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Why I Don't Vote

Rudolph Quin

Rudolph Quin

Mistaken for some sort of scoundrel
Withdrawn
Joined
Aug 2, 2009
Location
here
Recently, I had a discussion with someone about this and they brought up how "special" and important my voice is. No, it's not. Neither of the guys running are people that I want to represent me. "Well, it might be choosing between two evils, but at least you have the power to make the choice."

...Are you joking? Here's how I look at that type of logic: Someone tells me that I can make a choice between having "full-blown AIDS" or "terminal stomach cancer" and when I make the decision, they say, "Well, you have AIDS now, but at least you got to choose! :D " Yeah, I feel all empowered and shit despite the fact that I'm gonna die either way.

What do you guys think? How do you personally feel about voting? Is it important to you? Do you truly feel like you have a voice when both candidates usually look indistinguishable nowadays anyway?
 
For the past few presidential elections I have voted third party. Of course they have no chance of winning since our illusionary two party system...

http://mikebilly.com/post/28870894901/best-yard-sign-ever-get-it-here

… makes it very hard for them to gain power. It IS important for the people as a whole to vote. The problem is the media has brainwashed most of us that most of our citizens think they know when really they know not. To borrow what is my all time favorite movie, more of us need to think like this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTN3s2iVKKI

… because of this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI5hrcwU7Dk

One final thing to put in perspective. Again, its important for US as a WHOLE to vote. But individually, here is my response.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxRSkM8C8z4
 
--+Hahvoc Requiem+-- said:
I plan on voting for Gary Johnson sooo. Both our main party reps suck eggs and need to get run over or something.
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Are you a fellow libertarian? I fall between a minarchist and AnCap.
 
I'd consider myself more moderate/usuallydon'tgiveafuckaboutpolitics but I looked up some stuff on GJ and found that I liked most of what he said - minus his healthcare stance. But he looks like a lot better of a candidate than the other two. Definitely better than R/R
 
If you don't vote then in my opinion you have no right to complain about your government unless you take part in some kind of active opposition organisation which is working to either overthrow the government or to work with them. I don't think that AIDs and Cancer are good representations of political opponents in your analogy; only because they work too fast. Huntington's and Parkinson's are probably better conditions to compare as they wear people down over a number of years before killing them.

I'm not sure why anyone would ever vote Republicans anyway. Anyone who puts religious beliefs before civil liberties is a fucking moron.
 
EnlightenedAneurysm said:
If you don't vote then in my opinion you have no right to complain about your government...
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I've felt this sentiment for a long time.


The idea of not voting for someone who has little to no chance of winning, that such is 'a waste,' is to say that you should only vote for someone you think can win. That sounds like a big ol' bandwagon to me. I understand the concept of voting for Option A so that Option B doesn't get elected. I get that. It makes sense. But at the same time you're trying to keep the undesired candidate out of office, you're acting as an enabler to what most will agree is a 'broken system.'

I remember seeing an interview with the most famous third party candidate, Ralph Nader, wherein he was asked why he continued to run even though he didn't stand a legitimate chance of winning. He explained that it wasn't about winning or losing, but raising awareness. The various third parties have grown tremendously in the past two decades. The majority of what's out there now didn't even exist all that long ago. You would never even have heard of guys like Ron Paul if people hadn't been 'throwing their vote away' for awhile now. Against the two behemoths that are the Republicans and the Democrats, people embracing other options is something that takes time to build. And it has been. David may not be slaying Goliath in this election, or in four years from now, but to ignore the growth of interest and the varying viewpoints it's come to present is just ignorance.

I'm not saying that you should vote green. I'm not saying you should vote blue or red either. I'm just saying that you should vote, for a direction you believe in.
 
The point of voting is to have sway. People will say one vote can make a difference and it can, so everyone who does/can vote does have a stake in it even if it might not seem like it.
 
Here's the thing. If everyone thought "Well my individual voice doesn't matter" then no one would vote, and we'd be surrendering any sort of choice at all. If not one citizen voted because of that sentiment, wouldn't it stand to reason that we'd end up with someone just saying "Oh, well, since no one care, I guess I'll just do what I want, and the rest of you be damned"? Essentially we'd end up with a dictator which I'm thinking would probably be a bad thing. So while your vote means little on a point by point basis, just remember, that if everyone shared your idea, then we'd all be in trouble.
 
I'm thinkin' I'll just build a robot and program it with my ideals but with that program hidden until it wins the election and gets in office, so you know, people will actually vote for it and stuff. Once in office, it'll unleash a reign of terror. And it'll be a chick robot. You should all vote for my robot because voting is important.
 
