From: ptownson@eecs.nwu.edu (Patrick Townson)
Newsgroups: misc.misc,talk.politics.misc
Subject: This Time Around, DON'T VOTE !!
Date: 6 Oct 92 04:15:00 GMT
Reply-To: misc.misc
Organization: None
X-Submissions-To: misc.misc

Soon it will be the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November
and time once again for the exercise in futility and good humor we in
the United States call Election Day. (Yes, the 'first Tuesday after
the first Monday' is the correct date: if November 1 is on a Tuesday
for example, then Election Day is November 8, etc. A Monday has to go
past before the day when we are humored by being allowed to express
our opinions, provided they are not too far away from a norm set for
us by the judges, lawyers and political cronies who really run things
in the USA.

This time around, tell them to shove it.  DO NOT BOTHER TO VOTE AT ALL.
NOT EVEN FOR DOG CATCHER IF YOUR COMMUNITY VOTES FOR ANIMAL CONTROL
OFFICER. 

It might be different if our votes *really* meant anything ... but
they do not. It might be different if our votes were sacred; if the
will of the people in the USA was really what detirmined how we are
governed ... but they are not.

For the past several years, participation in the political process in
the United States has gone down. And to listen to the politicians,
you'd think it was just terrible how so few people are bothering to go
to the polls any longer. For the past few months here in Chicago, the
politicians have been worked up in a frenzy trying to get people to
register to vote. It seems only about forty percent of the people
eligible to vote here have even bothered to register in the past few
years. Nationally, the percentage of registered voters to total
population is a little better, but not much.

Why are so few people bothering to register and vote? I think the
answer is simple: People are finally beginning to wise up to the fact
that VOTING IS A WASTE OF TIME and an attempt by the government to
HUMOR the citizens and make them think their opinion matters on
anything.

Consider this:

When you vote, you vote for less than one percent of the people who
screw you around all the time. Voters do not select the thousands of
petty bureaucrats who make their lives miserable; they do not vote for
the things that matter ... only for the couple of politicians in their
lives who have told the most believable lies.  When is the last time
your vote got you anything better in life; ie, better schools, better
housing, less violent crime, public transportation that was safe and
running on schedule, etc ... in other words, the things that matter in
our lives?  When is the last time your vote got rid of a petty tyrant
in city/state/federal government who harassed you? Do you think if you
vote for Clinton (Bush, Perot) things will change?

One thing that WILL happen when you register to vote is they then get
your name for jury duty ... another place where your opinion may or
may not count for anything depending on the whim of the judge.

True or false question: A jury votes for the innocence or guilt of a
defendant. The jury's word is the final word on the matter.  FALSE!
Despite the presence of a jury, the judge can rule as he pleases. The
jury can say the defendant is guilty and the judge will say he is
innocent. The jury can say he is innocent, and the judge will say he
is guilty.  I've got better things to do with my time than sit on a
jury and listen to evidence and make a decision a judge may or may not
accept.   They are getting so hard up for jurors here in Cook County
they have decided to start picking names from driver's license records
and utility company records ... no one wants the bother any longer. 

But back to voting: Here are some more true and false questions. See
how many you agree with me on.

1) An election has to be held as scheduled on the day it is announced.
An election cannot be cancelled entirely on the whim of some lawyers
or judges who decide to cancel it.  FALSE.

More than one election has been either postponed or *cancelled entirely*
when it appeared to interested parties that the results -- no matter
how  they came out -- would not be to the liking of special interest
groups with a stake in the outcome. Now there has never been a
national presidential election cancelled, but plenty of local
elections have been cancelled or postponed until things were more to
the liking of some liberal judge and his politician cronies. This has
happened many times in Chicago: an election is scheduled but the
results will be unsatisfactory to the ACLU or the politicians or a few
lawyers, etc ... so they get a judge to call the whole thing off or
wait awhile until circumstances change to their liking. 

2) People have the right to elect anyone they want to any office. You
can nominate someone, have his name on the ballot and vote for him.
Again, FALSE!  You can only have candidates authorized by the estab-
lished Demopublican and Repbublicrat organizations. Who YOU want in
office is of no concern. 

   a) Write in candidates on the ballot are ignored; the votes are
not counted and you wasted your time writing something in.

   b) If you go to the trouble of following the rules set forth to
actually get a name *printed on the ballot* it still frequently will
not appear, depending on how much it disturbs the 'regulars'. As an
example, a few years ago, some 150,000 black voters in Chicago gave
their signatures to insure that a candidate THEY wanted for mayor got
on the ballot under the 'Harold Washington Party'. Now black voters in
Chicago have traditionally voted Democratic; you can well imagine how
this turn of events scared the hell out of the Democratic machine
here. 

