Annual Civic Sabotage
I went to vote early Tuesday morning. Champaign's 15th precinct is one of two that have set up a polling place at a Lutheran church on Prospect Avenue not far from my house, so Election Day is the only time you're ever likely to catch me in a Lutheran church. (Nothing particularly against the Lutherans, who are very likely fine people and such and make some pretty amazing casseroles out of that Campbell's cream of mushroom soup. I just don't do monotheism.)
After the deed was done, on my way out, an attendant handed me a small sticker, presumably to wear on my lapel. It was oval-shaped and had on it a flag and the words "I VOTED TODAY." I accepted it politely, then once I was outside, threw it away.
I guess the point was to show everyone that you did your civic duty, as if giving your sanction to assholes who are as likely to fukk up the planet and your life as not somehow makes you a superior person. In addition to voting, you are also supposed to wipe your ass after taking a dump, but I don't go around wearing a sticker saying I WIPED MY ASS TODAY, even though I've probably gotten a lot more benefit out of wiping my ass over the years than I ever have from electing people to public office. (I suppose that an I WIPED MY ASS TODAY sticker would have a little toilet on it instead of a little flag, though, the flag might not be entirely inappropriate. You know. "Show your love for America! Engage in some personal hygiene!")
The cliche repeated over and over again is that absolutely everyone who is eligible should vote, and the more who vote, the better off we all are. You've been at a party someone when some little snot comes up to you and opines, "If you don't vote, you don't have a right to your opinion!" (Imagine this with an obnoxious nasal whine, if you will, since that's what you usually get.)
Now, here's a hint for dealing with self-righteous turds like that. In 99.999999999% of all cases, the person saying that is a liberal Democrat. I don't really know why that is, but it's so. Check it out, if you don't trust my word on this.
So when someone uses that line on me, what I usually do is kind of scrunch up my shoulders and hunch over a bit, and I put a hangdog expression of guilt on my face, which liberal Democrats really love to induce in people. And then I say, "You know, you're absolutely right. I've been really remiss in doing my civic duty. So what I'm going to do is the very first opportunity that I get, I'm going to register to vote, and then come Election Day, I'm going right down the the polls and vote a straight Republican ticket!"
This almost always produces a brief moment of astonished, jaw-dropping silence on the part of said voting activist, which is usually long enough to extricate yourself from that particular situation and make for an exit.
This is a roundabout illustration of something I have come to believe. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, I no longer believe that everyone should vote. In fact, I think we all would be much better off if some people weren't allowed to vote at all!
Now, I'm not talking about convicted felons, who aren't allowed to vote in quite a few states, as it is. Nor am I trying to finger Republicans or Democrats exclusively -- it doesn't really break down that way.
No, I have some more specific groups in mind. They fall into three categories.
1. People who vote in ignorance. The most common is probably the person who goes into the booth and pulls a lever or punches a punch card without knowing anything about the candidate he or she is voting for.
Folks, if you don't know anything about the two candidates running for the 46th district in the state legislature, there is no law that says you have to vote in that race. There are some countries with laws like that, but the United States is not one of them. You aren't letting down the system by leaving that race blank -- you're probably doing it a favor.
First of all, there really isn't all that much excuse for being ignorant about political candidates. First of all, virtually every local newspaper -- remember newspapers? -- will run something about the candidates prior to the election. That was true when I was growing up, but today it's even easier with the internet. Almost every candidate down to the level of animal control officer will have some sort of presence on the internet today -- it's practically a requirement for winning races today. And if that doesn't give you enough information about who a candidate is and what he or she will do in office, you can bet that someone is blogging about that candidate.
If you still don't know about the candidates in a race and still feel you have to vote for one of them, here's a question to consider: How do you know you're not voting to elect the next Adolf Hitler?
Answer: You don't. Do you really want to be responsible for something like that? It's a karmic universe out there, and sooner or later, what you do comes back to you.
There is a deeper level of ignorance among some voters out there, however, and I am even less inclined to want to see these people voting. I am referring to voters who are completely ignorant about our system of government.
I'll give you a typical example. Recently, I read a Q&A-style interview with the controversial country group the Dixie Chicks. Their lead singer told a story about being interviewed on a country radio station in Dallas -- well, not so much being interviewed as being lectured about what lousy Americans they were. The show host kept trying to make the following points:
* Our boys are over there in Eye-Rack fighting for your personal freedoms.
* Therefore, you are not allowed to criticize President Bush.
