Whenever someone asks me whether I'm going to vote, I say "I don't know." They usually then ask me why I wouldn't vote. Sometimes I hear stuff about my forefathers suffering and dying for my right to vote, as well. This ticks me off, usually, because the right to do something implies the right not to do something. A right is not the same as a responsibility. They go hand in hand, true. The right do do something implies the responsibility to do it as well as you can, or else to choose to not do it at all. Just because I have to right to go to Ole Miss doesn't mean I have the responsibility to do so, James Meredith's tribulations notwithstanding. I see all these advertisments encouraging people to vote. "Vote or die!," etc. No one ever says exactly why it is important. Particularly when, in my mind, deciding between the Democrats and the Republicans is very much like deciding between the Communists and the Nazis. It was not a good choice in Germany in the thirties, and it isn't a good choice now. I don't mean to imply that either party intends genocide against a minority, nor that either will be hanging people from lampposts, only that I find the politics of both major parties to be detestable. When they talk to me further, my attitude typically disturbs them. I say I might write in my Dad again. I voted for him instead of Clinton/Bush and again instead of Gore/Bush. I think he would make a better President than any of the jokers who've been polluting the airwaves in recent months, even though he is a liberal Democrat. But at least he is honest and willing to consider alternative views.
Now to the crux of the matter. People are always saying that I am wasting my vote. They plead with me "don't waste your vote." Will someone please tell me just what the heck that actually means? Unless I cast the deciding vote, I figure my vote is wasted anyway. My greatest fear, in fact, would be that my vote would not, in fact, be wasted if I were to vote for one of the two big fish. I don't know if I could have any respect for myself if Georgia were carried by one vote, and I voted for either of them. If either of them wins, I lose. Just what is the satisfaction on voting in a new overseer? Maybe I should just vote for the major party which does not have the incumbent. Maybe I should always vote for the incumbent. What's the point either way?