Waiting Again At The ATL
Here I sit in ATL once again awaiting a flight out to Austin, Texas. I got in line at 6:15 this morning to vote. The polls opened at 7:00 and I was out by 7:39. In that hour and twenty-four minutes my mind changed again on my vote. A couple of weeks back I said I was going to vote for Bush because I was so aghast that the Kerry/Edwards campaign would resort to pulling Mary Cheney’s sexuality into the campaign.
I’m still horrified that the man who will probably be running the country for the next four years would stoop to that level in his campaign but my decision to vote for Bush was made in haste. I still couldn’t vote for Kerry. I voted for Badnarik. During my time standing in line I overheard someone talking about wasted votes and it reminded me about how I feel about that stupid, stupid concept.
You see, I look at it this way, I’m either going to vote for a winner or a loser. If I’m voting my conscious, as I should be, the winning and losing won’t come into play in my decison of who to vote for. I’m going to vote for who I want to put in office. If it comes down to no one running that I want to put in office then I have to make my decision based on ideology alone. I will not vote against anyone.
No vote is wasted except for the vote you place against someone. It’s a neat marketing ploy that people use to elect otherwise unelectable politicians to pull the “wasted vote” argument. You build a team and pit one team against the other team, if they can persuade you that you are against the other team then they can use the polls to rationalize your need to vote for their politician because their politician is “electable” while yours isn’t. Voting for your politician instead of theirs just throws away your vote and is like voting for the “other team”.
I tend to believe that voting for anyone other than my own politician is throwing my vote away because it ensures that my politician will not stand a chance. I want my politician to at least have a chance whether or not I’m a winner or a loser. At least I’ll be true to myself.
—————
I’ve still about thirty minutes before my flight starts boarding so I thought I’d throw in a little more.
I’m almost certain that John Kerry will be our next president. I’m not too happy about this but I wouldn’t be too happy about another four years of George W. Bush so I guess it doesn’t matter. This nation will survive regardless.
For my Republican friends who are thinking that a Kerry presidency will mean the end of the free world I’m going to tell you to relax. The tax-cuts that you are enjoying are not automatically at risk. The president can only introduce legislation, sign it once it’s passed or veto it. Doing away with the Bush tax-cuts will require congress’ approval. You will still control both the House and the Senate.
For my Kerry supporting friends don’t think that there is going to be any major change in foreign policy, especially regarding Iraq. There will be some changes but they will be insignificant for the most part and won’t mean a thing in your or my day to day living. If there is to be a draft is is even more likely to take place with a Democrat in the White House than with a Republican.
Whoever is in the White House we will still be subject to removing our shoes in airports, random searches of our luggage, the FBI checking out our reading list at the library and inadequate intelligence telling us what is going on in the minds of the third world. Our economy will either grow fast or it will grow slow but it will still grow because people will make that happen, not the government.
When you get right down to it, it isn’t that big a deal.
General, Politics, US | Larry D. Burton | 02 November 2004 |
