{"id":395,"date":"2018-08-04T16:13:26","date_gmt":"2018-08-04T23:13:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/?page_id=395"},"modified":"2018-09-12T10:14:32","modified_gmt":"2018-09-12T17:14:32","slug":"those-who-dont-vote-2012","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/those-who-dont-vote-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Those Who Don’t Vote (2012)"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Photo by Pawel Czerwinski<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0My column at the Seattle Times came out every other Wednesday, which in 2012 put a column on the morning after the presidential election. But I had to turn it in the afternoon of election day. That meant I couldn\u2019t write about the outcome of the vote. Instead I wrote about the people who don\u2019t vote, and about the oft-repeated saying that if you don\u2019t vote you don\u2019t have a right to complain. Which, I thought, was nuts.<\/span><\/i><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0My column ran in the Seattle Times of Nov. 7, 2012.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Did you vote? If you didn\u2019t, it\u2019s all right. Maybe you don\u2019t follow political things. Surely it is a sign of maturity and good judgment that those who don\u2019t follow politics don\u2019t vote.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0People have other reasons. I had an aunt who didn\u2019t vote. She was not ignorant. She had been educated at the University of Washington, and every morning and night she watched the TV news. In 1974 she sat with me through the impeachment hearings of President Nixon. She was glad she hadn\u2019t voted for him; she hadn\u2019t voted for any president since Herbert Hoover. She told me she didn\u2019t know enough about any of them to make a good decision.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In this election I know a person who voted for the state ballot measures on taxes, schools and marriage, but not for president. The president might start a war, and she said she didn\u2019t want blood on her hands.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I voted. I always vote in presidential elections. But it seems to me that we voters too easily trumpet our superiority. We prop ourselves up with reasons that don\u2019t make sense.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We say, \u201cIf you don\u2019t vote you won\u2019t count.\u201d Yes, but does your vote really \u201ccount\u201d either way? Your vote is like a penny. It\u2019s money too small to buy anything.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And yes, I know, in the election of 2004 for governor of Washington, Chris Gregoire and Dino Rossi were separated by just 133 votes. Did you have 133 votes? I didn\u2019t. To politicians, that race for governor of Washington proves that \u201cevery vote counts.\u201d And that\u2019s true for the people running political campaigns. They can influence many ballots. You have only one.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0People also say, \u201cIf you don\u2019t vote, you have no right to complain.\u201d One of the better answers to that was by George Carlin:<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cWhere is the logic in that?\u201d he asked in one of his stand-up routines. \u201cIf you vote and you elect dishonest, incompetent people and they get into office and screw everything up,\u00a0you\u00a0<\/i>are responsible for what they have done.\u00a0You\u00a0<\/i>caused the problem.\u00a0You\u00a0<\/i>voted them in.\u00a0You\u00a0<\/i>have no right to complain.I,<\/i>on the other hand, who did not vote, who in fact did not even leave the house on Election Day, am in no way responsible for what these people have done and have every right to complain…\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I disagree with our logician on one point. Everyone has a right to complain. I voted for George W. Bush in 2000 and I still complain about him.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Some theorists argue that voting is a matter of tribal behavior, like cheering the UW Husky football team. There\u2019s a difference. Football is a contest for the sake of itself; moving the ball over the goal line doesn\u2019t\u00a0do\u00a0<\/i>anything. A presidential election is a contest for political authority \u2014 the power to regulate, to tax and spend, and to make war.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Said another of the philosophers, Robert Heinlein, \u201cWhether it is exerted by ten men or ten billion, political authority is force … the power of the Rods and the Ax\u201d (Starship Troopers<\/i>, 1959).<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0To vote is to participate in creating authority. That the people,\u00a0en masse<\/i>, choose their rulers is important; the countries that do it are different from countries that don\u2019t. To me, that\u2019s worth participating in. But I can\u2019t prove, either in mathematics or morals, that my vote this year mattered in any other way.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0If you voted, good. If you didn\u2019t, that\u2019s OK, too. You are free to complain.<\/span><\/p>

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\u00a9 2012 The Seattle Times<\/span><\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo by Pawel Czerwinski \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0My column at the Seattle Times came out every other Wednesday, which in 2012 put a column on the morning after the presidential election. But I had to turn it in the afternoon of election day. That meant I couldn\u2019t write about the outcome of the vote. Instead […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-395","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":752,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/395\/revisions\/752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}