One more time.
I’m going to ask, and I hope that I can find one person who will give me a straightforward, honest answer.
How will not voting fix anything?
Answers that will be immediately deleted:
“Those bastards all suck. I wouldn’t votre for him for (insert reason here)”
This is not an answer to the question and will not be tolerated.
“yeah, go vote Romney and see where that gets you, tool of the progressive right~!!!”
This is also not an answer, you don’t know who i”m voting for.
‘Ron paul!!!!”
Not an answer.
Here are some answers that are more on point:
“if nobody votes for Romney, Obama will be re elected and this will precipitate the revolution”
This is ignorant, but it is at least an honest answer that can be discussed.
“Aliens told me not to vote”
This is also at least an honest answer, though weird. Probably not weirder than the one above
“Voting is immoral”
This is asinine, but is at least honest, and can also be discussed.
The whole point of this is to help ME make MY decisions. the next question is, if there is some way (Which I cannot conceive) where not voting will somehow make things better, then what action DO we take? And if there is no foundation to the assumption that not voting will improve anything, as I suspect there is not, then what else should we be doing?
This is all I’d like to know.
36 comments Og | Uncategorized
not voting might save you a little gas and a little time. Voting means you buy into the result, even if not to your likeing and even though you know that your preferred candidate isn’t even running so you have no possibility of “winning”. So it is really just a race to see who punishes you least. But you can only really make the “it doesn’t matter” argument if you know that the margin of victory is sufficiently wide that fraud and error won’t be the deciding factors.
I don’t really have any interest in convincing you to stay home, so you can ignore me. I’m just a compulsive commenter.
You comment on cereal? Does your wife hit you? Oh, COMPULSIVE commenter, I was thinking Serial commenter.
I think you could make an argument that not voting (at least for President, other elections may be worth going out for) won’t make things any WORSE. I DO plan on voting, but the arguments I’ve seen for not voting fall into a couple categories:
1) My state is going to Obama by a landslide, so my vote won’t matter. Since I live in NJ I can understand this line of reasoning. I disagree, but I can understand.
2) There’s no difference between Romney and Obama. Frankly, anyone who thinks that is an ass. Romney is no Reagan, let alone Washington, but given the choice between him and O I’ll pick Romney. Remember that the next president will likely appoint a couple Supreme Court justices, a president with an R after his name at least has to pretend to listen to the more Conservative folks.
Either way, one can argue that not voting won’t HURT, but it’s hard to see how not voting could make things better.
You could make the case it won’t make it worse. And that would be an excellent discussion, but it is not this discussion.
If the goal is to ‘fix’ something, ‘fixing’ is an action.
Not voting is, by definition, an inaction. It is passive.
Logically you cannot complete an action by inaction.
So, you cannot fix anything by not voting.
You could, possibly, make the argument that not voting (passive) would cause other people to note your passiveness and take actions because of it. But then you are relegating the actual action of doing the fixing to others who may or may not actually ‘fix’ things to your liking.
Praise the lord, someone can read and reason. Thanks, duck.
Og; as I just posted in response to your comment at my place, I feel you are making an assumption the situation is ‘fixable’?
I do not share that assumption.
Therefore I feel the question is irrelevent…
All The Best,
Frank W. James
So, we should all just give up, right? Doesnt sound well thought out. And of course, it still avoids answering the question.
Og; despite your everlasting optimism NOT every problem has a solution, or if it does it doesn’t always mean the ‘solution’ is desirable.
Remember the Soviet Union crashed not through revolution but through economic collapse.
Many endings are not always ‘happy’ nor are they ‘fixable’. The folks on the Titanic are but one small example.
Same thing applies here in my view, but if you want to bail water, be my guest…
All The Best,
Frank W. James
Why are you so afraid to just answer the question i ask?
“How will not voting fix anything?” is a bit ambiguous.
(FWIW I’m planning on voting)
For instance, if I took the time and effort I would otherwise spend voting and actually fix something that I can identify both what broken and fixed is, like my screen door, then not voting fixed my screen door.
I’m guessing that’s not a wanted answer for you. But how do you answer the question without nailing down what is broken, and what fixed means?
Why is giving up not necessarily well thought out? I don’t think advocating not voting necessitates some nihilistic decent into passive or suicidal despair. Why can’t it be as simple as “I’m giving up on *voting* as a meaningful exercise of any value”, and go fix my door?
