I’ve finally had enough. The politics in this country have finally beaten me down to the point where I’m not going to vote for anyone in November. Yes, I will vote on the State amendments, but I will not be casting a single vote for anyone running for an elected office.
I have voted in every presidential election since I turned 18 years old, and I always felt like it was a privilege to do so. What has led me to this decision? Politicians on both sides of the aisle. They have effectively turned off my ability to care about the outcome, and they have made me realize that it really doesn’t matter who ends up in office because they always end up catering to the lobbies that funded their campaigns. Politicians simply do not…repeat; do NOT…care about the average American. They care about how they APPEAR to the average American, but this only applies to an election year. In 2012 politicians only care about one thing: themselves. They will cater to the lobbies that fund their campaigns with little or no regard how it will affect the country and the people in it. I can almost hear the democrats reading this post… “This guy doesn’t realize all the things the democrats do for the poor and working poor…” really? There is not one social program that has been put in place that has actually helped the poor in this country. Every social program in America serves to keep the poor in their own economic class, just where the democrats want them. All democrats want from the poor is their vote, and how better to get their vote than by giving them ‘free’ money and other ‘free’ programs? I once saw a CNN reporter talking to two unemployed men about finding jobs. They replied, “No, we want our Obama checks!”
The republicans are no better… they love to chant about how they want to see America grow by lowering the tax burden on businesses. Really?The same businesses that use whatever tax loop holes they can to outsource jobs overseas? The same businesses that take advantage of their workers in a bad economy by making them work longer hours for less pay and benefits because they can??
I could go on and on about both parties, and how they’re both in bed with big oil, etc. but the end result would be the same. Until the people of this country truly wake up and realize that neither political party really gives a rat’s ass about them we will never see this country move forward. The answer to this problem is to do exactly what they have done in countries like Egypt and demand reform at every level. But this will never happen here because: the people of this country don’t mind being herded about like sheep. As long as they have the latest Apple gadget, they’re happy… as long as they can post something on Facebook, they’re happy… politicians know this. That’s why they love it when the ‘sheep’ are busy being happy with things that don’t matter. So I will not participate in this charade anymore, and I will not vote for any one.
That’s a cute saying, and there are times when you think “you voted for those guys? go live with it.” But one shouldn’t take that saying literally. The North Koreans don’t deserve their regime; the Congolese don’t deserve theirs. This is because regimes evolve, and generations of people get born into them, and unless you believe in children inheriting the sins of their parents simply by association, then a lot of these regimes aren’t deserved.
There’s also the question of how collective responsibility is determined and doled out. " We have all spent too much; therefore you don’t get to have productive employment." A bad thing that happens to an individual starts getting justified by an amorphous collective. This “just compensation” argument only really works if you start saying things like “how much you pay (in money or suffering) is proportionate to how much you gained (by being irresponsible).”
Maybe baby boomers deserve disaster, for being locust-like in their thirst for tax cuts + entitlements, but do their children, and their children’s children?
Regimes also shape the values and actions of their citizenry. Behaviors actually co-evolve. Russian russians have trouble being trustworthy, because they grow up in a regime where it is pretty much irrational to be honest and play by the rules. Then one turns around and says that they because aren’t honest, so they deserve a regime that treats them like scum. It’s self perpetuating, but that doesn’t mean that they deserve what they get… only that their regime and their behavior are locked in a Nash equilibrium.
This happens here too. But it’s harder to see one’s own behavioral problems. The Russian case is illustrative, because when the rules are written by and to protect oligarchs or 1%ers, the rest of society loses the incentive to play by them. Things fall apart. The center cannot hold.
^+1. I like the wrap up at the end. Great lines, below. Based on the whole thing, it sounds like CFAvMBA has the right idea: “The best lack all conviction.”
“TURNING and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”
Not that the US political system is that great, but it’s not really comparable to such horrible regimes as Egypt, Syria, or Tunisia. We will need to address these problems at some point, but wide scale rioting seems like an overreaction to the current state of US political disfunction.
As for abstaining from voting - I suppose that is a respectable way saying you support no one. However, from a practical perspective, you don’t accomplish anything. Politicians will not become better if voter turnout decreases. Instead, you will empower passionate fringe groups who buy into political rhetoric, and who vote in high numbers. Even if you are jaded, you should still vote for the lesser of the evils.
