I think this is from Reason Magazine. btw It isn't an alcohol-related post. haha. Also, as you know, I like to read alternative views on my views. Please remember that I just usually thank the person no matter what they say on opposing views.
Maybe it should be called Un-Reasonable Magazine.
...thus, the act of voting has no possible direct personal benefit, even if you actually wholeheartedly support everything you expect from a candidate. But your expectations, as George W. "no nation building" Bush has proven most recently, will have little relation to what the candidate will actually do.
This casts strong doubts on the fallback position of the dedicated voter: that even if it isn't decisive, voting is expressive, a way to feel part of the larger community, to add one small voice to a loud chorus of cheering. But remember: with politicians, you don't even really know what you are cheering for.
Defending non-voting in bars across this great land, I often hear the ultimate "shut up"—that if you don't vote, you have no right to complain about politics or society. The reality is the exact opposite: By voting, you are playing a game whose rules are that the majority vote winner gets to control the reins of government, in all its unspeakable power. If you complain about the results of the game you chose to play, you're just being a sore loser—or winner.
But what if you believe that neither "winnable" candidate deserves power? Or that the whole game of majority-rule giving someone all the powers of the modern American state to wage war, arrest, tax, and regulate is inherently illegitimate? Then, don't vote, and complain all you want.
No American is responsible for the voting behavior of our countrymen; so don't worry for a moment about what would happen "if everyone thought that way"? (If you did control thousands of votes, the math might make it worth voting. But you don't.) We each have only one vote, and only one November 2, 2004, in our precious lives.
So, this November 2, do the right thing for America: go to work and do a good job. Clean up some garbage on your street. Help a neighbor out. Call your mother, for goodness' sakes.
Sure, actually doing something specific and practical to better your life, or your community, isn't as easy as casting a ballot once every couple of years. But it is more rewarding in the end than wasting even a second of your time and energy giving yourself a struck-by-lightning chance of maybe putting one particular guy in an office, where he'll do whatever he wants regardless of what you thought you were trying to support by voting for him. If you want to make a difference in the world, please try. But don't be fooled into thinking voting is a way to do so.
