From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lee@piclab.com)
Date: Tue May 23 2000 - 14:13:36 MDT
>> The choice is not difficult at all if you don't fall
>> for the idiotic and dangerous idea that you have to vote
>> for someone with a chance of winning.
> The choice is indeed very difficult, if you don't fall for the
> idiotic and dangerous idea that voting for someone with no
> chance of winning achieves anything positive.
Hmm. A vote is an expression of preference. If I choose to
express my preference for a minority candidate, that preference
is duly recorded and reported, and the total of these votes may
well influence the particular positions of major candidates in
the future. I would consider this a "positive" result, while
I would consider no one ever hearing my real opinions because I
chose to lie about them to be one of the unheard masses who
voted for a popular candidate to be a "negative" result. Do
you have a different evaluation of those outcomes?
It is contrary to the goals of the voting process to suggest
that one should deliberately lie about one's preference. What
is the benefit of voting for a winner? Do I win something?
Money? Bragging rights? No, I win a shitty government. A
vote is a moral duty because it affects how an agency of force
chooses to exercise that force against the people. A voter
who chooses to shirk that duty by hiding his true prefence
among a sea of conformity, despite there being no possible
benefit to him or anyone else in doing so, is not worthy of
respect.
Some things (like death, slavery, censorship, and mindless
conformity to them) are so utterly contemptible that insults are
the only honest form of expression about them. I hear reporters
use the "wasted vote" epithet many times, and I feel revulsion.
Those people are enemies of freedom, and it is my moral duty to
fight them and their dangerous ideas.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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