I vote. It doesn't count. Why should I bother? What I mean by this is when elections are being out and out stolen by political parties such as that little incident in 2000 my vote continues to have no significance. In 2004 I stupidly voted for Kerry, I had no interest in the guy, he's nearly as stupid as Bush but my fears of the splitting the liberal vote and giving the election to Bush won me over and I voted democrat. I forgot about that one little point however that the state of New York has been voting democrat for years and will for years, so it doesn't matter whom I vote for, my vote is already cast for me. That's great, you know how that voting thing is supposed to make me feel empowered and all-american? It doesn't.
You see neither presidential choice will ever excite me because in order to get a freaking majority vote under this democratic system you have to be so close to the center that you can't tell who you're voting for. I'm sure a good chunk of the country would feel this way, and would probably vote for politicians other than the Democrat and Republican if they felt they had the choice. How many times have you heard, "That's just throwing your vote away?" Is that right, should you be forced to vote for someone that you don't want to rule your own republic and represent your country in the global world? It seems a sham to me, I know that I will never be in this "majority" (quotations because I kind of just said that I don't believe that it really exists) therefore at times I feel as though my government is pulling me around, much like its tyrannical. I can voice my opinion all day just like J.S Mill tells me I must do as the minority, but I will be lucky if I can change one mind on one issue. Sure social change has occurred but only after exhaustive efforts have been put out by the minority. It seems as though at some points that the giving in of the majority just occurred when it was good and ready to do so. Should it really have taken thousands and thousands of protesters to end legalized segregation? Shouldn't it have just struck us as wrong right away? It seems so obviously wrong now but it was a tireless effort of a minority just to get an institution ended that was blatantly against the constitution.
So we have this government that we all seem to be slaves to, with limited choice of who we want to rule over us and all. We choose the representative that doesn't seem to suck so fucking much as the other and they make all of our decisions for us. These people then extract money from us that they use to fund all the programs that they choose with very little oversight by us as the donors of the said funds. Sadly all governmental action can be traced back to money, without money the government can't do anything. Money is truly the root of all evil but if put to a proper use can be the root of at least some goodness. It has been said that money can't buy you happiness, that seems true. In a governmental standpoint however happiness isn't the end that we are looking for. The democratic government was put in place for the sole reason of giving its citizens the options that they can not give themselves. In essence beyond the life of cave dwelling, human beings are not self-sufficient. Governments set up by the people allow for the regulation of building, transportation, etc. we all know what the government does, and all of these services help keep us in cooperation within the borders of our country.
Beyond the services that are provided to us it should be obvious that the government could be doing other things for us that they are not, and could do so without stepping over the borders of privacy that we (for good reason I think) hold dearly. Many of these services are constantly being brought to the forefront of political discussion including universal health care, welfare reform, increased funding of primary and secondary schooling. These systems however seem to be pushed aside without much attention being applied at all. Privately it seems that the people in power are probably laughing at our meager attempts at getting our money distributed in the way that we want.
The point that I have been trying to make, using far to many words is that this republic style voting is never going to be fair. Possibly if there was a chance of 10 or 20 candidates for each election it would be more fair but they would seemingly all be about as far apart politically as the two that we have now. It seems that we would be better off voting for the tool of these politicians we must half-heartedly put into office. This tool is of course as I said before money, money is the single most important tool to any politician. If we as citizens could just gain control of where we wanted our tax money to be spent we would enormously increase our power as democratic citizens. Voting could be completed after the general elections in which each citizen gave their input for each of the taxes that they pay (local, state, federal) as to what proportions they wanted where. It would be an enormous undertaking to figure out the percentages in the end, but would it not be worth it in order voice your own opinion on the country and the world rather than the person's whom you voted for?
This system would of course not be perfect, in a perfect system everyone would be satisfied but unfortunately at least with current knowledge that is impossible. It does however bring up the power of the minority and allow it a loader voice than that of a single speaker on a soap box or as this new generation seems to take....blogs....
All of this talk of money really does make me sick though, you know?
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