Now, leaving aside the question of whether or not severely brain damaged people should be hosting radio programs, the truth is that you probably know someone who thinks exactly that. Actually, you probably know more than one person who thinks that and should actually bother to read the text of the First Amendment. That is, if they can read.
Some of these same ignorant people listened to Bush address the nation the day after the 9/11 attacks and declare that the United States is at war with terrorism. "Yup, yup," they thought. "We're at war all right. The president said so. Better start watching what we say cuz it's wartime..."
Well, in a word, no. The Constitution is extremely clear about how the United States may go to war, and it is not by presidential decree. Not ever. How is it done legally? Go read it. It will tell you. Just because you spent your junior high school American history class doodling dirty pictures in the margins of your textbook instead of listening to those interminable, boring lectures on the Constitution doesn't mean you can't look it up right now. You can even find the complete text of the U.S. Constitution on the internet. Do a Google search. Type in "U.S. Constitution."
While I can't excuse that kind of ignorance, I guess I can sort of understand it. These days, when a kid graduates from high school after 12 years of unannounced locker searches, censorship of the school newspaper, random drug testing, and constant monitoring of his or her internet activity, it's probably no surprise that this kid believes that the authorities can do whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want, without any limits or anything you can do about it.
Nevertheless, do you really want people who think that you're not allowed to criticize the president expressing their opinion at the polls? I don't.
2. People who vote according to a narrow personal agenda to the exclusion of all other factors. I grew up in Cleveland during the 1950s and 1960s, which at the time, was a city of many solidly ethnic neighborhoods, and there was a lot of this sort of narrow-minded voting going on. If you grew up in the Slovenian neighborhood, and you saw a Slovenian name on the ballot, you automatically voted for the guy. (Back then, almost all candidates were male.) And if you saw some Croatian bastard on the ballot, you would never vote for that person.
My late father would sooner have cut off his own cock and swallow it than vote for a black person. He had some other odd opinions, too, and needless to say, we had a lot of arguments about elections.
There's less of that specific sort of thing these days, but today, narrow-minded voting tends to vote around specific issues. Abortion is probably the biggest one. You've heard this sort of voter talking: "Congressman Porkbarrel has a very solid record against abortion, so of course, I'm going to vote for him. Sure, he beats his wife and children, favors seizing my house and turning it over to shopping mall developers, and the voices keep telling him to launch nuclear missiles against the Minions of Satan, but by god, he's against abortion, so he's got my vote!"
This sort of anti-abortion voter is a big part of the constituency that provided enough votes for Bush to steal the 2000 and 2004 elections -- and you know what's ironic? Six years later, you can still get an abortion legally in all 50 states. Even in South Dakota, where they made a very serious effort to outlaw all abortions in the last election. When it comes right down to it, that kind of single-issue voting doesn't really work. Once they're in office, they have no obligation to listen to you. And mostly, they don't.
For the sake of honesty here, I'm a bit of a hypocrite on this, because I have my own single issue, although I think it's a pretty broad one, overall. My issue is personal liberty. If you're being elected in office will increase my personal liberty, I will vote for you. If it won't, I won't.
3. People who don't vote as they believe because they think that candidate can't win. Folks, get a clue. This is not a $2 bet on the fifth race at Arlington Park Raceway. This is a statement of who you are and what you believe, and if you can't do that inside a voting booth, then you are committing an act of fraud, and you should not be allowed to vote. Period.
This is a big bugaboo of mine because I keep getting told year after year after year that if I vote for the Libertarian candidate, then I'm throwing my vote away. BULL-FUCKING-SHIT!!! A vote for the Libertarian is a vote for the Libertarian, nothing more and nothing less.
First of all, if you don't vote for the Libertarian, he or she certanly won't have any chance of winning. Duh!
That aside, a simple thought experiment any six-year-old can do should dispel any notion of "wasted" votes.
Suppose you are a complete supporter of the two-and-only-two-party system. You believe wholeheartedly that you should vote only for a Republican or a Democrat, because only a Republican or a Democrat has any chance of winning, and voting for a third party is a wasted vote. So you vote for the Republican. Then the Democrat wins.
Well, guess what. You wasted your vote! Your candidate didn't win, so what good did your vote do? Nothing! You wasted it!
The only kind of political system that has no wasted votes is a one-party system. There are plenty of countries around the world that have one-party systems, and you can travel there and check them out for yourself to see what they're like. North Korea and Zimbabwe are two good places to start.
