NEWS: Turkey Busts a Man for Not Voting

CULTURE: Turkey Busts a Man for Not Voting

Laws are awesome. They're so multi purpose! Lots of them are actually there to protect you. Most of them are there to protect really rich people from you. But some… some of them are there just to give you a good laugh.

In Turkey, election laws require participation from all eligible voters. Mr. Ismail Canseven, you didn't vote, and you got busted.

But now the 73-year-old says he's blind, he's illiterate, ipso facto he's above Turkish election laws!

You won't be saying that 26 days from now, Ismail. Twenty-six days from now, you'll be saying, "I'm hitting the card catalogue hard today. I'm going dewey decimal on these books and loving it. Reading is fundamental!" But in Turkish.

Ismail's son, Isa Canseven made fun of his father's blindness:

That was the extent of Isa's defense. You could have just said, "My Dad is blind. He can't see." He probably didn't want you divulging all the details.

All that being said, sorry Ismail. Maybe it won't be so bad. Hopefully they have braille instructors.

Seems like an appropriate "punishment," and I agree, I hope they have a braille instructor for him. Was this article supposed to highlight all that's wrong with Turkey or something? What they're doing seems to make a lot of sense.

Yeah, I don't see anything wrong with compulsory voting. If we had it in Canada, I might, you know, vote and stuff.

Still, you might want to turn a blind eye to a 73 year old man suffering from blindness not making it out to the polls.

If they were caning him I would agree, but they're helping him learn to read--at the very least if the instructors of the course can't teach braille I imagine they'll help him figure out what he's supposed to do next election. I'm sorry, it's just such a heavy-handed article for something so sensible.

Hiyooooo!

I dunno... I noticed that the Pope's visit to Turkey was overhyped in the media as a danger to him. CNN pulled out all these negative chliche stories making Turkey look very backward, but I was deployed to Turkey during the first Gulf War, and in my opinion it's an amazing country with progressive people.

Turkey is not the only country in which voting is compulsory. And requiring the guy to take a month's worth of classes is a less serious consequence than he would face in some other places.

This actually made me really sad...

Vote or Die. Bitch.

dammit, beat me to it!

Our laws do not apply in their country. So please please stop proselytizing the American Way to foreign lands.

One of the cardinal rules of adulthood is "Don't try to change people!"
I believe that applies here. Please don't try to change the minds of the Turkish for them. They will do so on their own. American Democracy is not the glorious terminus of the political journey, anyway. Bleh.

Personally I think that voting should be compulserary; its a civic duty after all. I've got no problem with Turkey's law at all.

What? Heresy! High Treason! How else could Reagan have single-handedly defeated the Soviet Empire? It was clearly because American Democracy is superior to all other forms of government that have ever been tried or ever could be tried, and people like you ought to just be packed off to a holiday in Gitmo if you don't like it!

I think if you don't care enough to vote you *shouldn't* vote. Do we really want people who don't care enough about the political process and the future of their city/state/country that they don't vote to vote? I don't. I want people who care and educate themselves about the candidate and issues to vote.

Compulsory voting is one of the stupidest ideas I've ever heard. Right up there is the lottery some state was talking about entering voters in to win some prize or something. I don't want people voting who only vote for the chance of winning money or prizes or whatever.

are there any turkey's in turkey?

guess its better then calling the country ham, or pork, or chicken?

Oh, I dunno. In the first place there are plenty of people in this country who take the time to vote because they think it's their civic responsibility and not because they actually understand the issues. Most of the people I know who voted in the last election had their votes/opinions influenced by TV commercials. How dumb is that? (Answer: incredibly).

At the same time there are a ton of people who are very smart but don't vote because it doesn't seem rational to them. The idea that one vote could make a difference is laughable to them, but they have a fine understanding of politics in general.

Is my point "all people that vote are dumb and all people that don't are brilliant, so we should force people to vote"? No, not at all. My poiint is that there are plenty of smart and dumb people on both sides of the voting line, encouraging or requiring people to vote isn't likely to cause the average voter IQ to drop 50 points. In fact it's more likely that most issues will be resolved in the same way they would have been if voting was voluntary.

The difference is that with a larger block of voters, minority opinions (I'm talking about ideas here, not skin-color) lose their power. This means that the elderly aren't going to be catered to, or fundamentalist religious types--it means that the government is more representative of it's people. That's what happens when more of them speak with their political voice.

I'm not saying America should change itself--I think it might be good for it if it did, but we're not ready for such a radical idea. My fundamental point here is that compulsory voting isn't "stupid."

IIRC, it's the other way round; the English saw this new bird and gave it the "traditionally foreign" name, because that (naturally) was where all weird new stuff came from. In about 1640, anyway.

I don't know whether there's a modern equivalent. Speculation, anyone?

+1

Still, the fact is that I would rather people vote because they want to take part in our governmental election process, rather than because they have to. I think that forcing people to vote would also ead to more straight-party voting, which I think is generally a bad thing.

The main reason it's a bad idea is because of the principal of the thing. I don't like the government forcing me to do anything, much less something that's supposed to be a "right". If you're forced to do something, it isn't really a right anymore.

You really think it's a good idea for people to be punished (through fines, jail, whatever) because they don't vote? Do you really want people who don't care or aren't aware of candidates or issues to vote?

Anyway, it's still stupid in my opinion, and goes against what I believe government's role is, so my mind will not change on the issue.

The government rarely forces people to do anything. It strongly suggests that people do things and punishes them when they don't; this would be one of those situations and the Turkish aren't really punishing people very hard. I think the reading course idea is very strong.

Still, you think the idea is "stupid," which is taking me out of this conversation. I think I provided apt evidence for why it's not "stupid" to any rational person. I'm not suggesting that every rational person would like it, either. Just what do you think the government's role is?

If punishing someone by taking money from them, imprisoning them, or even executing them isn't force, then what is? Would a government agent have to physically grab your hand and make you vote for you to consider it "forcing"? All laws are based on the potential of force, no matter how distant or murky that potential may be.

I have my opinion, and you have yours. I think it's stupid. My mind is not going to change, because a government forcing citizens to vote is deeply against my beliefs of what a government should be like.

In response to your question, I think the role of the government is to protect the rights of its citizens.

I like semantics arguments too, so I'll add my own: you don't have an opinion, you have a prejudice.

I think you're assuming that only governments have that sort of force. Either that, or that governments are inherently evil.