I am perpetually boggled
by the renfields that abound in the blogosphere.
Professor Hale- who ought to know about such things- talks about the “Ammo box” crowd, and he’s dead nuts on. And of course he attracts the usual stupidity: “Voting got us into this, I don’t think it will get us out”. Sorry, do those words sound that ignorant in your head before you type them or say them out loud? “This action succeeded. I don’t think we should do this because I don’t think it will succeed”
This is the underpants gnome theory of social change writ large:
1: Don’t vote
2:??????
3: Success!!
When one single individual can come here and tell me what the fuck ???? is, and use facts, and illustrate with perfect clarity how the ???? will work to effect change, I will go to my polling place next election and pointedly NOT VOTE, but I’m not holding my breath, because all anyone has had so far is bullshit.
20 comments Og | Uncategorized
I think the “don’t vote” people have some fundamental errors in their reasoning:
1) That there’s no difference between Obama/McCain, Obama/Romney, Hillary/Christie, or whoever. There’s at least one major difference, if the President has an R after his name the press will DO THEIR JOB and act as watchdogs of the administration, rather than giving the D a pass one everything.
2) The idea that slowing down our progress toward the cliff is just as bad as speeding it up. Correction of the trouble we’re in will take time, and anything you can do to buy more time makes the correction more likely to happen before the fecal matter hits the ventilation device. The first step toward turning around is to slow down.
3) Some people imagine a Utopia of Freedom after a revolution. It could just as well go the other way though, and even if we DO go the right way we’re STILL looking at a lot of bloodshed and destruction before that happens. Lots of us won’t live to enjoy our freedom.
4) And attitude of “Let the Democrats win, so when the whole shithouse comes down on our heads it’ll be THEIR fault instead of ours.” Yeah, right. When’s the last time in the last few decades a Democrat has gotten blame for ANYTHING. The current POTUS is still blaming Bush for everything, and his followers believe him.
I don’t know if we’re past the point of no return yet, but I can’t see a scenario where not voting makes things better.
That’s because you’re s TOOL OF THE MAN, man!!!
lol. Well said.
????? means get the buttholes on the other side to not vote. Of course doing 1 will nullify this advantage. Something that the don’t vote idiots don’t seem to fathom.
Actually, NOT voting got us into this.
lol. Yep. Prezactly.
Yep. all those people setting on their hands because in the run up to this we had Bush who the media did there damnedest to destroy.
We have to vote because to do anything else is stupid.
I only know voting for a democrat AT ANY LEVEL is asking to be lead by evil. You have a 50-50 chance with the republicans. I don’t think the tea party is much better.
Use that knowledge to your advantage or not. I will vote, but I am getting ready as well. The next decade will not be pretty.
There’s a guy (Ken from Livonia) who calls Bill Bennett and local Ann Arbor shows frequently.
He refused to vote for Romney on religious grounds.
Now he calls in and complains about the effect Obamacare has had on his life.
He’s lost his insurance.
I love to call in after him and point out the disconnect that he refuses to see.
Yeah. Violent revolution. A political jump ball when the constitution of a nation’s polity goes up for grabs. By anybody. With the best organization and the most virulent activists.
Yeah. That’s a winner. Go for it.
Not disagreeing that we aren’t voting our way out of this. The struggle will be long and multifarious on myriad fronts. It DID take us over a hundred years to get here. (Can anybody hear the Hildabeast shrilling that the Right wants to roll back a century of (scorn quotes) “progress”?) We ain’t gonna roll that back in one or even ten election cycles.
M
Everyone seems to think that we can get that candidate that will fix this, or else nothing is good enough. No, we cannot vote our way out of this- certainly not in one election- but we MUST increment our way out of this- exactly the way the left did, by insinuating ourselves into every aspect of society, until the liberal voice is not the only one that gets heard.
Until the liberal voice is never heard from. Or at least until the adherents gets back in line with its definition.
“Not voting” by Republicans is what got Obama a second term, arguably.
I think the GOP are a bunch of asshats, but if I didn’t live in Oregon (which will reliably go Democrat whatever I do), I’d have held my nose and voted for Romney as the Least Of The Likely Evils in 2012.
Just like I held my nose to vote for that bastard McCain in 2008, as the Least Of The Likely Evils.
(And I can’t stand John “McCain-Feingold” McCain.)
But since I do live in Oregon, I voted for Johnson, since it did no harm and it’s not every year the LP nominates someone who isn’t insane.
