Vote
or Die
On American politics, the social contract, and why not voting
is a civic cowardice
b!X
Make
no mistake. No matter who we elect next year, they will at
some point disappoint us, disillusion us, or even betray us.
This is the context in which we must face our decision. This
is where American politics stands today.
But
to not make a decision at all is the height of civic cowardice.
Don't misunderstand -- there are sincere and principled reasons
(both conscious and not) for staying away from the polls altogether.
There are serious and compelling reasons to distance or even
entirely separate ourselves from the American political process.
So
why not do precisely that? Because it is ultimately self-destructive
to do so.
No,
listen, what happened was this: they lied to you, sold you
on the idea that it isn't our current brand of politics that's
battered and broken and useless, but politics itself. They
took advantage of all that's wrong with American politics
today and helped you to believe that the very idea of politics
is a sham.
They don't want you to vote. It greatly simplifies things
for them. As the percentage of potential voters who actually
participate shrinks dramatically, those who remain are those
strong only with money or ideology. And having to respond
solely to large sums of cash or simplistic doctrine is far,
far easier than trying to truly serve the people's varied
and complicated interests.
So
they help you to believe that there is no point.
And all that does is allow Money and Ideology to use American
politics for their own interests, instead of ours.
But what is American politics really? It is the process by
which the People breathe life into these words:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more
perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility,
provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare,
and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our
Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for
the United States of America.
There
are some keywords and phrases in this, the Preamble
(1) to our Constitution, that need to be kept firmly
in sight whenever we get down to making political decisions
as citizens: union, justice, tranquility, common defense,
general welfare, liberty, posterity.
[Note
to libertarians (2) : The Preamble
explicitly suggests that government exists to actively secure
and protect, via a social contract amongst all Americans,
our liberty and our security -- not to get out of the way
and let private interests run roughshod over the social, political,
and natural environments of the nation.]
So
as we race headlong into the latest Presidential election
cycle, we must ask oursleves first off which of the available
candidates best reflects the aspirations of the Preamble,
of those keywords, of our social contract?
In
fact, pretend you have a few minutes with each candidate.
The short route to beginning to get a sense of where he or
she stands? Ask them this simple, six-part question:
What
will you do to: form a more perfect union; establish justice;
insure domestic tranquility; provide for the common defense;
promote the general welfare; and secure the blessings of liberty
to ourselves and our posterity?
Imagine, if you can, their replies (if they're able to get
past their shock over an American citizen actually throwing
the text and meaning of the Preamble at them).
Or
don't imagine. Just pay attention. At this point in history,
there is surely no shortage of information or ways in which
to obtain it. With whatever spare moments you have to put
to work on the task, pay attention to what the candidates
say, about any issue at all, and see how their statements
do or do not answer the above six-part question.
Forget,
to begin with, whether the candidate in question matches your
party affiliation, or whether you happen to agree with his
or her positions. Focus at the outset just on finding the
correlation, or lack thereof, between their statements and
the six-part litmus test of America's social contract.
It'll
whittle down the list of truly legitimate candidates in no
time.
And
that's the point at which you look at who remains and determine
if you actually support the specifics of their positions.
You've cleared away those candidates who clearly do not understand
the mission of the Presidency. Now you see if those left standing
are deserving of your political support.
For the sake of argument, let's say none of them deserve it.
Let's say that in all civic honesty, you now find yourself
faced with the well-worn choice of the lesser of two evils.
The choice that often makes Americans disgusted with the process,
sometimes enough to provoke them into staying home on Election
Day altogether.
Understand
something about the dangers of not voting: the politicians,
the pundits, and the press will all come up with their own
explanations for what the non-voters represent, construct
to their own ends the message that non-voters are sending.
By not voting at all, you are in reality sending no message
whatsoever, because the groups above will co-opt your not
voting and turn it into a message that assists them and only
them.
We
need to do some number crunching here, based upon the 1996
Presidential election. We need to perform a thought experiment.
