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Reasons not to vote: Voting for federal candidates is an affirmation of the legitimacy of the power of the government, which you may reject. Your vote will ma

Reasons not to vote: Voting for federal candidates is an affirmation of the legitimacy of the power of the government, which you may reject. Your vote will make you complicit in the next federal campaign to blow up foreigners, or the current campaign to imprison millions of Americans for victimless crimes. I assure you Obama WILL blow up innocent foreigners; every president finds some excuse to do it at some point. A vote for "none of the above" IS a vote. The politicians NEED sufficiently high turnout to legitimize their power. Elections are about as genuine as pro-wrestling. They never have anything to do with how government actually proceeds after the race. Rhetoric has consistently contradicted actions in my lifetime. Pretending you participated in an informed decision making process is delusional. You're stuck choosing between coke and pepsi when you really want a glass of milk. The republican and democratic parties have locked up the racket for themselves. They are different brands of the same corporatocracy and mostly create the illusion of choice with careful marketing. Every couple years they push the right buttons to get their brand's simpletons whipped into a sufficient frenzy to trek to the polls. Then they proceed with business as usual. Voting, emotional investment in the political process, and keeping informed about the political process are distractions from far more socially productive activities. If every campaign volunteer had resolved not to vote or really care about the election, and instead spent their time doing something of value on their block, the aggregate outcome would far surpass the positive difference in outcomes between any pair of candidates. Lastly, your vote really doesn't matter, statistically speaking.

geuis 18y ago
Your vote DOES matter, statistically speaking. Disregarding the oddness of the electoral college, in most elections where the number of votes is directly relational to the outcome of the contest, the individual statistical importance of each vote decreases as the overall volume of votes increases. In elections where fewer votes are registered, the significance of each vote on the outcome increases. In an election involving hundreds of millions of people, you can claim correctly that overall influence of your vote is tiny. That does NOT mean it doesn't matter. However, to properly represent the desire of the voter pool in aggregate, all people must participate. The outcome of an election is not to decide what you individually want, its to decide what the populace in general wants. As to your other political statements, some I agree with, some not. I used to be very politically active(anti-war rallies, protests, supporting local candidates, volunteering, sign waving, etc). If you're from a country where you can't vote, then your opinions aren't helping your fellow man. You need to get off the computer and go stand up to your corrupt leaders. You might get shot, but when enough people stand up things change. Hey, its kind of like voting!

geuis 18y ago

Your vote DOES matter, statistically speaking. Disregarding the oddness of the electoral college, in most elections where the number of votes is directly relational to the outcome of the contest, the individual statistical importance of each vote decreases as the overall volume of votes increases. In elections where fewer votes are registered, the significance of each vote on the outcome increases. In an election involving hundreds of millions of people, you can claim correctly that overall influence of your vote is tiny. That does NOT mean it doesn't matter. However, to properly represent the desire of the voter pool in aggregate, all people must participate. The outcome of an election is not to decide what you individually want, its to decide what the populace in general wants. As to your other political statements, some I agree with, some not. I used to be very politically active(anti-war rallies, protests, supporting local candidates, volunteering, sign waving, etc). If you're from a country where you can't vote, then your opinions aren't helping your fellow man. You need to get off the computer and go stand up to your corrupt leaders. You might get shot, but when enough people stand up things change. Hey, its kind of like voting!