You have the right NOT to vote.

[techs]

No matter whether you think McCain, Obama, Nader, etc would make the best President, don't abuse your right not to vote.
If you do, someday you might lose that right.
VOTE!

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: techs
No matter whether you think McCain, Obama, Nader, etc would make the best President, don't abuse your right not to vote.
If you do, someday you might lose that right.
VOTE!

I think the greatest threat to the rigt to vote - and I don't think it's that great, not because our republic is so strong but because the powers that would threaten it have found the means to reliably ensure that no one too hostile to their intersts can get elected (prove me wrong, I'll eat my words under President Kucinich) - is when the ever-expanding concentration of wealth and power at the top becomes so excessive that the vote becomes more of an obstacle to them, and they end it.

It'll be done artfully, if done - a combination of carrot and stick, perhaps some sort of financial crisis like this one, but worse, where relief is offered if and only if 'reforms' are passed which include some sort of 'modified democracy', along with a PR campaign arguing how the public has often voted so idiotically as to show that democracy really isn't helping the public much. I know people now who say they'd prefer a 'benevolent dictatorship' and I think many people could easily be moved to that position.

But I don't see this happening in the foreseeable future. I just don't think that people not voting will be the cause of the vote being lost.

I support the right of everyone who has the right to vote now to have it, but I also encourage them to vote only if they get somewhat informed, so as to lessen the power of the marketing campaigns that persuade the ill-informed, and require the funding of the wealthy interests. We really need to get rid of the dominance of money in the elections if we want democracy.