Respect My Right To NOT VOTE!!!!

I am surprised at the backlash from people who think that voting is the only way to change things. Let me explain my stance to y'all a bit more clearly, and perhaps you will understand...or at least dismount off your high horse.

Here is the original thread which prompts this rant: www.abovetopsecret.com... I agree with the original poster, BTW.

I have voted in every election, local and national, since 1979. I felt like a proud American, exercising my civil duties as a conscientious citizen. I actually thought that I had a voice, and I used it at the ballot box every chance I got. When my kids were little, I'd load up the stroller and go vote. I was one of those people who said smugly, "If you don't vote, you don't have the right to complain!"

The last time I voted was in 2008. I typically only voted third party candidates, but I broke ranks and voted for Obama, because I felt that another Republican in office would have been the death knell for this country. My husband, a die-hard Republican, also broke ranks and voted for Obama, thanks to my "educating" him.

We really bought into that "Hope and Change" baloney. Obama was going to end the pointless wars, close Guantanamo, bring government corruption to heel, blah blah blah. Oh, how foolish I feel now!!

I have since done enough research, and enough thinking, to realize that the presidential elections (not local) are completely bogus. I suspected it in 2000, when the Supreme Court declared Dubya the winner and said that nobody needed to count the votes, it was a done deal. I notice that the mainstream media is complicit in this farce. I realize that we have an electoral college, and it is not really a popular vote, but I am beginning to see that these elections are rigged with two crappy, robotic candidates, and that is all we are allowed to hear about.

Even if most people wrote in "Ron Paul", do you really think TPTB would let him win? I don't trust the Diebold voting machines, and I don't trust the results anymore. They can say whatever they want (the Republican primaries are proof of that), and we have to like it or lump it.

I look at it now like a car. Sure, it runs, but it is being towed by a big behemoth, and we sit behind the wheel, hit the gas, the brakes, and try to steer it, but we only have the illusion of control. It is being towed in one definite direction, and you can pretend all you want, it's going to go where it is being towed. I now choose not to get into that car at all.

It is not apathy which drives me away from the national polls, it is absolute, unmitigated disgust. I resent the implication that I am some "couch potato", or somebody who sits back and doesn't care. I find that incredibly offensive. If y'all want to get in the car that you can't control, and pretend to drive, be my guest. I respect your right to do it. All I ask is that you respect my right NOT TO.

As the great song from Rush goes: "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."

I choose not to vote in any national elections. It is a conscious, active decision to not participate in a lie. I believe the people who are most against this are the ones who are having severe cognitive dissonance regarding their long-held, cherished belief that voting can somehow fix things, and resent the implication that I say that it is rigged, and fixes nothing.

We are NOT a democracy, we are a highjacked republic. Sorry if this doesn't square with your belief that the American system is infallible. It is not. It is corrupt, rotten, and is being run by a shadow government, which is not elected. This is my story and I'm sticking to it.

Flame away if you must, but be respectful.

End of rant. Thank you for reading.

tyrants created democracy because killing each other off was to expensive.

now they just share power every 4 years while they divvy up the pie among themselves.

the beauty of democracy is that even if every american didn't vote, a presidential candidate could just vote for himself and rule over the rest of the 300 million citizens.

it's the gateway to the presidency that has been hijacked, because of that theoretical possibility.

Originally posted by FissionSurplus
I look at it now like a car. Sure, it runs, but it is being towed by a big behemoth, and we sit behind the wheel, hit the gas, the brakes, and try to steer it, but we only have the illusion of control. It is being towed in one definite direction, and you can pretend all you want, it's going to go where it is being towed. I now choose not to get into that car at all.

Never seen it put like that but even the dummest of the dum should be able to understand it.

S&F for you fission.

reply to post by randomname


Thanks for your thoughtful response. In actuality, if nobody voted, the House of Representatives would vote and choose the next president.....and we see how intelligent and thoughtful they are.

One thing we are not, and never have been, is a democracy. TARP is an excellent example of the vast majority of people being dead-set against something, and letting their elected officials know that they are, and yet TARP went through, the most expensive raping ever accomplished by the banksters in the fed.

The few in Congress who tried to resist it were actually threatened. We have been hijacked.

reply to post by VoidHawk


Thanks Void, I appreciate the support. My kids used to sit in my car and pretend to drive it, too. But I never let them have the keys.

I have zero faith in the vote and lost it a long time ago.

reply to post by EvilSadamClone


Exactly!! So why do people have such an issue with those of us who have completely lost faith in the system?

Im from the UK, but everytime i see a USA election i just see Jack Johnson Vs John Jackson, it has became a joke in many countries, saying that, the UK isn't that much better.

I'm not too sure about US rules, but in the UK you can cross the ballot paper and it is registerd as a protest vote. If enough people do that then the MSM have no choice but to address the situation. As i say, im not too sure about USA election rules, but worth a shot.

reply to post by Trolloks


I know we have write-ins, but a protest vote is a GREAT idea!! Apparently, protesting is not something that our modern government wants us to do.

Most people that I know who vote and want to register their disgust usually write in things like "Mickey Mouse", "Donald Duck" or "Rambo".

