From: farenebt@craft.camp.clarkson.edu (Bri Farenell ("Droopy"))
Subject: Re: This Time Around, DON'T VOTE !!
Organization: Clarkson University
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 18:58:15 GMT

ptownson@eecs.nwu.edu (Patrick Townson) writes:

>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. 

Well, then I expect you to suffer through the next 2/4 years 
without bitching even once about the president or the Congress.
Right?!

>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.

They don't mean anything because such a pathetic percentage of the
people vote. Officials represent the electorate. If only 51% of
the people vote, then they will only be representing 51% of
the opinions.

>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.

The real answer: because they're fucking hypocrites. It's much
easier to sit on your ass at home syaing, "Congress sucks. The
President sucks. The governors sucks." than to take the whopping
30 minutes of extra effort to register and pull a few levers.
It is only a waste of time because you think it is. If 95% of the
people in a district supported, say, the Brady Bill. The NRA
could lobby till they're blue in the face. What happens if the
Congressman votes against the Bill? His certainly diminishes his
chances greatly of returning.

>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. 

On the other hand, elections have been postponed for outrageous
reasons like a hurricane in Southern Florida.

>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. 

If you really believe in an independent candidate, get off your
ass and circulate petitions for him/her.

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

In a presidential race perhaps. I've heard of instances where a
write-in candidate won in more local elections.

>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. 

Proof please. Where does it say that a non-Dem/GOP has to get
more sigs than anyone else? It might be realistically more
difficult but the number is the same.

>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. 

That's the flaw with the electoral college which should not exist
anymore anyways (the college that is). Now, Perot has electors.
If Perot got all the votes, he would get all 538 electors. Do you
think that 271 of them would vote for Bush or Clinton? I think all
(or almost all) Perot electors would vote for Perot.

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

>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.

Really? Is it recently? I remember that the most voter turnout in
a recent election was the 1960 JFK-Nixon race where about 60% voted.
Stillbelow the totals of European countries and Canada.

>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. 

Ok, don't vote. But, like I said, I expect that I won't EVER
hear you bitch and whine and moan and, in general, act like
an infant when the goverment doesn't do what you want.

>DO NOT VOTE IN NOVEMBER.

If you don't vote, you don't count. Plain and simple. Your opinions
are an absolute zero if you don't vote. Nada! Zilch! Nothing! 

>Patrick Townson

"Patheticly hypocritical"

============================================================================
BRI FARENELL				"Violence is the last refuge of the
FARENEBT@CRAFT.CAMP.CLARKSON.EDU     	 incompetent."  --Salvor Hardin	
CLARKSON '95
A politically incorrect, pro-life, liberal, card-carrying member of the ACLU.
===========================================================================
"If you choose not to decide, you have still made a choice."   
	---RUSH ("Free Will")

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