TheyDontKnowIBurn said:
Here's the thing. If everyone thought "Well my individual voice doesn't matter" then no one would vote, and we'd be surrendering any sort of choice at all. If not one citizen voted because of that sentiment, wouldn't it stand to reason that we'd end up with someone just saying "Oh, well, since no one care, I guess I'll just do what I want, and the rest of you be damned"? Essentially we'd end up with a dictator which I'm thinking would probably be a bad thing. So while your vote means little on a point by point basis, just remember, that if everyone shared your idea, then we'd all be in trouble.
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That pretty much what happened last election. Well kinda. He said exactly what he wanted to do, and people voted for him. Now they are pissed because he did many of the things he said he would.

Normally I vote for third party candidates for many of the reasons listed by others. But in this election I will be voting for one of the big two simply because I can not stand another four years of that guy we have now. With everything he has done already with the prospect of reelection, imagine what he will try to do when he knows that he can't be elected again.
 
I dislike both candidates equally. I can't really explain why either, other than they just rub me the wrong way. I am also of the opinion that America's not really a democracy anymore. We're more a capitalist society than anything else. And we tend to treat voting the same way we do shopping. We go with what's shiny, and pretty, and new. Even if the reviews say it's absolute crap.
 
KrisBeta said:
We're more a capitalist society than anything else.
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May I ask how you decide that? I don't really consider myself a capitalist, but I do like to call my self pro-free market. And that is something corporations DO NOT WANT. (Warning: potential rant mode may be engaged)

Meanwhile I want to kick this thing here.
7OTcV.jpg

​
 
KrisBeta said:
I dislike both candidates equally. I can't really explain why either, other than they just rub me the wrong way.
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Well that really isnt an educated reason to not vote for either of them. "I don't like the way he looks." Is not a valid argument against them.

I am also of the opinion that America's not really a democracy anymore.
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We never were a democracy. We are a Constitutional Republic.
 
It'd be better if we had a representative parliament. Then we could actually see third parties getting into power.
 
You don't vote, then you have no right to bitch. You consented to having so little of an opinion that you didn't take any action, why should you have any say after the fact?

I get pissed when I hear people talk about "the lesser of two evils." It only displays how little they know. There's two clearly distinct and different main parties running. They're no where near the same. In fact, practically every issue that's presented in Congress is split by party lines: One voting yes, the other voting no. They're not the same by any means. And if you talk about how nothing gets done, it's easy to explain: Often times (like now) the House is controlled by one party, the Senate, the other party. It's our own faults, as Americans, that nothing gets passed because we can't share a common interest.

I equally get pissed at third party voters. You can spout all day long about standing by your convictions and choosing who best represents you, but all you're doing is making it more certain that the party you LEAST want to win gets an edge. taking a look at the nature of most of these parties, they're damned near identical to one of the two main ones anyway, but more extreme (they'll sign yes or no harder on the sheet). The Tea Party strips away voted from the Republicans. The Libertarian party strips away votes from Democrats. You know what the major difference is? The name after all is said and done. And that your vote no longer is counted toward helping yourself.
 
@ Firm.

This isn’t necessarily true. The Libertarian party has a long history of stripping voters from the Republican side. For instance, Bob Barr, one of their prior candidates for President was a former Republican. There is a clear distinction between the two mainstream parties , and that of the Libertarian party. Primarily the difference comes down to the purpose of the federal government.

Libertarians are minimalistic with their approach to the federal government, so much so that both mainstream parties accuse them of being “anarchist”. Historically speaking, The United States has had several periods in its history where there were more than two parties. Indeed, the current Republican Party started off as a third party alternative to the Democrats of that era (a progeny of Andrew Jackson), and the Whig party.

The fact of the matter is, the two mainstream parties may disagree on many core philosophical principals, but they are united on one front; at some level or another, they push for the expansion of the federal government. For most Republicans this is for law enforcement and matters of Order. For Democrats it’s more for certain social programs, reaching out to the poor and the like.

I vote for the individual, this is especially so on state and local level elections. If a libertarian fits my philosophy better than the other candidates, I will vote for him/her. I’ve never understood blind devotion to party, that is something that our Founding Father’s warned against. George Washington was one of the ones who was most against it. He claimed that having political parties would lead to factionalism within the government; which, in turn, would lead to dysfunctional government.

As for the Tea-party, it’s not a political party per-se. Rather it is a reactionary movement to government. The Tea Party is a sub-movement within the Republican Party, however, it also has a fair number of Democrats as well. (This partially depends on your geographic location). The fact of the matter is, we have become factionalised, just as our original Founders had warned against.

That being said, I can’t believe that two parties alone necessarily always represent the will of the people. Again, my own personal philosophy is to approach the elections putting a vote for the candidate not the party. That way, I have an equal right to bitch at all forms of the political spectrum, because they are all failing me equally. However, that’s just my personal approach to these matters.
 
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