I Have No Right to Complain, Because I Don’t Vote… Wrong.
It’s that time of year again when people everywhere ask me who I’m voting for and I reply with three little words: I don’t vote.
That’s the point I normally hear the other person say, “What?! You don’t vote? Not voting is the worst thing you can do! Apathy breaks Democracy. If you don’t vote, you have no right to complain about the country.” Then they try to convince me with some skewed metaphor.
“If I choose not to use an umbrella and I get wet, I shouldn’t complain. The umbrella would have worked and I could have been dry; but no. I chose not to use the umbrella. If I do use an umbrella and it breaks because it turns out to be a shitty umbrella, then I can complain. The people at the umbrella store told me it would keep me dry, but it didn’t.” - Actual argument used towards me.
It’s at this point that I suggest that there is only one umbrella store to shop at and for as long as I’ve been alive they’ve been selling broken umbrellas. Every few years the store gets a new stock of umbrellas in and they promise that this year the umbrellas will work as advertised. But they break. All of them. Everyone who bought an umbrella went outside and immediately got wet.
Meanwhile, people like me who didn’t buy the umbrellas stay dry, because we never went out in the rain. We bitch about the umbrella store and tell people their umbrellas won’t work, but our words fall on deaf ears. We are instead told that we have no right to complain about the store, because we didn’t even bother buying an umbrella this year.
See the circular thinking here? What’s needed is a new way of keeping dry and Americans just aren’t at a point to create this new device. Instead we put all of our energy in false hope, in umbrellas that don’t work. In the end we always end up wet.
Folks… you have no real choice. This year you have three umbrellas to choose from. Three umbrellas who were all created and sold in the same umbrella store. So you see, until I have a real choice, I refuse to purchase something from such a scandalous store.
I leave you with a few words of wisdom, from a man who understands that this is the best we can do and Americans are destined to remain wet.
“The next time they give you all that civic bullshit about voting, keep in mind that Hitler was elected in a full, free democratic election” - George Carlin
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1
bloggingzoom.com — March 14, 2008 #
I Have No Right to Complain, Because I Don’t Vote… Wrong….
It’s that time of year again when people everywhere ask me who I’m voting for and I reply with three little words: I don’t vote.
That’s the point I normally hear the other person say, “What?! You don’t vote? Not voting is the worst thing y…
2
Jim — March 16, 2008 #
Your theory is itself circular thinking. All that I can say is that the more people with self-centered egotistical views like yours emerge and poison the rest of society the more quickly society will fall.
I hate to be the one to tell you this, but Carlin (like Franken) is a comedian. Paid to be controversial. Paid to piss people off. They don’t have some special powers of intellect such that you can adopt their inane and illogical thought processes and rationalize your irresponsible behaviour. Because, beleive me, your attitude on voting is in fact irresponsible. Voting is simply a tool to foment freedom. And like all tools it can be used in many ways. In the case of the US voting is a tool that is, for the most part, used to advance the nation. In some cases it is used to rationalize group-thinking populous mob mentality. The founders of this country did not see the popular vote as a particularly good way to select a governement, thus the selection of an electoral college and a more indirect, buffered system.
What’s your suggestion? I mean, come on, since you have spent so much time putting down our system, you must have a better one? Simply staying out of the rain gets you no-where, how about stepping up and helping to build a better umbrella?
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subigo — March 16, 2008 #
However, I do appreciate you letting me know that Carlin is a comedian… I never realized it. But when did I ever say anything about Franken? Anyway, Carlin may be a comedian, but he makes a good point. Who cares who says it? If a serial killer says “1+1=2″, does that make it any less true?
What it comes down to is this; faith in the American populace. You obviously have it, I don’t. I think this is the best we can do. I’ve seen no evidence otherwise.
So what’s my suggestion? I suggest sitting here and not voting. And then one day, when things get really bad, people will wake up and fight for real change. Until then, I let the system break itself.