Election Day in the U.S.

[mousme]

Today, dear American friends, is the day you make history. Please remember that your voting system is believed by many to be... suspect, to put it politely, so your vote counts even more, no matter where you live or how "safe" you believe your preferred candidate to be.

My flist is filled with patriots. I know you're all going to go out and vote. Still, I feel that I can't let this day go by without cheering you on.

Go out there and do yourselves proud.

:)

Comments

Flister Voting

[ankhorite.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Going out into the cold dark right now to stand in line.

All moral support much appreciated!

[raven-albion.livejournal.com]

Done. There was a line outside at 0630 when we walked by to get breakfast, but no line to speak of at 0730 when we returned to cast our votes. (Of course, the longest I've ever had to wait in lovely Montpelier is, say, 10 minutes, and that's for town meeting when we have to decide on local budgets and stuff.)

May everyone who votes today have the same experience. No challenges, no 'provisional' garbage, just vote and be counted and be done.

[readykatego.livejournal.com]

We're going to do America proud for the first time in a long time.

It feels like Christmas morning!

[taxlady.livejournal.com]

I soooo hope you are right.

[ashforestwalker.livejournal.com]

"So does the rest of the world."

I was floored the last election. If it happens again, I hope you all refuse to accept it.
They fixed it once (maybe twice) do not let them do it again.

HRH.

[whiskeygirl8.livejournal.com]

I would be extremely shocked if this is the first election that kind of stuff happened during. I would also be extremely shocked if both sides were not equal participants. Politics is a dirty business. There is nothing innocent or straightforward about it. They all lie and they all play dirty.

It only seems to be liberals who are shocked by this. Which doesn't surprise me, since they seem to be the ones who tend to think we can make the world all sunshine and roses if we just get rid of guns and the military and give everyone money and talk nice to the grumpy dictators. (That last paragraph is very much not directed toward you because I know you are not wearing rose-colored glasses. Most of those on the left side so very much are, though.)

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Nah, I'm not shocked. I remember being shocked in 2000, but I was twenty-one and far more gullible back then. ;)

It's just Canadians come up and tell me how "sure" they are that Obama is going to win, and I keep shaking my head and telling them that nothing is sure until all the votes have been tallied.

[whiskeygirl8.livejournal.com]

You know, if you really look at it, it's not shocking at all that Bush won in either 2000 or 2004. I mean, really, Gore and Kerry?

I do expect Obama to win this year. As a Republican, I have no problem with that. Of course, you know that and know why since you read my LJ.

I just get annoyed by people who seem to think that he and his people are perfect and would never, ever lie to them or do anything else that politicians do and that the Democratic party would never do anything untoward. It's politics. Everyone is tainted. (Everyone being all those involved in the campaigns and in government, not the voters and volunteers.)

[mousme.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean.

The "OMG Obama is going to save us all from DOOM!" is a little disheartening, not because I don't think Obama will be good for your country (I think he will), but because Obama on some of the big issues is a little to the right of Canada's most right-wing party. It's bizarre to me to think that. :)

[whiskeygirl8.livejournal.com]

Well, really I was thinking more of ethical issues, because whether or not a person is good for the country based on where they land on the political scale is wholly a matter of opinion. And, you know, he could end up being the best president this nation has had in a long time. That doesn't make him perfect, though, or above doing what all politicians do. I mean, Kennedy is widely considered to have been a good president, but he certainly wasn't always perfectly ethical. (And I'm not even talking about his extramarital activities.)

I mean, politicians lie and engage in shady practices. That's what they do. Everywhere.

Non-voting is also a matter of principle.

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

Just so you know.

Re: Non-voting is also a matter of principle.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

It's a principle I happen not to agree with. People have fought, struggled, bled and died so that we can live in a democracy. To choose not to perform your democratic duty is tantamount to spitting in the faces of all those who came before us and won our rights for us.

As a woman especially, I make it a point to vote in every single election, even if it's only to spoil my ballot. It means something, as a woman, to have a voice in the electoral system. It means I am no longer an object, no longer the property of my husband (theoretical though he might be), no longer expected to agree tacitly with my male head of household.

Not voting "on principle," to me, means that I may as well abdicate all my rights and responsibilities as a free citizen.

Re: Non-voting is also a matter of principle.

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

People have fought, struggled, bled and died so that we can live in a democracy.

See, that's part of the problem. The U.S. was never founded to be a "democracy;" it was founded as a constitutional republic with absolute limits on the size, scope, and nature of government. Those limits and principles are neglected if not held in actual contempt by the average citizen and I would hold that there is a much higher duty to respect the rights-embracing constitution than there is merely to vote, so the invocation of "duty" is not going to be very convincing to me. In fact, democracy on a scale much larger than a mid-sized town inherently becomes morally problematical and detrimental to human rights and freedoms very quickly as the population in question increases. See sociological and economic concepts like Rational ignorance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_ignorance), The Peter Principle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle), The Diffusion of Responsibility Effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility), and Dunbar's Number (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number) for explainations for this phenomenon. Voting in such a system is an immoral exercise in and of itself. It becomes a process, as noted by Frederick Bastiat, whereby "... everyone attempts to live at the expense of everyone else." There can be no duty to participate in the immoral so the duty argument fails in my case. It would probably be more accurate to say that we disagree on whether the system itself is or is not corrupt. I suppose that you believe, as most people throughout history have always believed, that "their system", upon which they have projected their own individual hopes and values, is on net "still good" or produces moral results. I disagree with people in the U.S. who hold that position about the U.S. government.

Just off hand, I would put it to you that restricting the franchise to one head of household was intended to limit the scope of government itself, not merely to empower men with respect to women, as it unfortunately but undeniably did back when the family was more of a coherent social institution than it is now. At any rate, the idea was to limit politics to intra-family relations and "stop it at the front door" so to speak. It was an attempt to recognize the fact that there are some relationships beyond the boundary of the political sphere — a fact which seems to have been inconveniently forgotten by persons of all sexual orientations when it comes to the issue of the State and gay marriage. At any rate, such a restriction of franchise to one-household-one-vote was a nice idea, but another of those concepts which are well-intentioned but doomed to failure when people attempt to practice them.