This rant has been building up inside of me for a good long while now, so it's good to get it off my chest. Next time, maybe I'll republish this in advance of the election, so someone reading this might think about some of these issues before going into the booth.
One last election tip. Never vote for anyone who says "nu-kew-lar." Ever.
After the deed was done, on my way out, an attendant handed me a small sticker, presumably to wear on my lapel. It was oval-shaped and had on it a flag and the words "I VOTED TODAY." I accepted it politely, then once I was outside, threw it away.
I guess the point was to show everyone that you did your civic duty, as if giving your sanction to assholes who are as likely to fukk up the planet and your life as not somehow makes you a superior person. In addition to voting, you are also supposed to wipe your ass after taking a dump, but I don't go around wearing a sticker saying I WIPED MY ASS TODAY, even though I've probably gotten a lot more benefit out of wiping my ass over the years than I ever have from electing people to public office. (I suppose that an I WIPED MY ASS TODAY sticker would have a little toilet on it instead of a little flag, though, the flag might not be entirely inappropriate. You know. "Show your love for America! Engage in some personal hygiene!")
The cliche repeated over and over again is that absolutely everyone who is eligible should vote, and the more who vote, the better off we all are. You've been at a party someone when some little snot comes up to you and opines, "If you don't vote, you don't have a right to your opinion!" (Imagine this with an obnoxious nasal whine, if you will, since that's what you usually get.)
Now, here's a hint for dealing with self-righteous turds like that. In 99.999999999% of all cases, the person saying that is a liberal Democrat. I don't really know why that is, but it's so. Check it out, if you don't trust my word on this.
So when someone uses that line on me, what I usually do is kind of scrunch up my shoulders and hunch over a bit, and I put a hangdog expression of guilt on my face, which liberal Democrats really love to induce in people. And then I say, "You know, you're absolutely right. I've been really remiss in doing my civic duty. So what I'm going to do is the very first opportunity that I get, I'm going to register to vote, and then come Election Day, I'm going right down the the polls and vote a straight Republican ticket!"
This almost always produces a brief moment of astonished, jaw-dropping silence on the part of said voting activist, which is usually long enough to extricate yourself from that particular situation and make for an exit.
This is a roundabout illustration of something I have come to believe. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, I no longer believe that everyone should vote. In fact, I think we all would be much better off if some people weren't allowed to vote at all!
Now, I'm not talking about convicted felons, who aren't allowed to vote in quite a few states, as it is. Nor am I trying to finger Republicans or Democrats exclusively -- it doesn't really break down that way.
No, I have some more specific groups in mind. They fall into three categories.
1. People who vote in ignorance. The most common is probably the person who goes into the booth and pulls a lever or punches a punch card without knowing anything about the candidate he or she is voting for.
Folks, if you don't know anything about the two candidates running for the 46th district in the state legislature, there is no law that says you have to vote in that race. There are some countries with laws like that, but the United States is not one of them. You aren't letting down the system by leaving that race blank -- you're probably doing it a favor.
First of all, there really isn't all that much excuse for being ignorant about political candidates. First of all, virtually every local newspaper -- remember newspapers? -- will run something about the candidates prior to the election. That was true when I was growing up, but today it's even easier with the internet. Almost every candidate down to the level of animal control officer will have some sort of presence on the internet today -- it's practically a requirement for winning races today. And if that doesn't give you enough information about who a candidate is and what he or she will do in office, you can bet that someone is blogging about that candidate.
If you still don't know about the candidates in a race and still feel you have to vote for one of them, here's a question to consider: How do you know you're not voting to elect the next Adolf Hitler?
Answer: You don't. Do you really want to be responsible for something like that? It's a karmic universe out there, and sooner or later, what you do comes back to you.
There is a deeper level of ignorance among some voters out there, however, and I am even less inclined to want to see these people voting. I am referring to voters who are completely ignorant about our system of government.
I'll give you a typical example. Recently, I read a Q&A-style interview with the controversial country group the Dixie Chicks. Their lead singer told a story about being interviewed on a country radio station in Dallas -- well, not so much being interviewed as being lectured about what lousy Americans they were. The show host kept trying to make the following points:
* Our boys are over there in Eye-Rack fighting for your personal freedoms.
* Therefore, you are not allowed to criticize President Bush.
Now, leaving aside the question of whether or not severely brain damaged people should be hosting radio programs, the truth is that you probably know someone who thinks exactly that. Actually, you probably know more than one person who thinks that and should actually bother to read the text of the First Amendment. That is, if they can read.
