Wednesday 3 November 2010

No Voting = No Right to Complain ???

At election time I often hear people assert, "If you don't vote, you don't have any right to complain".  I find this a bit bizarre.  Suppose someone were having a dinner party and before the dinner party they sent around an email saying, "Please indicate whether you'd prefer spaghetti or lasagna".  Further suppose that it really mattered nothing to me, or that I forgot to respond or that the email went to my junk folder or whatever.  Now if I then arrived at the dinner party and got a plate of spaghetti that was disgusting and inedible, surely my failure to have voiced a preference of lasagna over spaghetti doesn't compel me to simply eat the disgusting plate of food while those who had actually stated a preference would be in a position from which to legitimately object .  That argument would make no sense to me.  Similarly, the "no vote, no complain" argument, that just seems utterly arbitrary to me.

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