Let me preach here a bit.
If you are voting not because you stand 100% (or even 90, or even 50%) behind your candidate, but because that candidate is less evil than the other one, you must be stupid. I have been stupid on several such occasions.
That "Lesser Evil" is always much, much closer to the "Utter Evil" that you want to oust than it is or ever will be to you, the voter who wants social and economic justice and peace. When it wins, "Lesser Evil" will make convenient deals with the "Utter Evil"--it has to, that’s the basic rule of democracy--and you will be once again broken.
Some voters (not you) are sincerely interested in waging war or watching while someone wages it on their behalf. They are sincerely interested in watching or participating in the big and cruel game of circulating capital by all means necessary. They are sincerely interested in the destruction of the environment--it's all a part of the outlook that sees life as Extreme Olympics. Those voters must be a majority, and the most popular candidates reflect that. "Utter Evil" and "Lesser Evil" compete for their votes.
A minority of people--like you--are truly interested in the above-mentioned social and economic justice and peace, and in saving what could be saved of the environment. Not only on principle: they--you--are fully capable of grasping and are working for these fine, reasonable, basic-survival causes. A large number of those people are however harboring an illusion that voting for the "Lesser Evil" will "make a difference." "Lesser Evil" can always count on these suckers (demagoguery is a crude art, but it works), and sometimes it wins and the “Utter Evil” gladly takes the passenger seat until the next so-called free elections. (They are free for the Extreme Olympics majority, but they are oppressive, constricting and costly for the rest).
If the minority were not stupid and if it were the majority, this guy Silver Persinger, for example, with his Free Party Platform, would stand a fair chance of winning, while the currently most popular candidates would get a handful of hits on their web sites and be regarded as hopeless outsiders. Silver's Free Party, a party of one right now (I am not its offical propagandist, contrary to what this post might imply), would be one of the most numerous and lively parties around.
If today's minority were the totality of people, there would be no need for political parties or for the state itself.
Discuss?
4 comments:
Let's begin.
First of all, there's nothing tangible on Silver's website that explains exactly what he is prepared to do should he actually be elected president. There can only be one conclusion to make: that he's not in any position to take a campaign seriously, much less the role of commander-in-chief. What he speaks is empty rhetoric, similar in tone, scope and effectiveness to Obama's, Hillary's and McCain's. How is this any different from the "lesser evil" any one of these potential nominees represent? What makes him think the American people (with all of our "ingenuity" and creativity) actually buy this kind of grassroots grandstanding? I think I remember this tactic from student council elections -- it had its merits when we were seventeen and had nothing else to do but fight the man, but now that we're losing so much of our income to taxes, spending so much of our time laboring for those barely sufficient wages, worrying about our kids getting a halfway decent education free from heavy artillery, and scrambling to remain intelligent about world events despite CNN, who can take seriously a guy who sits beside a stream and just wants to change the world a little bit? I wonder if he can really articulate what exactly it is that's wrong with the two-party system in this particular election and how a third candidate, with no domestic political experience, no foreign diplomatic experience, no military experience, no oratory experience, no leadership experience, is going to make it all better. Oh wait, I get it -- because he's one of us. And so doesn't that make him the "lesser evil"?
I'm worried about all of the items you listed starting with "spending so much time laboring (...)" (Though not starting with "losing so much of our income to taxes": I have no problem with paying taxes as a principle, I just have a problem that they are spent on invasions, prisons, and such.) But overall, my point is that I don't see a point of voting in this system misleadingly called "democracy". Therefore I'm no good at defending or explaining Silver, who is running for president and defends democracy--hopefully he will debate you on that himself. Or maybe sweet talk until you give him your vote :-) Silver aside, it seems to me that we live in an oligarchy in which our monetary worth determines our power, and not in a democracy in which people (of means or no means, regardless) rule by casting their votes and by running for and being elected office. Unless we define democracy as a system in which people of few means vote for the relatively wealthy people to collaborate with the extremely wealthy people for the distribution of wealth to remain basically intact, with a few proverbial crumbs thrown at the people of few means here and there, while people of no means have effectively no say one way or the other. But if that's the case, why not skip a costly and unnecessary step and abolish the voting part completely and let those individuals/families who are worth, say, one billion (10 billion? I'm bad with numbers) and more decide about everything without any input from us down below, and simply inform us of their decisions once a week/month? Why the pretense of "the rule of the people" if "people" is defined as "all legal citizens, regardless of their economic class, who are over 18 and who have never served time for a felony"?
Unassuming readers think that no evil could possibly be behind big glasses and a cute hump nose (i.e. our dear spurious blogger), but careful! To those that know her well, she's a well known dogmatist.
I hereby propose a completely new election system that would not only encourage election of lesser evil, but have it as a built in democratic principle! It's based on American Idol. You throw in a bunch of candidates, no matter who they are, partisan or independent. Then a pool of political pundits interviews them. An American Idol based model would work here very well - John Randy Stewart, Katie Paula Couric and Bill Simon O'Railey would be good judges. Then they ask all candidates various questions, not forgetting the important topics such as abortion, same sex marriage, gun control and god. Occasionally, they could also ask some health reform type of questions or how to utilize the US military... well that's not too different to what we already have. But, the real novelty is that we all vote after each round for the one we hate the most. Note here the difference - you're supposed to vote for the one you hate - not the one you like (so, old folks in Florida, be carefull when you punch the cards!) So, the one with most "anti-votes" gets sent home, and we repeat the process until the one we hate the least stays and takes over the country. So, suppose we have McCain, Obama and Hilary in the poll right now. Who would you send home?! Admit it, decision is now much easier...
Good, keep the suggestions coming, otherwise I might go ahead and abolish voting and do other things my dogma (a.k.a. voices in my head) tells me to do.
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