There is more that can be done besides simply voting for whom the party nominee is too.
If you don’t like the candidates, you can get together with a few like-minded principled stalwarts and attempt to move a better candidate forward in your local primary party conclaves. From 2001 is this suggestion about how to beat the establishment at its own rigged games that each reader here should take a look at and see what he or she might do. http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3bdb5b6b391b.htm
(It contains two lists of suggestions on how to play both offense and defense.) God bless those who try.
When someone says they can’t help, move on. There had better be some who want a better world. The primary process is about the only way you can get better choices so that voting actually begins to look like a viable solution to more people again. The Establishment hates the TEA party movement exactly for that reason — it has been doing much of what you will find in those two lists.
Too much on your plate? Well, speaking from experience: make room on that plate or regret it later.
Sigh… I don’t get it either. Yeah, Bush might have set us off down this road. And I voted for him – TWICE. The first time the alternative was Al Gore. You wanna blame me for doing my little part in keeping that half-wit outta the Oval Office? Well go ahead then. The second time the alternative was John Kerry. A quarter-wit if ever there was one. Blame me again.
I vote in NJ. Do I like Christie? F no! My first alternative was Corzine. I don’t care much for Christie, but heck, he ain’t Corzine. And my second alternative was some woman who seemed to think we should vote for her because she seemed to think she looked good in jeans.
How does one not vote and consider oneself some sort of change agent? If all you can do is prevent the greater of two evils from winning then you’ve done something. At the very least you bought some time when less damage might be done.
What so many people never seem to realize about politics is that nobody ever wins, the objective is to lose less than everybody else. The strategy of politics is to ensure that no-one is violently unhappy with government policy. The art of politics is to successfully re-define “happiness” every electoral cycle.
And people wonder why Obama took up golf so enthusiastically; the perfect exercise in frustration for those too non-athletic to play baseball*.
*If you “lose” only 70% of the time you’re a Hall of Fame candidate.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
You’ve made the choice to allow those who DO vote to control you.
That’s not a choice I will make, thankyouverymcuh. If it does ever come to pulling a trigger, I’m going to do so with the full knowledge that I did everything in my power to stop that event from happening.
Twas Mark Twain who said that if voting actually mattered it would be outlawed. And that is the point. We really did not “vote our way into this situation” as those who actually control things never allow enough people who would do right on to the ballot to actually threaten the agenda of everexpanding government power. That means that we are not going to “vote our way out of this” either. Because those same puppet masters who make many of the BIG decisions on what happens in America are NEVER going to allow enough honest people to appear on the ballots in any election to give them pause to worry about their control.
Case in point…..Herman Cain. He posed a real and credible threat to Obama’s re election chances…..and on cue he was destroyed by the lame stream media and forced to withdraw.
NOBODY who poses a risk to the current paradigm of corrupt power has a realistic chance of appearing on the ballot let alone winning.
Yes, you are that ignorant. I’m impressed, you have to be a real fool to hold that many contradictory positions. Please, don’t vote, ever. You’re a moron.
Let’s take this a bit at a time..
Twain: Really? Twain was the days equivalent of a stand up comic. He was a pacifist and a military deserter. You’re turning to this for wisdom? Sorry. An amusing anecdote does not give credence to your ignorance.
“We really did not “vote our way into this situation†as those who actually control things never allow enough people who would do right on to the ballot to actually threaten the agenda of everexpanding government power”
Look, if you wear the tinfoil with the shiny side out, it will do a better job of keeping out the voices, OK? Government power is ever expanding because the “Summer of love” morons grew up to be newscasters, teachers, and union leaders. They voted for the things you hate. and because you parked your halfmoons at home they got what they wanted. This bullshit is all on you, fucktard.
” That means that we are not going to “vote our way out of this†either.”
those words up there? You know, the ones I wrote? If you actually- you know- read them, you might just learn how fucking stupid you are, but instead you’re doing precisely what your liberal masters have taught you to do, because you are too fucking stupid to understand that you are doing what they want.
Pick up the fucking rope. YOU are the problem, retard.
Oh,lordy yes! “Puppet Masters”
So, just so I’m clear here, the massive expansion of government power and commensurate shredding of the Constitution carried out by Lincoln and FDR was a result of some hippies in the 1960’s? Gosh, I really must be ignorant to fail to grok that connection.
Suck it, balrog. You know exactly what I mean and you’re just being a cock because you don’t like being called out on your traitorousness.