When your vote doesn’t count

So I’ve been earnestly struggling with this question and I’d appreciate any feedback.

 

In politics, particularly conservative politics there is a large gap between what the older generation and the younger one. A number of older politicians, on both sides, often carry a certain disdain for voters in their twenties. Their reasoning is, we (Gen Y) don’t vote, don’t give money and therefore don’t deserve their attention.

 

I won’t go into how I think this attitude only makes the problem worse, that’s a talk for another day. The point is, this view does have some relevance. On the whole, younger people vote less. Not just Republican youth, Democrats as well. But even with the bump in numbers for the 2008 election, the under thirty crowd consistently claims the lowest turn-out rate.

 

So I’ve started asking my friends from across the political spectrum why they vote (or not). For those who do not vote, the answer is almost unanimously, “My vote doesn’t count.” The words change,

“I’m just one person.”

“Texas is already Republican.”

“It doesn’t matter that much in the long run.”

But a massive group of voters don’t exercise their right simply because they see no purpose in doing so.

 

I’m actually stumped on how to counter this argument. I’ve tried: But it does! And that doesn’t seem to cover it. I’ve encouraged them with talks about American rights and civic duty, but that doesn’t actually make their vote matter any more or less. I’ve talked about how if all the people in the world who don’t vote came out on election day it could change everything! Which is invariably followed by, “Probably. If that ever happened.”

 

I thought about why I vote: sense of duty, faith in my county, realizing that it is possible my vote could be a turning point in a election… But its next to impossible to instill this mindset into someone else. I know, I’ve been trying.

 

So my question to you is why does one vote count? Can we help a whole generation realize the importance of voting? How? And in the end, does it actually matter, or do they have a point?

The Problem with the Democratic Process

So, I doubt you went out and voted Tuesday if you live in Texas. If you did, good for you. Not many people bothered, we have some of the lowest polling numbers in twenty years. I suppose you could chalk it up to “oh well, they’re just constitutional amendments, no biggie”.

May sound fine to you, but its worrisome to me. Who is deciding what happens to us at a State level if no one goes out and votes! This is the innate problem with the Democratic process. Are the votes really representative of the people?

In case you didn’t vote, let me describe my polling experience. First, I drove to my set polling place that was mailed me to me the day before. I arrive and there is this HUGE sign on the door and it says: “Your polling place has moved, please go <here>” So I’m like, “grrrreat,” and I drive to said new location, about ten minutes away. I get there, wait in line 5-10 minutes. The woman gets my voter registration (note, does not check my ID) and sends me to a second line. Another 5-10 minutes. Then I’m told (in rude words I won’t bother repeating for you) that I am at the wrong polling place, go back to the first one. I try to explain about the sign but he continues to growl at me, so I drive the ten minutes back to the original polling place. I walk right back up to the sign, in small letters its says: for precinct 1227. So the big, YOUR POLLING PLACE IS MOVED sign was actually for just one precinct. So I go in, cast my vote.

While I’m in the polling place I notice a few of the people around me. Okay, I notice all of them. No one under 50, at lunch time. Then the woman behind me is called up and asked if her name starts with A-L. After mishearing twice she finally says yes and walks over. The man takes her registration and says, “Ma’am, your last name starts with R, you need to be in the other line.”

“But my last name is Cole.”

“Ma’am, on your registration it says Riggins.”

“That can’t be right, my last name is Cole.”

…This goes on for a bit.

“Ma’am–”

“Oh! You know what, that’s my maiden name! How could I forget? I’ve been married for 45 years.”

Seriously Texas, that’s who is deciding what happens to you. Little old ladies who don’t know how to drop their ballot in the slot (yes, I saw that too).

So here’s what I see, no one voted, especially young people. Both Republicans and Democrats would like to see more people go out and vote. No one talked about this vote.

Do you see this disconnect? I heard little to nothing from either party about going out and exercising your civic rights. And even if the young people did try to vote my hour and half long trip from the office isn’t possible for the average citizen.

Seems like the only time the party pushes a vote is when there are people not policy on the table.

New Republican Slogan

So I think the Republican Party needs to take a page from the Google playbook. Google has that wonderful slogan “Don’t be evil.” It was a relatively obvious jab at Microsoft as the big evil corporation. Google supposedly tries to not ever to be evil and measures everything they do against this concept of not being evil. And Google makes lots of money, so it must be working okay for them.

In the spirit of Google, I’d like to suggest that the Republican party consider this new slogan. How about:

Don‘t Be Stupid

They can use it as a relatively obvious jab at *ahem* the establishment. But the secondary point here is that Republicans (and conservatives) need to measure everything they do to this standard. AKA, ask yourself: Is what I’m doing stupid or not?

Examples of being stupid:

• Making racist comments about Obama
• Making a race issue out of Sotomayor’s appointment
• Hanging a congressman in effigy
• Painting swastikas on congressman’s office signs
• Not fact checking your arguments and assumptions about the policies of the opposition
• Clinging to the birth certificate issue
• Stooping to personal attacks, name-calling or cussing at someone you disagree with

UPDATE:

• Discussing Texas Secession (hint: we are Americans before we are Texans, the very idea of threatening secession is unpatriotic and offends me, and if that’s not reason enough there’s always Texas v. White)

Seriously. Stop making it so easy for the other side. When dumb words come out of your mouth, the important things get overlooked. There are plenty of things to make a fuss about, plenty of facts to argue over. Stick to those and DON’T BE STUPID

The Nature of Man

Note: I am referring to the political definition of the nature of man, obviously there are other definitions (such as in sociology).

So recently I’ve been going back and reading some of the older political theory pieces, you know, the ones that built American and most of the governments around the world. It seems like each of these different philosophies base themselves on the same concept: What was the original nature of man? So they create this theory of what they think the original nature was and then they use it as a base and comparison to what they think the perfect form of government is (or whatever form of government they are perpetuating).

I have 2 major problems with this:

1. What was the original nature of man? Do we know? Obviously we don’t or we wouldn’t be debating over it like a freshman psychology class.
2. Even if we did know the original nature of man, would it even matter? The original nature of man is supposed to refer to a time before we had any government. But it has been thousands and thousands of years since we, as humans, lived in a state without government. Why are we bothering to compare to something not relevant anymore? Why is no one writing a defining treatise about government discussing the nature of man as one that creates self-government?

Image by dvs.