What are you talking about? Voting gives us the opportunity to chose between two filthy rich white guys who are completely out of touch with the common person. Token privilege my ass.
World Eater why don’t we just randomly vote for two filthy rich white guys who are completely out of touch with the common person then let the Supreme Court decide who will be president all the time. I will admit, though, that discussions of the War on Terror and the Election make the nightly news entertaining. I wish I had health care coverage, though.
[QUOTE=Zog_10]
I feel that it is a little [strange/hypocritical/backwards] to criticize a politician or political situation if one did not participate in the process that brought the situation about.QUOTE]
I manage a university computer lab. Let’s suppose that one of my underlings decides to quit. He tells me that on his last day, he’ll either steal one of the computers in my lab or smash one up; he’ll let me cast a vote for whichever one. But he’s also going to ask a whole bunch of other people around what they think, so it really doesn’t matter what I say.
(I should mention the myriad other options - I could vote for him dancing around with a feather duster before smashing two monitors in with it, or maybe drop kicking a CPU and stealing all my office supplies. But that any of these should come to pass is very unlikely, since nobody else he asks would vote for them. This is too bad, because they at least exhibit a sense of style lost from the primary choices.)
Am I wrong not to participate? If I don’t cast my vote, can I complain afterward? The political selection process gives me a choice between two alternatives, neither of which I can stand, and I fail to see how my flat-out refusal to join in at all reduces my credibility.
If anything must reduce my credibility, let it be the fringe nature of my beliefs. But to get all hung up on whether I voted or not? Puh-lease.
She already explained her reason: She cannot vote on good conscience for either candidate and that’s a reasonable standpoint. It’s not stupid and has nothing to do with women suffrage.
As for complaining: No matter whether I voted for someone and he won or voted for someone and the other guy won or not voted at all, my own choice at the election should never affect the ability to point out errors. That’s a sad state of affairs: Followers of party X or candidate Y like to ignore their mistakes and outright injustices and come up with excuses like “But the other guy did this and that!”
It’s not about what the other guy did or whether former president Z received a blowjob in the oval office, we’re in the here and now and need to come down hard on whoever is in the office (Bush, Kerry, Nader, doesn’t matter. Heck, it’s not even a US exclusive thing, this goes for democracies all over the world) and trying to feed BS to us. Sadly, I have got the feeling that most people think they need to turn a blind eye, because it’s the guy they voted for.
**She already explained her reason: She cannot vote on good conscience for either candidate and that’s a reasonable standpoint. **
Um, no, she actually said she was for Kerry, but wasn’t going to vote anyway.
From your OP: “If I don’t vote, I can’t be held responsible if we get a bad President,” she reasons.
You go on and ask “held responsible by whom?” and I offered that it is (actually I should have pointed out that it could be instead of “is”) about conscience: She doesn’t want to be responsible for a bad president, hence she cannot vote for either candidate on good conscience, even though nominally being for Kerry. Come to think about it, it doesn’t sound like she’s for Kerry, it rather sounds like she’s anti-Bush.
Some are claiming that one or the other side is trying to influence the election illegally or unfairly. I don’t know whether this is true, but I have a friend, a registered but dissillusioned Republican, who is concerned because of a mailing she received from the RNC. It was urging Republican voters to get their absentee ballots in early to be sure that they will be counted. That doesn’t sound too ominous in itself unless you consider that this individual had never voted by absentee ballot and never applied for one. She fears that the Republicans are trying to encourage huge numbers of absentee ballots which can then be “lost” if they originate in heavily Democratic precincts, skewing the election as it was in 2000.
Are her fears unfounded? Any Republicans out there get a similar letter from the RNC? I’m trying to determine whether this was a mass mailing to all Republicans, or simply a mistaken inclusion of this one Republican’s name. If you all got it, whether or not you ever applied for an absentee ballot, maybe there is somthing afoot here. Just askin’.