That doesn’t mean I’m not going to get up the next day and be productive in other ways. I can still grow food, reload ammo, do laundry, or even comment on blogs and have a pretty good chance of understanding how doing so “fixed something”. Well, maybe not the commenting on blogs part.
Patrick: read guardducks response. And stop being an ass, and then maybe you can join the discussion.
NOT voting would accomplish just about as much as voting. Essentially….nothing.
Our choices at this point, as they have been for the last 20 years or so, are socialist candidate “A” or socialist candidate “B”. At least, those are the only two choices if, for reasons of brainwashing or pragmatism, you wholeheartedly buy into the “two party” concept.
And let’s not forget the OTHER 535 elected “representatives” who have either created the current mess, or kicked any solution down the road.
I think it’s time to face the ugly truth that it’s not a few rotten apples, but a rotten barrel.
How to “fix” the problem? The only way I can see to do it non-violently (at least, on our side, to start with) is the cut off the money flow. You’d need either about 20% of the population to stop paying federal taxes entirely, or about 40% (of current taxPAYERS) to “legally” avoid as many federal taxes as possible. Barter. Roll your own. Etc.
Basically, “shrug”.
Again, I think we are at an impasse. I don’t’ believe in talking about ‘fixing’ problems that elude correction, so I won’t waste my time discussing irrelevent events. Which is what you are asking…
All The Best,
Frank W. James
In reply to Mark D :-“1) My state is going to Obama by a landslide, so my vote won’t matter.”
But this “landslide” is only predicted by pollsters and they can’t have polled every voter in your state. Who’s to say that the unpolled voters may win the day. If people don’t vote they’ll never know what could have been.
People not voting for Obama would be a plus.
Let ’em stay home.
Direct answer, it won’t.
There is a reason that millennia of people smarter than you thought that despair is a sin. Figure it out and then see if you can come up with a better one.
(Not you, Og. I know you know. But fools who think that the situation can be borne or repaired by doing nothing.)
Further, your despair costs someone else. You can’t know you’re right that there is no possible solution (or combination of solutions — no silver bullet, I agree, but you can’t know that a brazilian small things won’t fix). But your refusal to act weakens someone else who is less pessimistic than you.
Even further still, the point is not to “fix” everything that is wrong, but to trend everything in the right direction. You may not be able to fix Obamacare, but you can get rid of Dick Lugar. All you gotta do is vote along with several million others who agree.
We may never win the fight once and for all. The ill in the world is just too persistent. But, if we surrender, we sure as hell are gonna lose.
(I can’t fix Obamacare, either, but I and several million of my fellow Buckeyes can get rid of Sherrod Brown. See there? Between the two of us, we got two fuckwits out of the Senate. Win-win.)
It’s as I keep saying: every really truly bad political idea is born of impatience. No, your one vote this election won’t fix everything that’s gone wrong with the founders’ republic since 1789. But some guy who was probably smarter’n you and me both said something about pebbles and avalanches that’s really true. And you should think about it.
M
We can have a conversation about what can and cannot be “Fixed”. We can have a conversation about how I’m bailing water on the titanic, or whatever, anytime you like. This is my blog, and I’m asking a very simple question, which is demonstrably relevant, because the vote which you so disdain will be happening whether you like it or not and whether you or I or anyone participates or not. If you choose not to vote, there must be a reason. That reason must lie in some thought process that brought you- or anyone- to the point where there was a benefit analysis- all life on earth, like it or not, does everything oin benefit analysis- that said not voting was preferable to voting. I’m trying to understand how people get there, and not one person will step up, and be honest, and tell me. Everyone equivocates. Everyone tells themselves lies about what OG is going to do (because not even I know what I’m going to do) so that I can be wrong and they can be right.
Mark: heres’ my thought on the subject. Voting, and the lack of it, has played a great part in getting us where we are. So if you can do something, can it not also be undone?
I have never run across anything that couldn’t be fixed, anytime, anywhere. And I have seen a lot of busted shit in my life. I’m, not optomistic, I’m realistic. You got something busted? I can fix it. No discussion on that subject is possoible, because anything else is merely a lie.
Will the fixing cost more than replacement? Will fixing be practical? Is it worth fixing? Those arent the questions I’m asking. I have one question: How will not voting fix anything- or if you prefer, how will not voting make anything better? Not one person who is determined not to vote has come forth and given me an honest answer.
Ed, Double: Nice answers- LOL!
I’ve answered the question. You reject it as a non answer.