^Bchad, I still agree with Plantir’s quote. I don’t think it’s meant to be taken like a strong EMH, but more like there may be inefficiencies, but over the long haul an oppressive government can only survive if a nation’s citizens lack the strength of will to throw it out. In other words, if as a culture you lack the backbone to stand against a government you feel is criminally oppressive, then likely you also lack the backbone to maintain your independence and so will always find yourself under one regime or another. And yes, I realize I did not fight in the American revolution, but yes, I also would if it were in my mind necessary. I also realize that in the modern era of weaponry, it becomes increasingly more difficult in practice to overturn a regime, so I’ll admit that’s an issue too.
But ultimately I think I can best sum up my personal view by combining two quotes:
“People get the government they deserve.” and “Give me liberty or give me death.”
In otherwords, if you are unwilling to die for your freedom you either don’t deserve it or don’t truly have it to begin with (many people are unwittingly in a state of servitude, including many in the US).
Edit: I realize these are just my views and that my views tend to be extremely harsh from what I’m told. So, I’m not looking to win a debate or anything, just simply throwing my perspective out there.
I get your point, and I also agree that to be apathetic is to some degree to consent to letting things be as they are.
But there’s also a point where it is irrational to stand up if no one else will stand up with you.
To touch a sensitive point, did the Jews deserve the holocaust? Some were apathetic, I guess, and didn’t leave Germany when things were clearly getting bad. But surely, that doesn’t mean that they “deserved” to die by the hundreds of thousands and millions, particularly when - at the time - it was not at all apparent where they should or could go (much of that is only obvious in retrospect). And heck, the Polish and French Jews were killed by the Germans, but they really didn’t realistically have a chance to kick the Nazis out of German politics before getting invaded by them (or the Russians).
So I don’t subscribe to the view that “whatever bad thing happens to you, it’s your fault for not preventing it.” Either as an individual, or as a community. There are things that we can realistically expect to influence by our actions, and things we cannot. We can admire the people who (quite possibly irrationally) stand up for what’s right, but I don’t think that people need to put their life in front of a bullet repeatedly simply to have the right to feel that their lives are safe.
Jews and the Holocaust? You’re taking a slippery slope argument AND throwing in an arbitrary but obligatory Holocaust reference. Amazing.
In a free political system like the US, you have every opportunity to participate in the political process, what’s stopping you?
The real problem is not that the political system is flawed, it’s that there are people that have opposing viewpoints on many of the same issues, yielding political deadlock. What else can you expect but total inefficiency? I guess you could solve that by eliminating them from the political proces…wait…
No, I’m not arguing slippery slope. I’m just arging that “people get the government they deserve” doesn’t work as a general rule and providing an example (the Holocaust) that demonstrates in stark terms where it fails.
If you’re saying “in a democratic regime with open politics and low levels of corruption, an apathetic citizenry can’t complain about the government doing things that aren’t in the public interest” then I agree with you, and I’ll concede that the holocaust reference doesn’t apply. But you didn’t say that until your last post.
He just means that people who do not proactively stand up to a bad outcome do not necessarily deserve that outcome, particularly if they did not realize how bad the outcome would be, or if they believed resistance would be futile. Obviously, the Holocaust is not the only example, but whatever. It serves the purpose of the argument. It’s not bad form to discuss historical events.
The Russians invaded Poland. Yes, you caught me making a grammatical mistake, because it is possible for an idiot to interpret the sentence as suggesting the Russians invaded France also. Congratulations.
Bchad, when pirate Calico Jack was led out to his execution, a famous shipmate of his told him, “if you’d fought like a man, you wouldn’t have been hung like a dog.” Ironically that shipmate was a female pirate, but that’s another issue.
Anyhoo, you somehow extrapolated my argument into, “you deserve the bad things that happen to you by not preventing them.” That’s a simplistic misunderstanding somehow equating freedom and liberty with happiness and goodness. They are not really related.
You’re also misunderstanding freedom by equating it with practicality. It was not irrational for any patriot who has been executed in an apparently fruitless exercise in the name of freedom to have protested. In doing so they maintained their presonal freedom, which apparently the valued above all else. They died, but they died free.
This is entirely the whole idea of “Give me Liberty or give me death.” that was missed. He didn’t say, “give me liberty, unless it means death, in which case I’ll forfit my freedom.” What part of that is in any way confusing.