She said she was for Kerry. Given that he’s never been President, I can’t see NOT voting for him out of fear that he “might” be a bad President. I’d rather see someone vote on the idea that their guy MIGHT be a good President and take a chance.
She’s just lazy. Who’s going to “hold” her responsible if she voted for Kerry and he turned out to be a bad President?
Pretend she doesn’t vote. Pretend Kerry is elected anyway, and he turns out to be the worst President we’ve ever had and America officially goes to hell in a handbasket. She will be in that handbasket whether she voted for him or not. It’s not like those who voted for Kerry will be in the handbasket and those who voted for Bush will be doing fine. Everyone suffers, including those who don’t vote.
Given that EVERYONE is affected whether they vote or not, the idea that the blood is off their hands if they don’t vote and we get a bad leader is silly.
And who says she has to pick between Kerry and Bush? Oh sure, one of them is going to win. Why not Nader? Why not some other party’s candidate, or write in? Just because your guy isn’t going to win doesn’t mean it’s a wasted vote: in that case, everyone who votes for the guy that loses in November wasted a vote.
And forget about the Presidential election: we’re picking a governor this year, legislators, etc. If someone doesn’t give a rat’s ass about who the President is, does that automatically mean they shouldn’t vote at all? (I could argue that who are legislators are probably affect our lives more than the President does.)
It’s about casting that ballot and taking an interest in what happens to your state/country, not sitting on the sidelines and hoping that if things go bad you’ll somehow be protected.
I may not vote and the reason is simple:
I do not want George Bush to be President
I do not want John Kerry to be President
I do not want Ralph Nader to be President
I do not want David Cobb to be Presdient
I do not want Michael Bednarik to be President
Not voting is also a vote.
You can’t think of ANYBODY in the entire nation you wouldn’t want as President?
Why does it have to be someone endorsed by a party?
But she is responsible for not voting against the candidate that she thought was worse. So indirectly she is in small part responsible for a bad president if the candidate she thinks is worse gets in.
If I vote for the less bad candidate, then at least I can say I did my bit by working against the even worse candidate.
She’s just average dumbass, basically. Like many others. Unable to abstract beyond the obvious and see that inaction is a form of action.
Bingo. But she does nothing about it, like voting against him.
Absolute crap.
Not voting is off the radar.
Politicians take a lot of notice of where votes go.
They take little or no notice of votes that don’t happen.
Your assumption is that none of the above are any worse than any other. There must be someone you think is the worst of the above. If you don’t think that, you’re just too lazy to find out. So figure out who that is and vote for someone else. If everyone does that, the juggernaut will move away from the worst.
In a Australia we had a right wing politician a year or two ago whose major platform was a grab bag of hates and whinges about existing policies and politicians. She had no credibility, no real policies of her own, no experience. But many right wing people I know voted for her because while they couldn’t stand her, they thought the existing right wing big party needed a kick up the arse.
And it worked. The major right wing party’s policies changed and showed significant influence from the “red headed bitch from Ipswich”.
If all those voters had adopted your the childish “they’re all bad so I’m not voting” attitude it would never have happened.
Per your request I have indexed to this post. Please note that according to your cite, Bush is no longer a lock. I told you so.
That’s pretty much what will happen now. The results of every presidential election will be questioned by the losing side.
Casting your ballot and then being content for the next 4 years that you did your job as responsible citizen is as ill conceived. I’d rather have complaints by non-voters when the government screws up, than nodding to all the bs that is going on by people who pat themselves on the back because they are so interested in what’s going on that they managed to vote.
Not casting a vote still is a viable option. Good for her that she managed to justify it with more than “I’m not interested in politics” even though you like to give that spin. You missed her point though.
That’s how Clinton got elected.
If that’s true, I made a lot of money because of that hair. I miss that hair.
If that’s the case, I’m sure you’ll agree the same holds true for Reagan as well.
If by “viable” you mean, will not cause you to commit a criminal offence. If you mean “in any way effective” then justify your position.
Sorry, consider the words “then I agree” to be written in invisible pixels at the end of the first sentence. Thanks.