How much you want to bet that the Diebold computers won't allow either a protest or a funky write-in? I'm not sure, though, because I refuse to use them. I'll let somebody who actually has used them inform us as to whether or not such a thing is possible.

In the UK, a protest vote has to be a big X that covers the whole ballot paper, no writing or anything otherwise it won't be counted as a protest vote, if it's the same for the USA, all those people are wasting their time.

It's deffinatly worth a try, even if not enough people do it, or if it is just yourself. Every great movement starts from a single idea.

Sorry, just remembered that you have electronic voting, so the rules are completly different when it comes to protest votes, unless there is a way that you could write a huge X over the whole ballot screen. I don't know how the electionic voting system works myself though to be honest.

further respect my right to bitch about whats going on too.

I'm with ya on this one OP

reply to post by rebellender


Right on, rebellender. There is so much corruption and evil going around, we could bitch for the next thousand years and not cover it all. We need to bring it out in the open, confront it, discuss it, and refuse to play their game.

Love your avatar, BTW. Steve McQueen, classic cool!!

reply to post by FissionSurplus

I suppose I'm just not as sensitive to this issue as you are.

You have a position, "a right not to vote." No one is trying to deprive you of that right, you're not being threatened with jail and a fine for not voting. But you post your position on a public website and seem to be upset (ranting) that there are people who disagree with your position. What's the problem? Are you being called dirty names? Being harassed? If so, have the mods stepped in?

But I'm probably misunderstanding you. Do you want your right respected, or do you want people to not criticize your position?

reply to post by charles1952


I indicated in the beginning of my rant the thread which prompted clarification of my position. Yes there were people ranting on there saying how "angry" they were that people such as myself felt the way I do, including a moderator.

The pressure is entirely on ATS, and no place else. I was taken aback by such pissiness, hence my rant. I felt if I explained why I feel the way I do, perhaps those who were so ticked off could understand where I'm coming from. The assumption that the choice not to vote is equated with being a lazy couch potato or completely apathetic was just so off the mark and incorrect, at least in my case.

You may want to read the thread I linked in order to understand this whole vote / not vote issue a bit better.

reply to post by FissionSurplus


I'm with you FissionSurplus! Some people just don't get it I guess.

Surely, if you have the right to vote, you have the right to choose whether or not you exercise that right? Just because you have a right to do an act, it does not mean that you have to do it by force.

Why waste your vote on someone who you have no confidence in? If anything that is worse than not voting, because you are voting for someone you disagree with, no vote at all is better than that, for then it is not longer a democratic vote, it's a forced vote.

reply to post by Night Star


Thanks, Night Star! I appreciate the support. Sometimes, no matter how much you try and get people to understand your viewpoint, they will cling to their own mindset....which they are free to do, of course, but it would be nice if they would allow me my own mindset as well, with respect instead of derision.

reply to post by Trolloks


Excellent point, Trolloks. I had this very same discussion when I had some old friends from California come to visit me last month. They indicated they didn't like either candidate. I explained that there were more than just two candidates to vote for, and they could write in somebody if they chose to.

They said that it would be "wasting their vote" by not voting for one of the two puppets we are currently told are our only choices. I tried to explain to them that, if they took a stand and voted their conscience, or not voted at all, it would be better than voting for somebody they don't like. THAT is truly wasting their vote.

Yet they looked at me with dull, sheep-like eyes and didn't understand what I was saying.

This, in a nutshell, is the American voter today. So incredibly brainwashed that they would vote for somebody they hate. It doesn't get any more pathetic than that.

reply to post by FissionSurplus

Dear FissionSurplus,

You were absolutely right, I had only read the first page of the linked thread. Now I've seen the rest. My honest opinion is that the plurality (if not majority) opinion was supporting the OP, and the thread received 20 flags. Most of the people opposed threw out the "don't complain" argument. Most, if not all, of the lengthy, researched, posts supported the OP. Yes, there were some mean comments, but many fewer than I anticipated given your reaction.

Your position may be right, or it may be wrong, but I don't think the thread treated the OP badly by ATS standards. Consider other controversial subjects. The treatment there is much worse. I suppose my objection is to the title of your thread. It seems to mean, "respect my decision to not vote." Or, perhaps, "don't make hateful criticisms of my decision to not vote."

In any event, you certainly have the right to not vote, and I suspect you will exercise that right.

With respect,
Charles1952

reply to post by charles1952


Well, that's just the emotional female in me. I suppose my main gripe was with the mod who said those who didn't vote were couch potatoes and totally apathetic, which I found to be a rather unenlightened viewpoint coming from somebody who is supposed to watch the threads and police the posters. Stereotyping without understanding. I hold them to a higher standard.

I didn't say anything about the original thread being bashed. I'm only representing my own viewpoint, not the OP.

I do, however, stand by my original title. I want my right NOT to vote respected. This is as plain as it gets. That's why it is in the rant section. I felt like ranting, and I let it fly. Certain things set me off, and this was one of them.

If my title let you down, or promised something that you didn't feel it delivered, then my most sincere apologies.