And I’m not judging the actions of those victemized by the holocaust. I will make the factual statement, that at some point, each of the nearly 30,000,000 imprisoned (versus 18MM in entire German Army over the course of the war) faced a decision point and chose the chance to live over a struggle probably resulting in immediate death. Many had families, and I want to be clear, I’m not saying they made the wrong decision. Deciding to tough it out in brutal camps is brave in its own right and may have ensured the survival of many families. I’m just saying the decision point is always there. Choosing freedom over life may not be the smart move for everyone, but for those who will forever be free, it’s often the only move. I think the current state of Israel definitely embodies give me liberty or give me death in many ways.
I get that, I’m not trying to argue that people deserve genocide or enslavement. But just that those who resist regardless of likely outcome will always be free, they also may be the only ones who truly are free or even deserve to be free is what that means to me. It’s a harsh stance, I know. I guess the root of my disagreement is that I was raised and do believe that instances like the Alamo, Bastogne, dead patriots, they all represent the standard we’re expected to meet if freedom is brought into question while many people take the view that while that’s admirable, it’s above the standard rather than the actual standard.
Another issue about deserving the government we have is this: We live in a free country. Our soldiers demonstrate that when they die in conflicts for other’s freedom. I have trouble justifying in my head why it’s okay for an American soldier to go die in a trench in a foreign country while the fighting aged male populace has willingly accepted imprisonment or oppresion in exchange for their own longevity. France didn’t back us in the revolution until we demonstrated our own willingness to fight regardless of assistance, and I think that should be the model the US takes in overseas operations. Only join when they’ve in majority taken up arms. Anyhow, now I’m waaaay off topic.
Well, I think people are sometimes forced into situations that they don’t deserve, which is what the Holocaust reference was about. The fact that one has to defend one’s life and liberty doesn’t mean that one should have to, and it doesn’t mean that people that haven’t fought for it don’t deserve to enjoy it. Or that it is ok to take life and liberty away simply because they were unable or afraid for whatever reason to defend it. What you have to do and what you deserve are not necessarily the same, although in an ideal world, we work to create societies where they line up right.
That’s the whole point about rights. It’s why people have a right to something like due process of law, but don’t have a right to an iPhone. If you want an iPhone, you’re supposed to go out and work for it.
I was focusing on “deserve” issue because of the “people get the government that they deserve” quote that was driving this part of the thread, but the “give me liberty or give me death,” does introduce a different spin on it, I agree.
I also think “give me liberty or give me death” often ends up being “ok, death for you.” We admire the people who stood up that way and won, but the pile of people in the stand-up-and-get-slaughtered pile is likely much larger by orders of magnitude. Then there are people who run away and try to fight another day when the opportunity is more favorable. That’s not necessarily unadmirable or irrational either. Once you’re dead, it’s hard to advance your cause, save for a few symbolic martyrs.
Really, I just think that reality never boils down to such simple slogans. They are points of view that serve to orient our actions toward specific situations, and at times they are more applicable and/or urgent than others.
I can respect your point of view without necessarily sharing it though. I don’t find it completely offensive, for example. I just don’t agree with it entirely.
Unless you have been faced with avoidable death, you do not know what you would do in the situation. I’ve been robbed at gunpoint and I had no problem handing over my wallet. BS, I understand what you are saying and agree that if you are not willing to FIGHT for freedom then you cannot blame others. The issue is that you need to have a forum to fight for it with some chance (however miniscule) of victory. I think saying that you are willing to “die” is kind of confusing to many since you can die uselessly and arbitrarily, but if you say “fight” then it presumes there is a forum for you to struggle.
Nowadays, unless you can gain the backing of the military or some faction of it then government overthrow is not realistic. Dying would be futile.
Bchad, fair enough. I’m also not trying to trash on anybody for having a different philosophy in this thread. Want to be clear on that as well.
Brainwash, I’ve had three near drowning experiences in the past two months kayaking whitewater. One of which when they pulled me out they thought they were going to have to resuscitate. I’ve faced “avoidable death” for fun. So, I really do think I can speak openly on that. I have a DVD from a time I put fake license plates on a sports car I used to own and let a cop car pull me over at night before dusting him to settle an argument with classmates who told me, “you can’t outrun the radio”. I say a lot of things, but I really do mean what I say.
No, that is different because it is a calculated risk you are free to make. I’ve taken calculated risks too. Having unprotected sex with questionable women isn’t the same as chosing death in exchange for your freedom. What you were doing was recreational. Your freedom was not under any threat.
I agree with the spirit of “liberty or death” but I think the real world is more complicated than that. You need to pick your battles. Retreating or giving ground is necessary very often. Therefore, when staring down the barrel of a 40 cal. Beretta I hand over my wallet and ask the guy if he wants a smoke.