November 4, 2008

• The Cynic’s Guide to Elections

  People are just so cheerful and excited today. I feel like somebody should do something to dampen the mood.

  *puts on cynic hat*

  OK let’s just get one thing straight right from the beginning.  Your vote doesn’t mean crap.

  You’re just one person. You have but one vote. And the only time that one vote “makes a difference” is in the virtually impossible scenario of a tie. And even if there were a tie, there are soo many other inaccuracies in voting systems that the count will never be determined by a vote difference of one. It’s impossible. Rather the winner is decided by statistical likelihood not by a direct exact count. So forget about thinking your almighty vote will change the world.

  Your vote is NOT your voice. Your VOICE is your voice. You’re much more likely to have an impact by going around and talking to people or writing articles to the editorial section of newspapers (and writing blogs and forums posts) than you ever are by casting a vote. Heck since elections have become a matter of courts as much as they are the voting populace, if you really want to have a “voice” in the political process, you should become a lawyer and try to get votes counted or disqualified depending on your preference. That’s how to have a “voice”.

  And your vote means even less if you live in the Pacific time zone and don’t vote until after work. The election will probably be over by they. And god forbid you mailed in your vote late or cast a “provisional” ballot. You’re basically just wasting your damned time.

  Even if knowing all this you still resolve to vote out of some misguided sense of duty or responsibility (like I do), don’t be so sure you’ll be able to vote. Your state might have some absurd law you never heard of keeping you from voting. (such as strict identification laws or laws against former or currently serving criminals)  Your vote might hit a malfunction in the computer system. You might find your name mysteriously not on the roles even though you registered (because you miss-spelled something on your registration form or some such). You might freeze to death waiting in line for six hours to vote. Or more than likely once you realize you have to wait for six hours you’ll very rationally choose keeping your JOB over pulling some pointless lever.

  Presuppose in spite of all this you manage to cast your vote, you figure you should feel pretty damned good about yourself right? Wrong. Basically you wasted x hours of your life. Why? Because we have an insane “electoral college” system which basically means your vote doesn’t mean anything. Some random people actually cast the votes and although they are “supposed” to follow the will of the people who voted for them, namely you, there’s nothing binding them to that action. One day the electors from some state will most probably be drugged and start having visions of the end of the world and will randomly change their vote in a fit of madness. And it’d be totally legal.

  Even supposing these “electors” do as they are supposed to do, does that mean that the person who gets the most votes wins? NO! Rather we have this weird “point” system, where states are assigned points proportional to their population. That means it’s quite possible for one President to win the popular vote and STILL lose cuz they didn’t have enough “points”.  The only purpose this point system serves as far as I can tell is to make the election much more fun for the media. It’s like a great cool game for them to chat about. It’s big fun for the candidates too. They get to calculate and maneuver and have such fun doing it.

  The point system has other negative consequences too. Primarily it means candidates have to pay attention to places of relative insignificance just to earn points. It means that if you live in an area that is historically leaning toward one party or the other, you might as well not bother to vote cuz it’s pointless.

  It also means that certain states get far more attention than others and their voters end up more informed (or more brianwashed) than citizens of other states. Hence if you don’t live in a swing state, your vote is pointless. Go home. Be a free rider. It’ll turn out the same way anyway. And if you do live in a swing state, have fun being bombarded with an endless supply of lies on radio and television designed to manipulate you into casting your vote a certain way.

  Let’s say out of sheer stubborness you decide to take your time and make an informed decison and vote anyways.  So you set out to pick the candidate who most reflects your beliefs. First of all you’ll find a damnably hard time finding that candidate. Rather you’ll find candidates of two parties who share a remarkably large number of things in common. Neither has any radical proposals. Both tend to be pro-military, pro-business, pro-government spending, pro traiditional Christian values to some extent or another. Most have positions that seem rather remarkably carefully chosen to be in line with the average opinion of the populace as determined by polling. Funny that.  If your ideas are even a little bit outside of the mainstream, seriously just give up. 

  And even if one of these two candidates does *seem* to be agreeing with you, there’s no way you can determine whether or not he or she is lying to get elected. There’s absolutely NOTHING that prevents them from lying through their teeth about EVERYTHING. If you don’t believe that spend even one day perusing the fact check websites that proliferate the web. Lies. Lies. Lies. From both candidates. And worse from the activist groups that arise in “support” of the candidates from the major parties.

  Even if they aren’t intentionally lying about what they intend to do, hisotrically Presidents are RARELY able to keep their campaign promises. Because their promises are pie in the sky nonsense that you want to hear. They claim powers beyond the realms of mortal men. And powers that really lie in the hands of Congress and the Courts and the States and local governments, but that doesn’t keep them from promising. Then when they get in office they apologetically say they “tried” and quickly try to turn the blame on somebody else.

  In anyway case since Presidential politics depends on money much more than it does votes, he who has the most money and influence casts the most influencial vote. So if any promises are kept it’ll be those to the business lobbyists who basically paid for the candidate’s campaign. Campaign finance laws helped but not significantly. Basically businesses shell out money for advertising and various other forms of manipulation and voter “encouragement”. Do you think candidates don’t notice? That there’s no conflict of itnerest there? Of course there is! So really youd’ probably do better to analyze the companies behind each candidate and vote for the set of companies you like best. They’re the ones with the real power anyways.

  And don’t even THINK about voting for a third party candidate or worse a write in vote. You’ll be laughed at and scorned by anyone you tell. Not only will your vote have no chance of making a difference, but people will get pissed at you for taking AWAY a vote from their favorite candidate. And people get really pissed off about that. Seriously. If I voted for a third party candidate I’d be locking my doors and sleeping with a shotgun at my side on the night of the election. It’s risky business.

  Let’s face it.

  We are living in a DYSFUNCTIONAL, POORLY DESIGNED DEMOCRACY!

  If it can even be CALLED a Democracy. It’s more like a meritocracy or a plurocracy. Popular power does not exist. If your interests are ever taken care of it’s a matter of random luck rather than a direct result of anything YOU did. And people tell you to call your Congressman about every little thing as if a phone call will make all the difference in the world. Seriously. Give me a break!

  So tell me… why should anybody vote? Why should you participate in the political process at all?  Marginal advantage suggests you’ll be happier and your life will be easier if you DON’T vote. If people look at you with scorn for it, maybe you should just lie and say you did. It’s secret so nobody knows whether you are telling the truth. But that’s a heck of a lot easier than wasting all that time researching candidates and election voting laws and waiting in line to cast a vote that probably won’t be counted, that need not be listened to even if it is counted for a candidate who won’t do any of the things he said he’d do that made you decide to vote for him.

  Politics are nothing but a big money game played by people most probably much wealthier and better educated than you. Why should you care? If you don’t have the means to join in the game (as a lawayer, politicain, businessman, or journalist) , why should you even pay attention? It has nothing to do with you. Your life. Your job. Your happiness. If you think it does, you’re deluding yourself. If you think your vote will matter, you’re either stupid or mad or both.  Go home. Have a nice cup of hot cocoa. And laugh as the pointless election results roll in.

  And if people are so damnably stupid that they elect a monster as President vote with your feet and get the hell out of this country.

  • 11:51 am
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