But:
Romney is gonna lose, just as McCain lost (and for the same reasons). But getting the (approx) 40% of the vote that is the party faithful emboldens the RNC that they are keeping their faithful happy. Removing that support (even one vote) sends a message. If enough of us do it, then the RNC loses support, and (hopefully) changes before they die…It is the only way I see to send them a message.
You might also read Borepatch’s comments on the subject.
Local elections are a different kettle of fish.
IF that isn’t clear enough, then I am sorry, we can’t communicate on this subject.
No, you have NOT. You have given an explanation of what you believe i am saying and doing, and what you believe is wrong. You do not know what i am thinking unless you are god.
The question is simple. I have made it clear as i can. Only deliberate obtuseness will prevent anyone from understanding. How will not voting fix anything?
I still plan to vote but here is an analogy.
A house is burning down. Voting is like trying to put the fire out evn though it is beyond what is REASONABLE to repair. Not voting is letting it burn so you can get to the task of rebuilding it sooner. If you assume that it is in fact beyond repair then the only reasonable way to fix it is to let it finish burning.
That’s the only way not voting makes any sense to me.
That, JN, is a perfectly reasonable answer. It does not make assumptions about me, or my ideas, or what I think, or what Romney has done, or what Obama will do, but it does state clearly what you think, and why.
I disagree, because in my opinion it isn’t like a fire, really, it’s more like termite damage. Each generation has looked at the damage and said, hey, it’s not worth saving anymore, why bother doing anything? and for several hundred years now, things have been going to shit incrementally, and each generation has thrown up its hands, not done anthing, and said “it can’t be fixed!” The longer we wait the truer it is.
Loads of old buildings in the south have been saved from the ravages of time (And termites) by slow, careful repair and reconstruction. To allow the damage to continue is to not care.
I care. No, I’m not an eternal optimist. No I’m not a polyanna- as bad as YOU think it is, I think it’s worse, most likely.
“How will not voting make anything better?â€
By simply not voting, I don’t lose that bet. Being passive doesn’t threaten my fragile ego, so not voting makes me feel better.
There is also no risk of my being disappointed by not voting. I positively hate being disappointed. Not being disappointed is better than being disappointed.
Based on voter turn-out, it looks like I’m in the majority when I don’t vote. There seems to be comfort by standing with the majority, so that there is another way not voting is better.
How does not voting make anything better? I makes me feel better.
From the looks of things around here, it looks like I have company. So there — I feel better one more time.
So that is four ways not voting makes me feel better. Thanks for
If nothing else you get a free sticker when you vote.
That should appeal to at least a few of the people commenting here based on their demonstration of critical thinking skills (and lack thereof).
Lacsap: so youre a simpleton. That makes sense. We’re probably all better off with you not voting.
grau: I have noticed that when people refuse to answer a straight question, it’s commonly because they don’t want to face the actual answer themself.
JN likened not voting to watching a house burn. He claims letting the house burn gets you to rebuilding faster. I say letting the house burn lets the flames jump to another house and another and the next thing you know the whole town is on fire.
Some like Farmer Frank think things are so broken voting will not fix it. What is your alternative? Governments change change bullets or ballots. If anyone thinks the former is currently an option they are nuts. voting only allows someone else to determine the future and structure of the Government. If nothing else your vote cancels out that of your crazy neighbor.
I vote so that my one (1) vote will cancel out one (1) fraudulent vote.
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing” Edmund Burke
Not voting is doing nothing.
I care not one whit if my vote for Mittens encourages the Rhinos that still run national organization of the Republican Party. I’ll cast my vote and go about the business of electing others at the State or local level that can continue the changes we have to have to make things better.
In November I can help replace a long term Rhino Senator with a true conservative. I’m also lucky to be in a newly formed House district so choosing the right fresh blood will be key.
I cancel my wife out in every election. So that’s a net positive for me.
not voting = not participating = not voicing an opinion = silent acquiescence = subjugation.
not voting ≠“fixing things”, voting ≠“fixing things”
Solipsism much lacsap? It’s all about you and how YOU feel.
The nice thing about nightmares is that we survive by waking up from them. But with you, good luck with what you believe is your dream world. You’ll find you don’t get to wake up or re-script it just in time.
Duck above, said it about the best way possible. And the termite analogy is damn near spot on.
As for me, I will vote…spent too many years protecting and defending that Pesky Constitution ™ , not to.