Some of these same ignorant people listened to Bush address the nation the day after the 9/11 attacks and declare that the United States is at war with terrorism. "Yup, yup," they thought. "We're at war all right. The president said so. Better start watching what we say cuz it's wartime..."
Well, in a word, no. The Constitution is extremely clear about how the United States may go to war, and it is not by presidential decree. Not ever. How is it done legally? Go read it. It will tell you. Just because you spent your junior high school American history class doodling dirty pictures in the margins of your textbook instead of listening to those interminable, boring lectures on the Constitution doesn't mean you can't look it up right now. You can even find the complete text of the U.S. Constitution on the internet. Do a Google search. Type in "U.S. Constitution."
While I can't excuse that kind of ignorance, I guess I can sort of understand it. These days, when a kid graduates from high school after 12 years of unannounced locker searches, censorship of the school newspaper, random drug testing, and constant monitoring of his or her internet activity, it's probably no surprise that this kid believes that the authorities can do whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want, without any limits or anything you can do about it.
Nevertheless, do you really want people who think that you're not allowed to criticize the president expressing their opinion at the polls? I don't.
2. People who vote according to a narrow personal agenda to the exclusion of all other factors. I grew up in Cleveland during the 1950s and 1960s, which at the time, was a city of many solidly ethnic neighborhoods, and there was a lot of this sort of narrow-minded voting going on. If you grew up in the Slovenian neighborhood, and you saw a Slovenian name on the ballot, you automatically voted for the guy. (Back then, almost all candidates were male.) And if you saw some Croatian bastard on the ballot, you would never vote for that person.
My late father would sooner have cut off his own cock and swallow it than vote for a black person. He had some other odd opinions, too, and needless to say, we had a lot of arguments about elections.
There's less of that specific sort of thing these days, but today, narrow-minded voting tends to vote around specific issues. Abortion is probably the biggest one. You've heard this sort of voter talking: "Congressman Porkbarrel has a very solid record against abortion, so of course, I'm going to vote for him. Sure, he beats his wife and children, favors seizing my house and turning it over to shopping mall developers, and the voices keep telling him to launch nuclear missiles against the Minions of Satan, but by god, he's against abortion, so he's got my vote!"
This sort of anti-abortion voter is a big part of the constituency that provided enough votes for Bush to steal the 2000 and 2004 elections -- and you know what's ironic? Six years later, you can still get an abortion legally in all 50 states. Even in South Dakota, where they made a very serious effort to outlaw all abortions in the last election. When it comes right down to it, that kind of single-issue voting doesn't really work. Once they're in office, they have no obligation to listen to you. And mostly, they don't.
For the sake of honesty here, I'm a bit of a hypocrite on this, because I have my own single issue, although I think it's a pretty broad one, overall. My issue is personal liberty. If you're being elected in office will increase my personal liberty, I will vote for you. If it won't, I won't.
3. People who don't vote as they believe because they think that candidate can't win. Folks, get a clue. This is not a $2 bet on the fifth race at Arlington Park Raceway. This is a statement of who you are and what you believe, and if you can't do that inside a voting booth, then you are committing an act of fraud, and you should not be allowed to vote. Period.
This is a big bugaboo of mine because I keep getting told year after year after year that if I vote for the Libertarian candidate, then I'm throwing my vote away. BULL-FUCKING-SHIT!!! A vote for the Libertarian is a vote for the Libertarian, nothing more and nothing less.
First of all, if you don't vote for the Libertarian, he or she certanly won't have any chance of winning. Duh!
That aside, a simple thought experiment any six-year-old can do should dispel any notion of "wasted" votes.
Suppose you are a complete supporter of the two-and-only-two-party system. You believe wholeheartedly that you should vote only for a Republican or a Democrat, because only a Republican or a Democrat has any chance of winning, and voting for a third party is a wasted vote. So you vote for the Republican. Then the Democrat wins.
Well, guess what. You wasted your vote! Your candidate didn't win, so what good did your vote do? Nothing! You wasted it!
The only kind of political system that has no wasted votes is a one-party system. There are plenty of countries around the world that have one-party systems, and you can travel there and check them out for yourself to see what they're like. North Korea and Zimbabwe are two good places to start.
This rant has been building up inside of me for a good long while now, so it's good to get it off my chest. Next time, maybe I'll republish this in advance of the election, so someone reading this might think about some of these issues before going into the booth.
One last election tip. Never vote for anyone who says "nu-kew-lar." Ever.
posted by Da Zedman at 3:57 PM
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