(no subject)
I don’t vote, and when I tell people that they look at me like I just killed their puppy and then start lecturing me on the importance of voting and democracy and all that stuff I should have learned in high school civics class but didn’t because we didn’t have civics class and of course they could tell that I didn’t because I don’t vote.
So this year I’ve made up a small primer to counter their arguments as to why I should vote-or rather why I shouldn’t not vote-to prepare me for the onslaught of repugnance and disapproval from my fellow man. I doubt I’ll convert anyone to my opinion-I probably won’t even deflect their anger-but at least I’ll show them that I’ve thought about it, which is probably all I can realistically hope for.
In good faith, I’ve rekeyed the three most common arguments I’ve heard as I’ve heard them-no straw men here-and offered up my thoughts on why they don’t hold water.
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You can’t change things if you don’t vote.
You can’t change things if you do, either. The probability of your vote deciding the Presidency or any other policy is so close to zero that it could roll a natural 20, and your vote would still be worthless. Even the people who canvas for voters to vote have to admit this.
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Soldiers died for your freedom.
The reasoning behind this argument is that by not voting, you're violating a hypothetical contract: The soldier fights and in return you vote. But for that contract to stand, the consent of both parties is required, and since the contract is hypothetical, that precludes anyone from consenting to it.
This argument also implies that by not voting, you dishonor those who’ve risked and lost their lives fighting for your right to vote. That is flat-out wrong: The right to vote is not the same thing as an obligation to vote; rights entail a choice, which necessarily and irrefutably entails the freedom not to vote.
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If you don’t vote, then you can’t complain about what happens.
Type “Why you should vote” into Google, and the first website that comes up is an About.com article by a Mike Hardcastle, entitled “Top 5 Reasons YOUth Should Vote.” This is reason number 4:
OK, if there is one thing that is really annoying to us actual voters it is the endless ramblings on the bad political policy of a current government spewing from the mouths of eligible voters who never bothered to cast a ballot. If you don’t vote it is like saying you don’t care how your country is run, so if you don’t care where do you get the idea that you can complain when something happens that you don’t like? If you don’t vote you really have no right complaining about anything the government does....Want the right to complain when TPTB (the powers that be) make a truly heinous decision? Then you must exercise your right to vote.
In other words, if you don’t agree with the system, you still have to go along with the system's rules if you want to voice your disagreement. But if our founding fathers had done that, it's very unlikely there'd be a United States.
This argument doesn't so much so say "You have to vote," as it says, "If you don't vote, morally, you're in no position to complain." But suppose I think the office of the presidency should be abolished so I abstain from voting anyone into it-does that give me less moral ground to complain than someone who elects an utter disaster to the White House?
It seems to me that the only people who shouldn’t complain are the voters-they’re the ones who elected the louse, so why aren’t they at fault? Or at least less fault than the people who didn’t? In any other context the basis for the no-vote-no-complaint argument is absurd, so why does it carry so much weight in something as important as politics?
You can say that by not voting you had your chance to keep the bad guy out of office, but the way I see it is that they’re all going to be pretty bad, so why should I have to choose any of them? If I think presidents are bad for the country so I choose not to elect one, doesn’t that at least show that I care? Shouldn’t that give me the right to complain?
And honestly, I’m less concerned with my justification to complain than I am with the fact that, by voting for a president, I have to choose someone to fill a position I don’t think anyone is qualified for.
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In the end, I’m just uncomfortable voting, because I don’t know. I don’t know who the best candidate is; I don’t know if their policies are the best for the country or the best for the world or the best for me or how I should order those preferences-I don’t know that, even if I could know who the best candidate with best policies is, I could know whether they could implement those policies-and, if they could, whether they’d have the effect I thought the candidate thinks is best for me, the country, and whatever else I think they think’s best.
No one knows that. No one can know that because politics isn’t like math or physics-we can’t show with absolute certainty that Policy A is right and Policy B is wrong; if we could, we probably wouldn’t need elections. Presidents-any elected official, from senators to mayors to dogcatchers, etc.-oversee issues whose unintended consequences are far beyond their and anyone else’s capacity to predict, and to ask them-and by extension ask the voter-to do so ignores our limitations as human beings, often at our own risk.
I wouldn’t trust myself in elected office, so I’m especially reluctant to trust some guy I barely know, doubly so when that office gives him direct sovereignty over me, my loved ones, and anyone else-and to tell me that I have to choose someone to fill that position and that not doing so makes me a bad citizen, much less a bad human being, is just bogus.
*UPDATE* I reworded some of this. The arguments are the same, but I just wanted to clarify some things a bit.