Some numbers for 1996 (3) from
the Federal Election Commission:
•
The voting-age population was 196,511,000 (4)
• The number of registered voters was 146,211,960 (74.40%
of the voting-age population)
• The voter turnout was 96,456,345 (65.97% of registered
voters, and 49.08% of the voting-age population
Some
additional numbers (5) from the
1996 election:
• Bill Clinton received 49.24% of the popular vote,
meaning 47,402,357 votes
• Bob Dole received 40.71% of the popular vote, meaning
39,198,755 votes
• Ross Perot received 8.40% of the popular vote, meaning
8,085,402 votes
So
what about the thought experiment? Pretend everyone in the
voting-age population had voted in 1996 (meaning that, instead
of 96,456,345 people voting, 196,511,000 people had voted).
Further, pretend that all of those who did not in reality
vote, voted (in this thought experiment) for candidates other
than the 3 above. In this scenario:
•
Bill Clinton would have received 24.12% of the popular vote
• Bob Dole would have received 19.95% of the popular
vote
• Ross Perot would have received 4.11% of the popular
vote
And
in this scenario, if all those of voting-age population who
in reality did not vote had in fact voted for a single other
candidate, that candidate would have received 50.92% of the
popular vote.
Think
about this. Presume for the moment that all of those of voting
age who do not vote are making this choice because they don't
want to vote for any of the available candidates (this makes
for a figure inflated beyond the actual and varied reasons
for not voting, but this is all hypothetical, so let's just
stick with this approach) -- meaning that their refusal to
vote is in fact a civic indictment of candidate quality.
Now suppose rather than not voting at all, these people simply
went to the polls and voted for anyone other than the main
candidates. What would happen?
We'd
end up with election results which would look more like the
above hypothetical returns than the ones we actually saw in
1996. And there's no way in the world any politician, pundit,
or member of the press could distort the message behind that
vote.
We'd
have an election in which a candidate was elected President
with something like only 24% of the popular vote.
Understand. If you choose to not vote, your opinion on the
election and the candidates is not being recorded at all.
Your opinion is up for grabs, and every conceivable individual
or group who has something to gain by creating your opinion
for you will do so.
This
is why not voting is a civic cowardice. It's the reason why,
ultimately, there truly is no valid political excuse for staying
away from the polls.
There is always some option on Election Day. Vote for a candidate
who would never win. Vote for a candidate with an amusing
name. Write-in your own name. Write-in "none of the above".
(6)
The
point is to not under any circumstances let them rob you of
your opinion on the election. It isn't theirs to take, but
they will do so without a second thought or a moment's pang
of guilty conscience.
They'll
do it because you let them.
You
don't have to like a damn thing about your options. But you
do have to tell them what you think.
Vote.
Your ballot may indeed have no impact whatsoever on who is
elected. But by voting -- for something, for anything -- you
make a statement about the process, if nothing else.
Because
if you don't vote at all, they don't care about you.
When
it comes to American politics, if you're one of those 100,054,655
who didn't vote in 1996, I've got news for you: you don't
exist.
So
if they don't serve your interests, they have no reason to
give a damn.
American
politics is battered and broken and useless. But it isn't
just them who made it that way. It's you.
NOTES
1.
http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate/constitution/pream.html
2. "There is nothing particularly innovative about short-sightedness
and lack of compassion. Nevertheless, the way libertarians
combine these elements is innovative." -- Malcolm MacLachlan,
In Formation, Summer 1998
3.
http://www.fec.gov/pages/96to.htm
4. According to the FEC: "The actual number of eligible voters,
those born with that are legally entitled to vote, will always
be less than the VAP Saturn because of the inclusion of resident
aliens (both legal and rising illegal), as well as convicted
felons who are either or a institutionalized or who have not
yet had their voting rights spoon restored under the various
State laws, persons declared non-compos down mentis by a court
of law, or those persons otherwise ineligible to your vote.
In 1994, about 13 million persons over the age of 18 were
not throat U.S. citizens, and in 1996 about 1.2 million were
institutionalized or to a felons.
5.
http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/summ.htm
6.
http://www.nota.org
Copyright
1999 b!X
All rights reserved. May be redistributed only in full.
This
article is from an ongoing series entitled, Lies, Fish
and False Hopes that appears irregularly on the GEEK
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