And, participation in my opinion is not necessarily line up and routinely drop my vote, but help others learn to think before they act. To raise public awareness is much worth than voting.
From “Freakonomics” by Dr. Leavitt: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything - Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner - Google Books
Within the economics departments at certain universities, there is a famous but probably apocryphal story about two world-class economists who run into each other at the voting booth.
“What are you doing here?” one asks.
“My wife made me come,” the other says.
The first economist gives a confirming nod. “The same.”
After a mutually sheepish moment, one of them hatches a plan: “If you promise never to tell anyone you saw me here, I’ll never tell anyone I saw you.” They shake hands, finish their polling business and scurry off.
Why would an economist be embarrassed to be seen at the voting booth? Because voting exacts a cost—in time, effort, lost productivity—with no discernible payoff except perhaps some vague sense of having done your “civic duty.” As the economist Patricia Funk wrote in a recent paper, “A rational individual should abstain from voting.”
The odds that your vote will actually affect the outcome of a given election are very, very, very slim. This was documented by the economists Casey Mulligan and Charles Hunter, who analyzed more than 56,000 Congressional and state-legislative elections since 1898. For all the attention paid in the media to close elections, it turns out that they are exceedingly rare. The median margin of victory in the Congressional elections was 22 percent; in the state-legislature elections, it was 25 percent. Even in the closest elections, it is almost never the case that a single vote is pivotal. Of the more than 40,000 elections for state legislator that Mulligan and Hunter analyzed, comprising nearly one billion votes, only seven elections were decided by a single vote, with two others tied. Of the more than 16,000 Congressional elections, in which many more people vote, only one election in the past one hundred years—a 1910 race in Buffalo—was decided by a single vote.
…
It goes back to the incentives behind voting. If a given citizen doesn’t stand a chance of having her vote affect the outcome, why does she bother? In Switzerland, as in the U.S., “there exists a fairly strong social norm that a good citizen should go to the polls,” Funk writes. “As long as poll-voting was the only option, there was an incentive (or pressure) to go to the polls only to be seen handing in the vote. The motivation could be hope for social esteem, benefits from being perceived as a cooperator or just the avoidance of informal sanctions. Since in small communities, people know each other better and gossip about who fulfills civic duties and who doesn’t, the benefits of norm adherence were particularly high in this type of community.”
In other words, we do vote out of self-interest—a conclusion that will satisfy economists—but not necessarily the same self-interest as indicated by our actual ballot choice. For all the talk of how people “vote their pocketbooks,” the Swiss study suggests that we may be driven to vote less by a financial incentive than a social one. It may be that the most valuable payoff of voting is simply being seen at the polling place by your friends or co-workers.
Thank you so much. 
Yes, self-insulting sounds adj, and here it should be in a noun format. Thanks.
Later, (after posting the text), I realized that I should have written “agree with” instead of “agree to”. And about the system and the laws and values, yes you are right, but the point is that I disagree with both (system & laws), that’s why I said that.
I couldn’t find any specific guidance whether to use a “gerund” or an “infinitive” after the verb " to believe". Thanks for reminding it. Keep up the good job.
Distinction is crystal clear!
Hello Dave, (if u don’t mind)
1- You’ve lost your bet, since the reverse is true.
why? (Because I wanted both; have members discuss over the subject, and comment my writing, and raise my awareness and knowledge of things & thoughts over there, and improving my English! Oh, that made Killing three birds with one Stone!!
2- Thanks, and, Why would you?
I’ve been to lost of forums and websites over the internet for ages. I know the ropes.
And what happened next?
Like +++++
I was concerned that you might be a young person practicing essays for school. Now I see from your profile that you’re an adult, so of course you are not bothered by our debate.
Thank you for your comments.
1- The point of my compound word was sth more than meaningless. I meant to stress that it is like insulting yourself.
It should be “would tell you” instead of “would talk back to you”.
2- “talk back to sb” means “to answer sb” , in the text it says “when I say this sb would answer to me like that. (please adivse why I can’t use this phrasal verb here. Thanks)
It should be “a forthcoming election”.
3- Yes, I should have sued indefinite article for “forthcoming election”. By the way, that was a good slip which reminded me to ask this question. We use “a” and not “an” for a vowel noun like “election” which precedes by a noun starting with a consonant?
4- If solitary means: used to emphasize that there is only one of something [= single]:
- The solitary goal of the match
5- Why I can’t use in “solitary benefit”, implying even not a single benefit, in this sentence?
6- If one can doubt someone’s sanity as in “she doubted his sanity”, can’t convince it as well? Even poetically? [Please advise, I’d love to learn more].
7- “Nothing and nothing” was an attempt for an emphatic tone, though I was aware of being criticized.
For “mismanagement and corruption” , I think mismanagement can be the result of the death of knowledge and capability in someone which can lead to a failure, while corruption can be done by a person who’s very skilled and knowledgeable but s/he is doing it in the wrong or dishonest way. That’s why I used both.
For “wrong and faulty” I can’t think of any explanation I just used them.
For “improvement and progress”. I see improvement in something which has become better than before. And in “progress” I see something has moved forward and now is different from the previous status not necessarily only improved by its quality but changed to a better version or something new was achieved. [Yet, I’d love to learn if I’m mistaken about the concepts].
8-
A- It’s an idiom in my own language; it is: “upwards spitting”. And who can spit in his own face not doing what my sentence said “spitting out right up your head”
B- Dose “spitting in your own face” imply that one is doing it in the way I worded?
Nemo,
Sorry about the item 3,
I made a mistake in my reply. I thought that I’ve written my sentence with the word “forthcoming” but forgot to use an article. And now I see that you suggest using “forthcoming” instead of “upcoming”. why? 
Longman example at the entry of “Upcoming”:
[only before noun]
happening soon:
the upcoming elections
Thank you.
Sorry about getting your gender wrong there.
I was trying to point out that the election you were referring to in your essay is probably not the election coming up in the USA in November 2012, but the election coming up in Iran in December 2011.
In English, I think the closest idiom to this would be “spitting into the wind”. If you spit into the wind, the wind will blow the spit right back into your face.
1- Not at all.
2- Could be referred to yours too. I talked generally.
What’s your prediction for Nov. 2012 election?
Thanks. And is it frequently used and common?
It’s relatively common and people know what it means. It’s a way of describing a futile task.
There’s a well known song from 1972 by Jim Croce that uses the phrase “you don’t spit into the wind”.
If you want to describe voting as a waste of effort than “spitting into the wind” would be perfect and people would know what you mean.
No, revolution is a crapshoot really. Our country isn’t so bad right now. I might participate in a revolution, it depends on what sort.
I disagree with both Republican and Democratic agendas on almost every level, so I don’t see how participating in a system where these are the only parties with any power at all will lead to to kind of change I’d like to see.
I’m crazy, okay? I’d probably get kicked out of any political organization I tried to join. I think 99% of people who seek political power are unfit to hold it.
Why, how about this? Here’s a little essay I found among the Yahoo! News reader comments just earlier today, that I thought was worth saving: