Do it all scientific like...
So maybe you've heard that there is an election coming up. I know I have. And lo and behold! My favorite candidate has dropped out. Now, I have heard some others suggest that the only candidate whose values would always align 100% with their own is themselves. This is an interesting, if not obvious point. Now as a voter who will not be voting for himself, as I suspect you also are, we must establish what our options are before we move forward. We have many, and so I will try to enumerate what I suspect the top choices are.
- Vote party loyal
- Vote against party to punish it for not choosing my candidate
- Vote against person I dislike most
- Not Vote at all
- Vote my conscience
- Vote for most viable candidate who's values most align with my own
Vote party loyalVote against party to punish it for not choosing my candidateVote against person I dislike mostNot Vote at all- Vote my conscience
- Vote for most viable candidate who's values most align with my own
I would answer like this.
Option 1 requires no thought. You could be voting for Satan, but as long as there is an "R" by his name, so be it.
Option 2 requires some thought, but is essentially like Option 1; You could be voting for Satan, but as long as she doesn't have an 'R' by her name, so be it.
Option 3 is stupid because it is a slightly modified version of Option 2. It goes something like...' Boy I sure don't like Satan, but i REALLY don't like that Romney fella..."
Option 4 is stupid because voting is our power and our duty; it is the way in which we can give power to people who we want to represent us. By not voting, you are giving more power to the people who are voting for the two candidates that you don't like enough to vote for.
I'll let this stew in your mind for a bit before continuing to tell you how it is.
posted by InterestingPhysics @ 7:23 PM
3 Comments:
I'm wondering why you were so quick to drop option 4. Do we really have a "duty" to vote, if so where does the order come from? Is it a moral duty? The problem is that when I vote I not only vote against Barack I vote for McCain. I am giving him my approval. So for instance, if I had to vote for either Satan or Hitler, I wouldn't just vote for Hitler because "at least he isn't as bad as Satan". I would simply not vote because I wouldn't want to give my approval to Hitler.
Ahh, but then there is option 5. You can still vote your conscience. In this way you could vote for Huckabee, or yourself, or whoever you wanted to. So now, instead of feeling like you "HAVE" to choose between satan and hitler, you should feel like you don't have to vote for either of them, knowing full well that your candidate won't win, and yet, you still got to vote, and excercise your power as a citizen, and you stuck it to both satan and hitler.
Heck.. vote Ron Paul. I'm sure he'll get a noticable percent of the vote.
-Charles
I may end up voting for a third party as that would make more of a point than not voting, since half the country doesn't vote I wouldn't stand out much at all. However, I don't want to just end on the idea that not voting is somehow not an option, or a bad option.
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