Im sure many of you ahve heard this , but i just heard George Carlin on XM doing his routine on politics, and he said he hasnt voted in 20 years, that any time he hears someone say'if you dont vote you cant complain!" he answers with"fuck yes I can! I didnt vote so its not My fault these motherfuckers arein power, YOu voted so its YOUR fault these bonehaeds are in charge! i stayed home and masturbated, at least I acomplished something!" and he also brought up a good point, anytime some starts the whole civics bullshit about freedom and our rights and privilege when it comes to elections, remind them Hitler was elected in a Free and Democratic election............... maybe its just me but I se a lot of sense in that..........
hell yea it makes sense more people dont vote than people who vote... what does that say about the confidence of people in our system? Shows that we dont really want this shit
I voted once for me as the nominee for employee of the month and then I wasn’t completely sure. I served twenty years as a pop up target in the US Army and couldn’t find someone I though sincerely had my values in mind to vote for. I’ve never voted! Maybe the problem is the Congress voting system. 51% a law passes or 60% if a single Senator objects. If it were changed to 85% then the government would come to a halt or the “wise guys” would have to park the BS and look for what is best for the folks. A vote to go to war should be at 90% or higher. If it is the “right thing to do” then an overwhelming representing body should say it is the right thing to do since the overwhelming majority of those represented are affected by war. Changeyourlatitude
This year is the first year i am voting in a presidential election. I am only choosing to vote because there is one candidate I think deserves my vote and is actually running to represent the people. Its not Bush, Kerry or Nader.
this thread is such crap, you dumbass ignorant fools who think not voting is constructive are the reasons why the green party is flourishing, they need dumb ass idiots like you because thats who they stand for, im not for the green party but i am for a democracy and this is not a democracy when our citizens wont vote ... jesus whats the matter with .. ah fuck it smoke a bowl
Vote for the first post in this thread as "Lamest Excuse (or even post) Of the Month." WTF? We do NOT live in a perfect country. I certainly can find enough wrong without trying hard, but we do have a system which works a good part of the time. WHY do I care what George Carlin says or does? A bitter, washed up coke head? I VOTE and nothing will stop me. An imperfect system, but still has it's good points. I don't let loser celebrities tell me what to do with my political rights. Lamest way to demonize anything or anyone you don't like or anything you are too lazy to do: Compare it to Hitler. Done to death, my freind. Get an other analogy.
Republic indicate the "form" of our government. It is not some term which excludes "democracy". One can find examples of non-democratic republics as well as democratic republics (such as ours). The mechanisms of accountability exist in our society because it adheres to the "process" of democracy with in the institutional framework of a republic.
A republic can never truly represent the will of the people... it is always the will of whatever represenatives come in power... who comes in power is largely decided by who is shown in the US media in a respective light... and we know that mostly everyone who comes in power is a rich white christian male... hell of a democracy... In a true democratic system, everyone has the power to change everything... I think that a pure democratic system, where the people vote on everything, is not entirely impossible. I think that the leaders of this country, want us to believe that it is not possible so they can continue having power. But in reality, would it be that hard to have votes every week on a variety of subjects? With all the money we spend on our military, I am certain it is not impossible to have a good democratic system that can actively have the people involved in it.
If people actively participated in the system as it currently exists we could advance beyond purely elitest corporate interest politics just fine. However far too few bother to find out whats going on beyond what the evening news tells them, so expecting sufficient interest to fuel a direct democracy in a country of 280 million plus would be a tall order indeed.
maybe people dont get involved because they feel they have no power over the situations... they know that represenatives carry out everything, and that there vote is miniscule indeed.. if people actually could think, "wow, look what I helped do" maybe theyd be more inclined to be active in politics?
Whilst that may be true, it is equally true that if more people made the effort to truly scrutinise what we are fed by the media and demand direct accountability of all elected leaders the fewer disenfranchised there would be by simple reason of self involvement. Most simply don't care as long as local services are running and they can get to work and back without hinderance.
Regardless of whether the US has a perfect system or not, you still are given some choices. If you think there will be no differences, philosophical or otherwise, between Bush and Kerry you are mad. It will change everything from the way other countries deal with us to our own personal freedoms. As someone stated above, it may not be a perfect system, but you have some choices to make that can end up having a very significant effect on the country and the entire world situation. There is no good reason not to vote, George Carlin is a funny comedian, but one should vote.
"When I grow up, I'm not going to read the newspaper and I'm not going to follow complex issues and I'm not going to vote. That way I can complain that the government doesn't represent me. Then, when everything goes down the tubes, I can say the system doesn't work and justify my further lack of participation." "An ingeniously self-fullfilling plan." "It's a lot more fun to blame things than to fix them." ~ Calvin & Hobbes (Those damn corporate syndicates seem to have removed any free and complete c & h comic archives on the web for me to use as an image source *shakes fist*) True, our system may not be the best and often forces us to choose between the lesser of two evils. Still, while things don't look like they're gonna change soon, they sure as hell won't change if we remain apathetic and don't vote. This election will the first one I can vote in, I'm bothered enough this time by Bush to vote for whoever the Democrats nominate, which appears to be Kerry, just so I can hopefully help get that tool replaced by a somewhat-less offensive tool. No choice but to take small steps at a time. Aside from this I'm mostly a Green supporter.
hmmmm guess few people caught on to the factthat I was making a joke... actually it wasnt me but a friend that posted that, just happened that i was logged in. The point she was trying to make was that with all the fuss made every election about doing your duty and voting, and registering an building the voter base, nobody ever really stops and thinks about what theyre doing....the same people who bitch for years at a stretch about the govt are the same ones that go in Nov and REELECT the same tools! just like with Kerry running against Bush, i hear constantly that its of utmost importance to unseat GW and its fearful to think of him being reelectedbut are they going to stay on top of the situation and watch Kerry to see if hes really making progress and doing whats really best for us or wil they just sit back and look at it as "hey we won, no worries" until the next election comes up? and what about Congess? the president always catches so much hell but nobody seems the care that most of these people have been parked on the Hill for YEARS with so much power and influnece they do pretty much as they wish and pass blame off to whoever is in the White House, look att al these Republican whores that spent eight years blasting Clinton for his policies regarding trade and the economy but never bothered to lift a finger to stop him cause they were geting filthy fucking rich off them! to sum it up the post was intended to make ya question just why its so important to vote, just to follow some party rhetoric or to actualy try to make a change and keep on top of thise you support oh by the way, for all of you that wrote me complaining cause i dont vote.. I NEVER said I didnt vote, i DO and as a matter of fact VOTED in a local matter the day that post was made on here! so did the fried that posted it!
One of the many dangers of letting people use your identity. They say something stupid (or universally misunderstood) and you look like and idiot. Maybe your freind can get her own identity. It doesn't cost anything to post on this site.
You probably wouldn't want everything to be decided by the masses. One of the things the founding father's feared was mob rule. True democracy doesn't do a very good job of protecting the rights of the minority. Also, when critical budget decisions were left up to the popular vote, history has shown some very piss poor results. For instance, in Florida's last gubenatorial election, Jeb Bush won on a platform where he promised to lower taxes while at the same time an amendment to the constution passed by refferendum that mandated small class sizes. Both of those goals are mutually exclusive but many voters were dumb and wanted to eat thier cake and have it too. Direct Democracy doesn't work as most people are morons.
That's why the founding fathers made the electoral college... though to be honest I think we can do away with it.
How can we really know that though? It's never been attempted before. I think it's about time we tried. Trin