Forget for a minute the fact that third party candidates always have
to have about ten times the number of signatures on petitions that the
Demopublicans and Republicrats are required to collect. That is one
way of insuring there is not too much rocking of the boat. But in this
case, despite attempts to keep people from signing petitions and
having the petitions examined with a fine-tooth comb looking for all
possible irregularities (one bad signature tosses out an entire page
of good ones here!) these folks came up with plenty of good names.
What to do?  Well the Democratic answer was to find a judge somewhere
who would simply rule there could not be a "Harold Washington Party".
Now a white judge saying such a thing would of course have caused an
awful stink, amid charges of racism, etc ... so they found a BLACK
judge to do their dirty work; a guy named Harold Leighton who owed his
robes to the Democratic machine here.  Presto, 150,000 voters are told
their opinion doesn't mean anything ... vote the way we tell you or
else!  

So now when voter registration in the black community here is at an
all time low, the Democrats sit and cry about it ... and arrange to
have someone go and register the inmates at Cook County Jail plus
everyone who goes to the supermarket on Saturday. 

3) If someone does get elected, that means they get to serve in
office, right?   FALSE!  If the cronies decide to let them they can,
but not otherwise.

Example: Every voter in the USA could vote for Perot. Do you *really*
think he would be permitted to take office?  Hell no!  The Electors
would revolt; some constitutional scholar would declare that we had a
'constitutional crisis' and the Congress would pick either Bush or
Clinton depending on which candidate's organization could buy off the
most congressmen. 

Example:  Here in Illinois a few years ago, in the Democratic primary
election the 'authorized' candidate Adlai Stevenson was elected as
governor but his running mate for Lt. Governor was defeated. Instead,
the people -- the voters -- chose a candidate with ties to Lyndon LaRouche.  
Wow ... did Adlai have a hissy fit!  He had the gall to go to court
and ask a judge to overturn the results and put *his man* in position
on the ballot in the general election instead.  The court would not do
it so how did Adlai respond?  By getting *everyone* on the Democratic
ticket to resign and form a new political party with him  ... no
matter what the rules the Demopublicans and Republicrats made up have
to say about spurious third parties ... those only apply to third
parties the *real people* think up ... not to something the
politicians want to do!  Adlai Stevenson has always been such a jerk
anyway, second only to Paul (simple) Simon, our notorious public
servant here ... 

More true or false:  If a group of citizens has an important local
issue to discuss, they can get it put on the ballot as a referendum
and if it passes, the government has to act on it.   FALSE!

It may be the law in some places, but what *really happens* is the
government comes up with a silly rule saying that in order to keep the
ballot from being too cluttered and difficult to use, there will be a
limit of three referendum questions presented -- and we already have
three questions in mind this time:

     Shall the state flower be a rose?
     Should the state fair be held the first week in August?
     Do you favor requiring fortune tellers to have a license?  
   
Remember, this is the place where when the Chicago Board of Education
was confronted with an angry citizenry regards a particular issue and
they were required by law to hold a public hearing (bureaucrats hate
those with a passion!) they complied with the law by holding the
hearing in a real obsure location on the far southside at 8 AM Monday
morning in a room that would hold 200 people which they packed with
185 school board employees before opening the doors to the public ...
then of course public person #16 (making 201 in total attendance) was
not permitted to enter because the room would be too crowded according
to fire safety regulations!  Real clowns we have here running things!
Very imaginative in how they work out troublesome details.

So ask these questions of the cronies in your community who run the
election locally next month:

    Will my choice really mean anything?  
    If I write in my choice for president or other official
       will you bother to even count my vote?
    Will the will of the majority be final, or is it subject
       to a judge somewhere deciding whether to accept the
       decision I and other voters make and Electors who I
       have never seen or met deciding whether or not to vote
       the way I instruct them since they have no obligation
       to do so?
    Assuming all that matters is whether I vote for Clinton
       or Bush, will anything be different in *my life* next
       week or next year as a result? Will the same arrogant
       people at City Hall and in the federal government screw
       me around and lie to me; give me mis-information and
       stall me when I demand answers or action?

If the answers you get to the above are no, then instead of bothering
to vote, just send a letter to your favorite federal judge and tell
him "hey judge, I think I'll just let you and your lawyer/politician
cronies go ahead and run things since you probably will anyway. And
think of the time and effort I'll save by not being on any jury duty
lists anywhere."

Over the past few years, the number of Americans participating in the
elections and the political process in general has greatly declined.
Maybe people are wising up to the fact that it is all a big waste of
time and that nothing will really change either way; nor does the
government really care what they think.

Voting is just a way the government has of humoring you and making you
think you really have some say-so in how you are governed. Don't you
believe it for a minute.

Hopefully, this year the turn out will be less than ever. Express your
opinion of the rotten lousy political scene in the United States by
staying away from the polls entirely next month. I have not voted in
an election of any sort for almost thirty years (I did vote for Lyndon
Johnson in 1964) and I am proud of it!  Don't you get caught up in the
games they play, especially not if you think it really matters either
way.  People that could make a difference and issues that do matter
will never make it to any ballot box. 

DO NOT VOTE IN NOVEMBER.


Patrick Townson
Newsgroups: misc.misc