I need to ask all the advocates of non voting a few questions .

Do you own a home ?
Do you own a car ?
Do you shop at Walmart ?
Do you shop with any nation wide chain store?
Do you buy any brand name goods ?
Do you buy utilities for your residence ?
Do you pay for gas for your car?
Do you buy food ?
Do you pay union dues ?
Do you belong to a professional organization?

If you answered yes to any of these questions you are in fact voting with your money for influence in Washington. Every group named in the questions is expending money in Washington to buy influence. Many times the influence they buy is contrary to the needs and wants of the people.

And really these people are called lobbyists they are whats is hurting our system contributions, gifts , vacations, etc and underhanded deals.

You want to make a difference by not voting well do it where it really hurts the money that is driving the political system . By not voting for the people who are corrupting the political process . Mega corporations !

You have a barrel full of bad apples the only way to clean it up is throw out all the bad apples and remove what is corrupting the apples .

Vote the bad apples out and destroy the lobbyists easy access to the politician .

If you see congressman x is voting against what you think is right see who has donated to his reelection vote by not buying from company x .

Look at it this way 300m Americans 50 % vote . 150 m Americans vote by boycotting Monsanto . Monsanto dont care who is in office as long as they get their say they will eventually buy a new congressmen . But hitting them in to pocket book will raise some eyebrows .

This is not as simple as not voting for any election it is far more tangled than that .

edited for spelling

[edit on 8-8-2010 by Lostinthedarkness]

Lobbying is a long-standing tradition in these United States and it is something that we can all use to our benefit.

Don't have a billion dollars?

Get together with a billion like-minded people who have one dollar and you too can have influence in the halls of congress.

Now, I'm not going to rule out corruption, but just because it takes lots of money to fund the organizations that support our causes and who pay the lobbyists who specialize in bringing attention to our issues doesn't mean that the system of lobbying is by definition corrupt.

I'm glad that I can pay my "widow's mite" along with those who share my interests and thereby have as much influence in Washington as the biggest, fattest cat in the country.

I know this is true because one of my organizations is the most powerful and effective political force in the nation.

And on top of that, I can vote and I can write or talk to my representatives. I can campaign and organize to help get the people who believe as I do into office from the local to the national.

When you really think about it, we have a very remarkable system here in the US of A. So much so that people from around the world risk life and limb everyday to come here by any means necessary to have a shot at liberty and opportunity.


[edit on 2010/8/8 by GradyPhilpott]

Originally posted by randyvs
Obama seems to be dragging us over the threshold to socicalism.

I wish he was being that light on you, I really do.

I mean, TPTB have got you all running around a little partisan maze. Anybody you don't like is automatically on one side or the other.

They want you to believe that you're either a redneck militia leader in KKK garb masturbating over NASCAR while using your free hand to shoot Kenyans masquerading as Americans, or an arrogant European intellectual mincing around in a hammer-and-sickle print tutu to Bolshevik electropop.

The world isn't black and white! It's all shades of grey. He's no Socialist, he wants to institute a top-down, third way mixed economy with just enough regulations to stifle competition but not enough to prevent abuses of power. It's a common trick used by Authoritarians-get the workers on your side with various 'socialist' rhetoric- Hitler (I hate to Godwin this thread, but meh) did it and then disposed of the socialist elements of his party straight after he had the power he needed, Lenin did it, Castro did it, Kim Il-Sung did it... I wouldn't say he's as bad as any of these people, but he's hardly good for the average person.

It's about perpetuating a certain ruling class, rather than opposing it (as true Socialism does).

[edit on 9-8-2010 by LeftWingLarry]

[edit on 9-8-2010 by LeftWingLarry]

The idea of not voting to 'teach them a lesson' is ignorance in the extreme. No one will miss you. The koolaide chuggers from both sides will be out in force and the status quo will continue right to the bitter end. It's been said before and deserves repeating until people 'get it', short of a revolution people need to unite against ALL incumbents and ALL party-endorsed politicians. Vote for only the most obscure (preferrably non-two party candidates) in EVERY election (local to national). NO exceptions.

The ONLY message we can effectively send is that we can organize and that we summarily reject BOTH the Republican and Democrat candidates en masse.

Wouldn't it be nice if everyone that was 'awake' voted independant, like for Ralph Nadar or something? Not that I think he could do anything different, but at least it would show that we are interested in what goes on, and at the same time make the statement that we know Dems an Reps are all the same talking heads.

I know that could never happen here, but it sure would be nice to see something strange like that happen. Then again, since votes don't count no one would ever know this happened, except them. Just a thought.

I to some extent agree with the op. Sometimes it is better to be part of the problem, then trying to be the solution. In the case of voting however i cannot see this being productive. Let me explain.

When i got fed up with paying 40% tax on my sallary, feeding the society with money and seeing it go to waste i decided enough is enough. I stopped working and went on social welfare. This is not ideal, it is not right, but the social program that is so widely abused will not break apart before the burdon on society is too big to handle. If i had continued working i would only have enabled it to work for longer.

Not voting will not accomplish anything but giving the voting part of population the lawful right to run the country as they please.

How about you instead campaigned for someone who would truly make a change happen, like ron paul? You cannot get more sincere than him. I would be proud to have an candidate like him in my elections. I only choose not to vote if i cannot find a suitable candidate.