Neanderpundit

Because you drive like that. Now find someplace else to be.

A man whose fishing advice I trust implicitly and who has been invaluable to me in choosing equipment seems to be one of the fraternity of people who choose not to vote. I’m posting this here because I have already been more disagreeable on his site than I prefer, and if the discussion will go forward here, I don’t mind a little blood and guts spewing around.
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Now, I understand if you’re a drunkard or a clot, or if you haven’t got the brains that God gave a duck; those people shouldn’t vote, and lord knows, far too many of them do. I also understand if you’re some teenage anarchist wannabe who thinks the whole system is fucked from the get go and wants another one,(Though that probably puts you in the “Clot” category) or you’re some peter pan who is sitting in his room pouting because he can’t play with the toys he wants to play with,(Erm, “Clot” again) but the system we have is the system we have, and good things can be done to it to rectify the bad things that have been done to it, if people get off their halfmoons and do something about it. No, it won’t happen in one election. No, it won’t happen over night or even in ten years, but it can be done. It got corrupted, it can get uncorrupted.

The idea that not voting somehow gives you a moral superiority over people who do is utterly foreign to me, and I’ve never had anyone explain it to me who didn’t resort to some freakish playbook of bizzare near-revolutionary jargon and tired old shibboleths about- well, frankly, I don’t care.

All of it is a fabricated high hobby horse from which idiots want to blame me for the shit we’re in, while taking the stand that “I didn’t do any of this!” Of course. And you did exactly nothing to stop it, either.

For any of you that are sitting out there thinking, Damn, Og’s really out in left field in this one, let me splain a little something to you.

There is something called a Sin of Omission. A Sin of omission is where you, of your own free will, fail to do something you ought to do.

Jesus spoke of a man on the road to Jericho from Jerusalem, overcome by bandits on the road, beaten, robbed, and left for dead. A levite and a priest both cross the road to avoid the poor bastard, but the Samaritan takes care of him. We don’t think too much of this today, but imagine the half dead man in the road is a jehova’s Witness and the Samaritan is a pimp. it’s kinda like that.

Now, we know that the bandits did wrong, but most of us think this story is about how wonderful the Samaritan was, even though Samaritans were no great friends of the Jews.

The story is not about that, really.

It’s about the sin of omission. The priest and the levite are as guilty as the bandits in this instance, because they saw and did nothing to alleviate the suffering of their own countryman. Stop thinking about the Samaritan, he just did what humans are supposed to do. Instead, focus on the levite and the priest. Do they have the moral high ground, because they did nothing? of course not. Well, you say, they didn’t actually beat the man. No, but neither did they undo the wrong that was done to him. but hey, the Samaritan could have been beaten and robbed too! And he probably got blood on his clothes. And he paid money out of his pocket to take care of a total stranger! What a sucker!

We are called upon by our Creator to do what we can. We are imperfect and we fail, but we are charged with the responsibility to keep trying. We are also told to shake the dust off our sandals at lost causes. Knowing where to concentrate our efforts and when to shake our sandals is what is called wisdom. I don’t claim to be an expert at that, or even an amateur, but I sure know it when I see it.
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Power is a fluid, folks. It flows along the path of least resistance. Choosing not to participate in a political process because you feel it makes you morally superior in some way is the most ludicrous thing I can imagine. The power you relinquish then flows into the hands of the people whose aim is to change not only the process but you. And they do; even more people get on the “I won’t vote” hobby horse. In the end, you are completely controlled, down to your actions, by the people and the process you disdain most. “I’m not a slave to this system!!!” no. You are the system, you are a cog in the machine designed by the enemies of freedom to enslave everyone. And thanks to those who “Choose not to participate”, that machine is running flawlessly.

So I don’t understand this mindset. Otherwise perfectly reasonable people chose to believe some action or inaction on their part fixes something or changes it for the better; it demonstrably does not, and in fact acts to make things worse.

I have a giant list of things I’m probably going to rot in hell for, but the sin of omission in this case will not be one of them. I don’t have some misguided “Belief” I’m going to change the world; hell, I work very, very hard to have no “belief” at all. I do know this, for certain: I did NOT get the government I voted for. I got the government a whole bunch of other people failed to prevent.

I fully welcome any explanation of this that doesnt’ cite some dork as the ultimate authority on how I should live; if you can make some sense of this attitude to me, I’ll send you a $20 gift certificate to Hooters.

but I’m still voting.

Not in the top ten, not the top 20, not nearly as lethal as it could ahve been, but a serious asswhipping anyway.

Long before digital anything, a small company I worked for (Literally a husband and wife team) had purchased a video camera. The camera was crude by today’s standards, but it took good video. They took it on a vacation with them where they did a bit of rock wall climbing- they had been away a few weeks and had let their standards relax some, and I noticed his wife’s legs had not been shorn for some time and were in desperate need thereof. As she was wearing shorts it was that much more noticeable, and i remarked, off the cuff, that she was doing quite well at climbing possibly in part because she looked like a monkey.

he proceeded to beat me fairly severely around the head and shoulders with a luxo lamp, and since he was a marine, he had already had a plan to kill me that day, as every day.

he didn’t, in fact kill me, though I’m still fairly certain I have some glass from the fluorescent tube in my scalp yet, and he laughed as he gave me a beating, some of which he did with the lamp still plugged in, combining mild electrocution with blunt force trauma. he was pissed that he’d never be able to look at his wife’s legs again without thinking she was part chimpanzee, and before it was all said and done he helped me back to my feet and sent me off to the store to get a new luxo lamp. Even let me drive his new MR2.