Garrett M. Vonk

I’m going to post this again, because the election is nearing and I think it’s a fun little graphic.

Watching the debates and talking with have made me really think hard about how I feel about voting. I feel like every single person should go vote, and at the risk of sounding like I’m about to Rock the Vote, I’d call it your civic duty. In a free society, I have to fall short of calling it a moral duty, but there are candidates out there that line up with darn near every position one could possibly hold.  Just find the one that matches what you believe, make sure he seems credible to you, and vote for him!  If everyone didn’t fall for this “lesser of two evils” bs, you’d have more choices than just two evils!

I mean, the founding fathers had seen British tyranny for hundreds of years; we’ve had social security and welfare for what, 75?  They didn’t say “well,  the British are never going to go away, we may as well let them stay and be happy”. 

Voters who vote for “the lesser of two evils” are contributing in the same way that individual polluters “go with the flow”.  If everyone acts the way they do and don’t actually vote their conscience because of the “realistic” nature of politics, less and less people actually get what they want.  They’re saying that there is a party that is nearly exactly in line with what they believe but they won’t vote for them because… not enough people vote for them.

This isn’t to say that I disagree completely with the peope who are voting for Bush because they believe Iraq is a threat.  If I were just a little more convinced that Iraq is a direct threat to us, I’d consider voting for a candidate just based on that issue if there weren’t any other candidate holding that position.  What people forget is that we can vote for anyone.  I guaran-damn-tee you that there’s a candidate you agree with out there.  

A vote is a vote is a vote… it doesn’t make any difference if you’re trying to make a statement or not.  You get to vote for whoever you think will make the best president, based on your philosophy, period.  So many people say, well, screw that right, I’m gonna vote for the best option that lots of other people are voting for too, because it’s popular. 

The problems with the two-party system are exacerbated by people that prop it up without even knowing that’s what they’re doing, with rationalizations and justifications like “Candidate Q has no chance of getting elected, so why should I vote for him?”  It’s circular logic– “He won’t get elected, so I won’t vote for him.”  There is no way that 50% of the country feels exactly one way and 50% of the country feels another.  But people are willing to compromise on so much of what they believe in order to further other parts of their agenda.  It really makes me wonder…. what is the root of all of this?  I mean, it’s possible these people are right.  In a case where 4, 5, 6 parties gained power, factions that normally didn’t work together would, in order to get someone out of office they disagreed with (although for different reasons).  Maybe, for all its problems, the two party system allows at a minimum half of the country, the maximum amount that can be guaranteed in a multi-party system, to feel like they are getting what they wanted out of government.  I just end up feeling like I haven’t, either way.