An American Pageant, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Not Vote

“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”
  — HenryMencken

This election is unimportant to me because it won’t matter.

It won’t matter who’s elected to anyone or anything other than the minor footnotes of history, which will take note of the fact that we will have either elected our oldest president or our first half-black president. Or half-African American if that’s what gets you your jollies.

Big deal.

The thing that everyone seems to be forgetting about this election, the same thing they forget every time, is that this is not a war of opposing ideologies. This is not about “Hope” ® by Barack Hussein Obama and Associates. This is not about “Victory” © The GOP. This is about two men who want Power. It is the heart of our political system. Everybody wants it, Everybody needs it, and they will do most anything to get it. The only difference between the two candidates is how they plan to acquire it.

One appeals to the very best inside each and every one of us. He hopes that we will join together as one people. He hopes that we will help our fellow man. He hopes that we can love.

The other appeals to the monster in all of us. He orders us to rally against a common foe. He orders us to destroy our opponents. He orders us to hate.

These words mean nothing. They are tools of the powerful to become more so.

I’ve been asked “How can you be so cynical?” and the answer is simple. The best way to help people is to not become president. Obama helped people in his role as a community organizer before he was ever a politician. McCain helped people as a congressman.

Think back on history. The greatest humanitarians of our time were not presidents. They were poor, motivated individuals that did everything they could to alleviate human suffering in the world around them. They were powerful in that they changed lives for the better through their actions. They were powerful because people freely came to them for wisdom. They were powerful because they allowed themselves to be changed by the lives they touched.

They were not however powerful in ways that allowed them to impose their will on others. Presidential candidates are representatives of fifty one percent of the population who wants enforce their will on the other forty nine. What the entire thing comes down to is the distribution of power and control.

In a two-party system (take for example, our own) it is impossible to condense the wide array of opinions, ideas, and feelings of over 300 million people into two viewpoints. We sacrifice so much of who we are every time we pull the lever for someone who will eventually sell out one of our closest held beliefs in order to gain a larger voting bloc.

I refuse to make that choice. I refuse to contribute to a system that will inevitably fail us all. I refuse to pretend that I agree with everything someone says just because they have a chance in hell of appealing to 1.5 million and one other people.

I refuse to vote.

And I ask you to join me.