October 20, 2020
A few more days to go before the election. Well, I can’t really say if it is an election in any true sense of the word. There will be a whole bunch of people marking an oval next to a name. That is when truth stops for most.
Most will have no real idea of what they are choosing. Most will have not thought about the choice but will have been coerced or manipulated or just flat out told what their opinion is. The app, device, tablet, TV, radio, or whatever device spewing the media message will have told them how to act. And, for the first time in my lifetime, I think the majority won’t be exercising a conscious choice at all about the potential direction of a Country. But, I bet we will have voting in record numbers.
I am a little astonished that I am going to write this next line, but I don’t think voting matters anymore. As a young voter I cared about issues and economy and people as much as my young and inexperienced wisdom could permit. I voted not for people, but for positions.
As I got older I started seeing more of the rest of the fellow voters casting ballots for people, then party then factions on up until this election where we will be choosing between my side and against your side.
We are choosing Gang leaders and we are just wanna-be members who hustle for the gang so we can have privileges of being in the gang. Nobody messes with us and if I do enough often enough for the gang, I can get promoted. If I sell my soul and lie, cheat and steal better than the rest I can become leadership.
The current gang leaders want your vote. You are still a useful idiot, so get to voting!!
Maybe a little bit of hyperbole in there, but am I that far off?
If you think I am wrong and that your vote has merit, let’s run a test. You have two tasks.
#1 — Who are you voting to become the next President?
#2 — Really quickly, what are the top three positions that support your choice for President?
#3 — Repeat #2 above with 5 of your closest friends or family.
Here is how I think it will go for most everyone. You and very few people will have a problem answering #1.
Regarding #1 –People who say they don’t know who they will vote for will fall into a handful of categories:
- You have no idea what goes on outside your own little bubble of life. You are ignorant and never should have kept the privilege to vote.
- You are afraid to say. Either because you are ashamed of your choice or you don’t want to potentially defend the choice. Dear lord, you should have surrendered your privilege to vote long ago. Well, I guess if you had the fortitude you would have.
- You think you are truly unsure about the choices of platforms. Again, you probably should turn in your voter card.
Regarding #2 – I bet you will likely struggle greatly with iterating a position, much less three. Babbling will replace words and the logic train will fly so far off the tracks, that the last sighting will be somewhere near Jupiter. I bet you will huff, get irrational and that will be it.
Regarding #3 – I bet your friends and family will perform about the same as you. The repetition will serve as representative evidence of my point.
Lots of numbers and references to numbers. Bottom line is that I doubt most people know why they are choosing a candidate. I bet their selection was decided for them by the media. I further bet that it has to do with liking one guy and or hating the other guy and that is where their reasoning ends.
I think the Current DNC Platform is 90ish pages. GOP is 70ish pages. Libertarian is 10ish. Green Party is 160ish. Those documents talk about positions and the path their candidate will take if elected. Maybe look them up? Perhaps one person in ten thousand has even looked at the documents. (I only listed the parties/platforms that could be elected and left out the other 220ish party platforms)
Back to my initial point. No one cares about position. Now we only fight about personality and health and style and who we hate the most. We are being played and played so very well by somebody. Whipped into a frenzy of stupid, hiding behind our shield of civic duty of voting. All sides are equally innocent. And all will face the consequences together. I bet even in the firing line there will be glares at old enemies just before the primer explodes. That is, of course, after the idiots are no longer useful.
For quite a while, I have tried to help. I write and speak and serve and there hasn’t been any change. I vote and I am civil, but voting isn’t real anymore and our cluster of inhabitants on some geography isn’t civil. My attempts to help aren’t helping.
So what to do? Grab a gun and charge Washington? Stand on the corner with a sign? Sit behind a keyboard and type? Dissociate from those different from me? Boycott? Ignore it?
I think a radical once wrote that in war the end justifies almost any means.
I agree with him. I only know of one end and I am working toward my goals for that end.
I can do a lot, but I can’t do it alone. One man is a martyr, and I am not dying for something that does not exist or exists to destroy me.
Die for a system that is corrupt? A process that is broken? For a Government to which I do not exist except for monetary contribution and penalty distribution? For a group charged with keeping virtue virtuous with sunlight who spread nothing but darkness?
AND if anyone takes that last paragraph as me taking a shot at those who serve, you are wrong AND part of the problem. Not against them or their choices and am so very grateful and humbled by their service and sacrifice.
So what will I do? I will write and continue to try to “ring the bell” of warning. I will try to be a good example of what I believe is the best course for the Country. I will vote. I will vote for position, not people. I will defend position choices.
I will not berate, attack, demean, belittle, or hate. I might need some help every now and then with those goals. Maybe if you help me be better, then maybe I can help you be better. Maybe.
If WE don’t change the way this Country is headed, then WE are in a whole lot of trouble. If we have another Revolution, maybe this is just a resume writing for my application into the one that is built on reason, and love and helping ourselves while helping others so that we all can make the place work. Maybe a place that we can be free, raise kids safely and pursue happiness. Maybe we can call it Utopia. That sounds like a better destination than what we are sort of choosing now.
Last thoughts. I bet that a few folks had these same ethical/personal debates way back in the Declaration Days. And no, I don’t think my name will appear in the history books of the next century as one who led the way to the New American Revolution. No, just a guy talking out loud a few days before an election that does not matter for the next leader of a country that used to matter.
Now, on November 3rd, don’t forget to Vote!
— R. A. Grier