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Vote.
Take the time and educate yourself, and choose the best you can.
Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
I distrust the electronic machines without paper backup that they have in my district, so I make the time to go to the county office where I can vote on paper. I don't just sit on my hands and wail that the system is corrupt.
Do what you can to make it less corrupt.
Vote.
I am not a US citizen but I always participate in the elections in my own country even though I don't live there. I have always considered voting as a vote against my least favourite candidates - there are always some total dummies in our elections.
However if there were only two options and both would be acceptable for me to the same level, I would not bother voting.
[QUOTE]"if you don't vote, don't complain."[/QUOTE]
As someone else said, it's really quite the opposite of that.
How can YOU complain, if you participated in the farce of 'elections'?
1. Your vote won't make any difference TO YOU. Your tax burden and other such things are not going to change based on your single vote.
2. Your vote won't make any difference in general. If it really did it would be 'illegal'.
3. Voting just encourages them.
4. Even if you find someone you agree with on 100% of the issues (which you won't), they're lying anyway. Always have done.
5. By voting you are condoning a system that is barely one step beyond monarchy, itself just one step beyond slavery. Slavery has virtually died out now, monarchy is fading and eventually so will this whole "government" thing (which is basically the threat of violence wearing a uniform and wrapped in a flag). Why keep it going?
6. It costs you time, effort and money. How hideously sad it would be if you were involved in a traffic accident, just to 'vote'?
7. If you DO vote, people tend to ask 'Who for?' Far better to simply reply "None of them."
8. Ron Paul has retired, therefore the one and only good reason for voting is no longer relevant.
AC
Stop pretending voting is all about the Presidential elections. Don't believe your vote counts at the national level? Fine. Don't vote for people at the national level.
At the local level, though, your vote does count. Sometimes drastically. Vote local. Better yet, run for local office.
I think your vote does matter. I don't think the lack of a vote is noted at all. But I wish two things would happen:
1. A ban on ALL election advertising. Have the candidates and the people behind the propositions mail a single pamphlet detailing why you should vote yes and be done with it. If you can't state your case persuasively in one single piece of mail, then forget it.
2. We could get some outside monitoring of the US election. I think with the Diebold machines and the scare tactics in ghetto neighborhoods and all the other shenanigans we're to the point we need someone outside to come in and ensure our elections are fair and honest.
[QUOTE=AlanC;996142]As someone else said, it's really quite the opposite of that.
How can YOU complain, if you participated in the farce of 'elections'?
1. Your vote won't make any difference TO YOU. Your tax burden and other such things are not going to change based on your single vote.
2. Your vote won't make any difference in general. If it really did it would be 'illegal'.
3. Voting just encourages them.
4. Even if you find someone you agree with on 100% of the issues (which you won't), they're lying anyway. Always have done.
5. By voting you are condoning a system that is barely one step beyond monarchy, itself just one step beyond slavery. Slavery has virtually died out now, monarchy is fading and eventually so will this whole "government" thing (which is basically the threat of violence wearing a uniform and wrapped in a flag). Why keep it going?
6. It costs you time, effort and money. How hideously sad it would be if you were involved in a traffic accident, just to 'vote'?
7. If you DO vote, people tend to ask 'Who for?' Far better to simply reply "None of them."
8. Ron Paul has retired, therefore the one and only good reason for voting is no longer relevant.
We watched early efforts by people such as Ron Paul. I am not a US citizen and not a Libertarian, yet he spoke truth to me and other friends.
@sbhikes....good points!:)
[QUOTE=Bushrat;995925]
Actually, as a non American, its easy to see that Obama and Romney are interchangeable, as were Bush and Obama.[/QUOTE]
[B]= OBAMNY[/B]
Voting for the lesser of 2 evils is still voting for evil.
Local elections are different.
I would rather vote and potentially have an impact on who is pulling the shots for the country than to have not participated at all. It's interesting to me that people in the rest of the world don't really see the difference between (potential) leaders here. Maybe it's just a distance-perspective thing, maybe it's a lack of caring, maybe it's a lack of information. I don't see it that way at all, though I would admit that neither candidate is ideal. I don't like this bipartisan system, but it's what we've got, so I'm going to work with it until I can come up with a way to effect change. Not voting just seems like "not doing anything".
Nameless, please describe the difference in policies between Rom and Bom?
Then name a time that any politician, including Obama, has kept to their promises or policies anyway?
The people outside of America can see there's no difference between the 2 precisely because we're outside and can see the bigger picture. Obama is a dark-skinned Bush, same as Romney will be a light-skinned Obama. They just change them around now and then so you think there's a difference.
So I ask again, scaremongering aside, what is the actual difference?
Not the rhetoric, foot-stamping and chest-thumping, the [I]actual [/I]difference?
For example apart from $50, what's the difference between Romneycare in Mass. where you'd be fined $230 for not buying prescribed health insurance, or the national Obamacare where you get fined $280?
Can you 'vote' for "not get fined anything"? No? Then what use is "voting"?
Republicans always talk of reducing the size and cost of government. Great. Show me any time they have EVER done that, under ANY republican president? Ever?
You can say the same about the democrats, in fact while I dislike their rhetoric as the bastard-child of communism that it is, I respect that they're at least vaguely honest about their socialism.
So wannabe commies or those that claim they're anti-commie but act like they're commies, vote like they're commies and generally have the same effect as the wannabe commies do/did?
I don't see there's any choice there, nor is there any reason for voting if there's no choice to vote for.
AC