Tuesday, October 28, 2008

I'm Thankful...

That the most vile time of American life is about to end; for a while. There are only 7 left in the national pissing contest we Americans call a Presidential election. Thankfully the 2010 election cycle doesn't begin until February 2009, so we have a few months off! Every day seems to bring some piece of news about the race that is absolutely sickening. (Just go to Drudge Report at any random time and look around.) What confuses me to no end is that people for some reason expect the process to be civil and polite. Politics is a blood sport. It is a zero sum game where to the victor go the spoils and the loser is left in the cold. Given those conditions, why politics should be anything more than a dog fight (insert your own Michael Vick joke here) is beyond me.

As for who wins, I could care less. I will not be voting and may never vote again. I fully second Don Boudreaux's reasons for not voting. To them I would add my own ignorance. Every time I learn something, I realize how much I don't know, and this semester has convinced that there is a lot I don't know! Whenever most topics are being discussed I remind myself that unless I know enough to make an informed and thorough analysis of the topic, I tread lightly with my comments lest I increase the world's supply of nonsense via my ignorance. I take the same approach to voting. Given how little I know about practically every topic on the public agenda, how can I make an informed decision about a candidate who doesn't understand very much about any given topic either?

(By the way, I don't care what Obama, McCain, Biden, Palin or any other candidate for any office says, given the grand totality of human knowledge, not to mention the things we don't know yet, the candidates, just like me, know practically NOTHING!)

In addition, I'm convinced that many people shouldn't vote (pick a college student at random) and I like to lead by example.

The one reform that might get me to vote again is a "None of the Above" option for each and every political race. It would be great fun to see "None of the Above" get more votes than any candidate. The candidate with the highest number of votes would still win the office, but I can't help but think they would tread a little lighter once in office given that "no one" got more votes than they did.