any expression considered subversive by the state, none of that is free speech? The law does not define free speech, it can only limit it, as any law can only limit rights, not define them. There is a great deal of historic precedent defending illegal speech as free speech.
- PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
  I think the legality and the morality of free speech aren't connected. You can have legal but immoral speech and illegal but moral speech (such as the example you give). It is possible to have speech that is, regardless of legality, wrong and something not to celebrate or call good (say someone encouraging a suicidal person to attempt).
- dahart 8y ago
  > The law does not define free speech What is the first amendment then? It’s also the other way around. Freedom of speech is defined as speech that has no negative legal ramifications, among other things. Look it up. > So the American founding fathers weren’t engaging in free speech when they declared independence from England (an act of treason against the crown?) Correct, as you pointed out. It was an act of treason from England’s legal point of view, punishable had they gone back to England. It was also written in the middle of a war, and is a declaration of secession. This is a pretty wild example to try to use. I’m confused what makes you think this is a demonstration of freedom of speech in any way? It’s almost completely the opposite, it’s a demonstration of successful speech against the law. England did not offer the freedom for this speech, and freedom of speech wasn’t establish in the United States as a legal concept until after the country was formed. You seem to be confusing having strong reasons to take a moral stand with actual freedom. If there are negative legal consequences, then you don’t have freedom, by the definition of freedom. People can and do risk choosing to take actions knowing there are negative consequences, but that’s not the same thing as having the “freedom” to take those actions. > Books, art, music, any expression considered subversive by the state, none of that is free speech? “Considered subversive” and illegal aren’t the same thing. If it’s illegal, then you don’t have freedom to say it. When people say “America is a free country” they don’t mean you get to do anything at all, they mean we have fewer laws limiting personal freedoms than other countries. But there are still lots of illegal things you shouldn’t do that if you do will result in punishment. > There is a great deal of historic precedent defending illegal speech as free speech. No, there are some specific cases of speech, and some specific classes of speech, that were illegal and have been changed, and for good reasons. There are also types of speech that remain illegal and probably always will. Slander and libel, among others, are not protected classes of legal speech, for good reasons.

kevindqc 8y ago

>To the extent that this campaign succeeds it will tend to remove voters that are a) more suggestive, b) more prone to apathy. You forgot c) That are Afro-Carribbeans This is targeted. It doesn't just remove all suggestive apathetic voters. It targets only the ones that vote the "wrong" way.

mikeash 8y ago

1. The right to free speech is good. Individual instances of free speech can be bad. These two stances are perfectly compatible: belief in the goodness of the right to free speech only means you think it’s bad for the government to punish it, not that every use of it is good. 2. Another way to put this is that it will tend to remove voters who are more open-minded and who have interests outside politics. Fanatics and crazies will vote no matter what. Getting more ordinary people to vote is good.

drugme 8y ago

Free speech is a good thing even when the speech is bad, even when spoken by foreigners, even when it's illegal. It seems you're confusing "has a right to exist" with "is a good thing".

PhasmaFelis 8y ago
Is there a name for the "X is not actually illegal, therefore X is good" fallacy? I see it a lot on the internet.

b_t_s 8y ago

If you remove the more apathetic voters, what does that leave? Raving fanatic partisans. Which leads to a broken gridlocked government. Which leads to increased voter apathy and efforts to disenfranchise the "enemy" party. First they came for the voting rights of the young Afro-Caribeans, and I did not speak out.