Tuesday, November 6, 2018

Election Manual for the Voter Apathy Party (2018 edition)

Yes I dusted the cobwebs and fumigated the rats, so it's safe to come back to this long dormant blog now. And just in time for another entry in the Vote, Dammit! series. While voter turn-out has already been high this year than it's been in the past, there are still those trapped in the supercilious grip of the Voter Apathy party. One sledgehammer to use against this brick wall is to change the mentality of the way some folks approach voting and clear up any misconceptions people have about the concept.

  1. You are not the Godfather and your vote is not a "favor" to grant to whoever kisses your ring the most.
  2. You vote is not a commodity chip. Voting is supposed to be important to you. If you consider your own vote worthless, don't expect anyone running to artificially inflate it's value for you (yet another case of people failing to distinguish civil service from customer service) And on a related note....
  3. The people who are most affected by election results are always your fellow citizens and NOT the candidates running. The populace at large are the ones that deal with the consequences of an election (unless you think "not being bound by the burdens of political office" is an example of "suffering", a mindset reminiscent of Kavanaugh's Life Being Ruined™ by not automatically ascending to a position on the highest court). So using elections as a way to "punish" or "get back" is a sucker's game.
  4. Voting is a responsibility to your fellow citizens (see point #3 for why) and a duty (the fact that it isn't enforced doesn't make it less so.)