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To those of you who advocate not voting or don't care. To those who state their vote does not matter.
The thing is the model you have described is based on the notion that the will of the individual is irrelevant to group decisions. When the civil rights movement happened was it the act of a group which changed the political scene or the collection of individuals making a choice? The will of groups cannot work with out the individual minds making choices. Would it be better if more people paid attention to how they make their choices? Hells yeah. We can't guarantee people on mass will. All we can be responsible for is our own act of will.
One way which we can encourage people think more about their vote is to convince they have to vote. Not all of them will think about it but maybe some more will. It is moot. The important part is people take responsibility for their collective will. If everyone in the country decided Kenneth Hite should be president then he would. It is all a matter of individual will translating to group action.
Now that said, should someone divorce themselves from the exercise of their individual will in collective decisions of the people, then they believe they have divorced themselves of the weight of those decisions reached. This is a false notion. By not participating in the collective decisions then they are as responsible for the decision reached as the people who supported it. You have in fact by default agreed to those decisions whatever they may be.
Translation. If you don't vote, then you deserve what you receive and make yourself irrelevant. I am not irrelevant. I choose to vote and to exercise my will. If the rest of America votes another way then well that sucks but at least I can say I did my part. If I did not vote then my bitching about the status of things is really pointless. I got what I chose by not voting.
my .02
The thing is the model you have described is based on the notion that the will of the individual is irrelevant to group decisions. When the civil rights movement happened was it the act of a group which changed the political scene or the collection of individuals making a choice? The will of groups cannot work with out the individual minds making choices. Would it be better if more people paid attention to how they make their choices? Hells yeah. We can't guarantee people on mass will. All we can be responsible for is our own act of will.
One way which we can encourage people think more about their vote is to convince they have to vote. Not all of them will think about it but maybe some more will. It is moot. The important part is people take responsibility for their collective will. If everyone in the country decided Kenneth Hite should be president then he would. It is all a matter of individual will translating to group action.
Now that said, should someone divorce themselves from the exercise of their individual will in collective decisions of the people, then they believe they have divorced themselves of the weight of those decisions reached. This is a false notion. By not participating in the collective decisions then they are as responsible for the decision reached as the people who supported it. You have in fact by default agreed to those decisions whatever they may be.
Translation. If you don't vote, then you deserve what you receive and make yourself irrelevant. I am not irrelevant. I choose to vote and to exercise my will. If the rest of America votes another way then well that sucks but at least I can say I did my part. If I did not vote then my bitching about the status of things is really pointless. I got what I chose by not voting.
my .02
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Now, if your state is close, you run a higher chance of your vote actually counting. But if your state is like 70/20/(10 other), a vote for the unpopular candidate doesn't really count - it produces a minimal effect on their chance of winning (and that effect is dependent on lots of other events shifting in a way with low probability).
Essentially, when you go vote for the unpopular candidate in your state, you are saying 'I hope that enough other people in my state have the same mind as me, and together our votes will count for something.' Now, for third party candidates, enough votes does mean something - good press for next time around, hopefully some momentum to get away from this crappy two-party lock.
I really want a district-wise electoral college, with the state popular vote winners getting the two senate-seat electoral votes. I feel it is much more representative of the general population.
Pardon the rant. I dislike the electoral college in its current incarnation. I have yet to hear an argument why a district-wise system would be worse than the current version.
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BTW, they were saying on the radio the other day that, although TN has been a republican state lately, there are a lot of independents here, and according to recent polling there's a chance we might swing the other way. So we might end up being one of the close states.