Mentality

[gailadora]

In a friends journal a she posted about voting but a had a reply on their viewpoint of voting or in this case not voting.

It is my personal belief that the "right" to vote was designed explicitly to give people a false sense of control over the government, placating them so they won't get a clue and do something that might create real change. Okay,

Comments

[betacandy]

Your "friend" posted about NOT voting, or didn't you read the post? You clearly don't grasp the issues I was talking about. It's not a matter of I didn't get my way so I'm not voting.

I'm doing BETTER than voting. And I don't recall saying I don't vote. I'm simply saying, vote, don't vote, whatever. But if voting is all you do, you are being lazy. Your duty as a citizen does not end with voting.

But it's easy to feel smug and superior by voting once every couple of years and shrugging and saying "What else can I do" the rest of the year, isn't it?

[gailadora]

My friends post "Ifritah's" post was about not voting because they weren't sure about the issues. Not because they didn't want to vote. However a reply to that post, "your comment" was about it not really being important to vote at all. Because according to you, "I'm simply saying, vote, don't vote whatever." And that's the mentality that is destructive to our freedom. Whatever it doesn't matter. And if half the population thinks and feels that way, your right it doesn't matter any more because you have lost your voice. Sure there are other ways of expressing your thoughts and ideas about an issue, I agree with you there. But voting is game time. It's a time for you to stand up and show the government how you feel on an issue. It's a time to with punch cards, say this is how I feel and want things to be run. And the mentality that it isn't important or "whatever" is a very sad and destructive opinion.

[betacandy]

You missed the entire point of my post. I'm not talking about other ways of expressing my opinions. Voting is not about expressing our opinions. It's about making measured decisions for the good of the entire country. Or at least that's how I saw it. I think the vast majority of voters don't take it that seriously.

My point was, there are more effective ways to steer this country in good directions than merely voting, whether you do them in addition to voting or in place of it. Influencing voters is what special interest groups do so well, and that's where I expend more effort than the people who lecture me about the importance of voting. My little vote is not going to stop the juggernaut of, say, the Moral Majority. But if I influence the voters who support them to think twice, then I might just help turn things around.

[gailadora]

Voting is an expressing of your opinion. People go and vote on an issue on their opionion. For example, do I think gay/lesibian should have equal rights as a heterosexual couple, yes, so when a law asking me if a marriage should be between a man and a woman only, I would vote no. So my vote follows my opinion on an issue. Voting is about make decisions about the good of the country however you are going to vote on what you view, your opinion, of the best way to improve the country through taxes, law, representative etc

[ifritah]

No matter how tiny our voice, whatever that voice may be and one way to do that is by voting.

That's the thing, isn't it? It's ONE way to use our voice. That certainly doesn't mean there aren't other ways to use that voice of ours. It just happens that, personally, I find my voice is better used elsewhere. Where I don't feel that the language is locked and I can't understand it, but yet I have to make a choice, even though I feel that there's something I'm missing in the wording. Where and when I use my voice gives me the freedom to speak up without being boggled down by someone else's convoluted writing. Where I feel that I DO make a difference.

Does that make me an NPC? Hell no! Does that make me a child? Uh, I'm actually somewhat insulted by that.

I'm not saying that what you're going after is stupid, luv. I respect people who vote (which includes me some years.) I respect YOU. But it's not a black and white issue of 'you're ignorant with no power' if you don't vote and 'bold and empowered' if you do.

[gailadora]

I agree that there are better ways of expressing ones voice. Petitioning, emailing your congress person, posting on a web site about whatever issue, hitting the payment and talking to people about different issues. It's not a switch you can just turn on and off during the year. Yep I voted and now I'm done. But you can't just say well what's the use, my vote isn't going to matter anyway why should I even take the time. It's not a test where you can say, well I'm only going to fill in half the answers. If you don't show up and say, this is how I feel about this, and then you multiply that x half the population, because hell they don't care or don't think their voice will be heard, then they won't. And then you have a system where people who have a voice don't use it because they think they don't. Then they don't have a voice anymore. Not because they don't use it anymore, but because they don't use it at one of the most important times, voting

[ifritah]

I'm just gonna go to the part about finding sites that break it down for you. The rest... well, we've talked that to death, haven't we? ^_~

Thing is, that's what I did. And that's what got me so frustrated. I went to www.idahovotes.com because I was told it was a great place to get a better understanding of the issues. All it did was confuse me more. I tried googling to get a better understanding... nada.

So, when coldfury told me he would help research and we'd talk about it after I got off work, I was willing to listen. But he didn't research. (If he did at some point before voting, I honestly am not sure.) I finally gave up. Seriously, I shouldn't have to break my back trying to find out the issues, trying to learn about who I'm voting for. This may seem rude or messed up, but I don't have the time to spend hours and hours trying to translate 'pretty writing'.

And I wonder, just how many people who voted actually understood what they were voting for?

[gailadora]

So I had a crazy thought. What if next year you and I sit down look at what is up to be voted on: issues, canadiates, etc. Then we could break them down into a couple of understandable paragraphs, what they are about (issues) or who is running (cannidates), what do the pros say about the issues and what do the cons say about it. Or for cannidates what are they for and what are they against. But put it into a language that hopefully a lay person could understand. We could call it something cute like Voting for Dummies: Idaho or something like that and post it here in LJ or somewhere else.

What do you think?