Vote or Die? I Choose Death

// June 11th, 2009 // Featured, Politics

Voting is Patriotic (USA)

Fewer than 47% of America’s 18- to 24-year-olds cast ballots in the 2004 presidential election, compared with nearly two-thirds of citizens 25 and older. “It’s an embarrassing statistic,” says Burstein, sipping coffee on a rainy morning in Manhattan. The previous night, he’d accepted a $10,000 Do Something award. “We’re an involved generation, and we should care enough to vote. Young people weren’t getting that message from other young people.”
Getting the Facebook Generation Out to Vote

Is voting a proxy for caring? I’m guilty of never voting but I’m certainly not guilty of not caring. Call me apathetic to our political process. Call me disenchanted witht the two party system. Call me uninspired by the available candidates. Call me disenfranchised by the lack of a candidate that I feel represents me. Call me disinterested because I only see superficial differences between Democrats and Republicans. Call me unmotivated because I don’t particularly think it makes a difference who wins. Call me angry because our politicians and political parties are more interested in maintaining their positions than changing the world for the better.

Don’t tell me I don’t care but don’t call me a voter either. And that won’t change until there is a candidate that actually represents me or there is a candidate so grossly out of touch with my world view that I need to act. My only means of expressing my dissatisfaction with the current state of political affairs is to not compromise and not vote for anyone. In the meantime, I’ll keep trying to change the world one person at a time and not wait for someone in Washington to do it for me.

If you feel passionately about a candidate, party or cause, vote your heart out but don’t assume not voting is an act of laziness or ignorance. I care too much to make a vote I don’t believe in. An educated abstention is preferable to an uneducated vote.

I don’t expect anyone to agree with me. There is a lot more to say but I will leave it at that. It isn’t election season. So no reason to get myself all riled up. Was the title sufficiently dramatic?

[farlane]

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4 Responses to “Vote or Die? I Choose Death”

  1. katdish says:
    June 17, 2009 at 3:58 pm

    You actually present a fairly compelling argument. I find myself holding my nose every time I step into a voting booth.

    Reply
  2. Jewda says:
    June 17, 2009 at 4:09 pm

    I'm with you. I moved from Florida to Ohio last summer, and once I opted not to register to vote when I got here. There wasn't a single candidate I wanted to throw my hat in the ring with. Everyone in my family told me to "vote for McCain, because he's better than Obama," but he was much worse than my ideals were wanting.

    Reply
  3. Helen says:
    June 17, 2009 at 4:37 pm

    Hmmm….I have felt like you sometimes. There are times I will not vote. I will not vote when my only two choices are pro choice. Since the Democrats were pushing partial birth abortion way back in Clinton's administration, I vowed to NEVER again vote for a pro choice candidate no matter how many other things I agree with. People who see a baby's head out of the womb and still insist he or she isn't human and can lawfully be killed are not misguided, but EVIL! I did not vote for a governor in my state in the last election for this very reason.
    However, so long as their is a pro life candidate, even one who otherwise makes me hold my nose, I will vote.

    Reply
  4. Andrew says:
    June 24, 2009 at 7:59 pm

    Good points!

    Reply

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