A conversation between a believer and a non believer in the political pundit arena. The following dialog is based upon this previous post:
Non -believer: Political Atheism
Believer: Nature of the beast, my friend. Always has been, always will be
Non -believer: That is exactly my point – if current political are not going to change, why bother to vote. I wish I could believe the voting system will work or even give a true out come of the actual voting results but the beast won’t let that happen. Anyway, I still hope the democrats win….
Believer: It’s also not really a matter of “believing” that the voting system will work. If it were that simple, people would cast their ballots and just say “that’s that.” Instead, people vote and then look into the many irregularities that pop up, and they track down allegations of fraud, and they investigate allegations of voter intimidation, and so on.
Non-Believer: Do you think the majority vote winners will win the election or do you think it is pre-determined who will win??? To make it simple let only talk about high profile candidates such as Casey and Santorum.
Believer: Barring vote-fraud and gross errors of accounting, I think that the candidate with the most votes wins. Even when fraud and voter-suppression occur, it’s still not predetermined that one candidate will win over another. In Santorum’s case, I think that he (and those working on his behalf) has gone to great lengths to stack the deck in his favor.
Non-believer: Correct me if I am wrong: but don’t you believe-know-feel (insert whatever word you want) that Bush stole the election both times?
Believer: Based on all available evidence, I am confident that that is the case. That’s what I meant by “barring vote-fraud and gross errors of accounting,” both of which occurred in 2000 and 2004.
Non-believer: Your argument sounds like circular reasoning to me.
Believer: How so? Unless I misunderstood you…You asked if I thought that majority-vote wins. I answered that I think that it does, unless vote-fraud occurs. If I ask you what time it is, and you say “If my watch is correct, it’s 11:23,” is that circular reasoning?
Non-believer: But voter-fraud does occur; you know that it has occurred. It is odd for me to say but I hope your faith in the system is true.
Believer: Just remember that my faith in it is based upon the hope that vigilant people will work to ensure the system’s integrity. I think that it would be foolish for me simply to hope (or believe) that it’ll all work out just fine on its own.
