If You Don’t Vote, Don’t Bitch!

a reply to: JohnnyCanuck

Bitching is oh so easy. What's tough is tackling the system from the inside...running for office, joining parties to influence policies and candidate choices.

thats not what obama thinks

a reply to: JohnnyCanuck

let me tell you why that isn't a solution: if you run for office, you either toe a party line, or you don't get elected.

How many independant candidates run each quadrennium but aren't given admission on the ticket of every state?

Sure, I can throw my hat in the ring. But i don't have the money to compete, and might have a skeleton in my closet. And if i don't, im sure one can be placed there.

It isn't 1815 anymore. The "little guy" has no access to create change. Trying is likely to end with you being crushed.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

I bet this would never happen in America..
Good thing for a Legit election..





This one is from 08... Actually Apr 8, 2012 so well before the this crazy person dropped out.


Cause if it did can you imagine the outrage... Really think about it..

And for S&G, this crazy insane person here.. Cause really none of this can be proven.. Really none of it..




Just saying.. I can go on all day about how Everything is wrong... EVERYTHING..

a reply to: diggindirt

HELLO,did you see what happened to Ron Paul this last election? No,a 3rd party will never get the vote with the way they have it rigged now. This government is lost big time.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
Sure, I can throw my hat in the ring. But i don't have the money to compete, and might have a skeleton in my closet. And if i don't, im sure one can be placed there.

You can also join the local party and ask pertinent questions in the nomination process. You can write letters to the editor, there are lots of grass-roots efforts within the system...even yours, I would think (me speaking as a foreigner, of course). I'm a party member, and I have addressed cabinet ministers with awkward questions in a forum, and thanked by other party faithful. In fact, I am seeing one fascist provincial law repealed right now, one I nailed the Premier on before she got into that post. No...it was not all my doing...just one of a bunch of complainers. What one forgets is that unless the tallying of votes is completely stolen...and that's pretty hard to do without raising incriminating flags...the candidate still has to have the popular vote. If not they go back to selling cars, whatever.

Maybe the system is broken...but it takes a conscious effort to walk away, rather than try to fix it. Should one chose to walk away, any further complaining is just noise...in my humble opinion, and with all due respect, eh?

If You Don’t Vote, Don’t Bitch!

Get real. You ran away and supposedly live 'off the grid' in a foreign land.
Seriously dude ... you are so far off on this I don't even know where to start.

a reply to: JohnnyCanuck

i don't have to join the local party to ask questions. Mostly because in a small town like this, its all readily accessible to me. Even better, we have this dude who was a child prodigy. However, schizophrenia became a real problem for him. He is now seen as this really eccentric and annoying guy that disrupts all county and city public meetings with his questions. To me, he is the local watchdog. The city council does so much as sniffle and he is there calling them on it. A brilliant mind sharpened into focus by his mental illness...he is pretty good at what he does when he isn't hospitalized.

I try to not involve myself in local politics because it would hurt my career. My career is based on not pissing off the folks with money. Some of whom exert influence far beyond the limits of our little town.

Thats kind of what I was talking about. Either you are in "the club" or your aren't. And if you aren't, you can still benefit by at least being polite and showing discretion. Otherwise, you are like that crazy dude that just pisses off anyone who could provide any form of opportunity.

i voted once and that was to make sure the stinkier of two turds didnt get the oval office. not sure i will ever vote again for much the same reasons you see throughout this thread.

a reply to: JesseVentura

Well since you voted aren't you to blame for the politicians we have elected and the problems in this country.


The guy who didn't vote didn't elect them , did he/she. Don't worry neither did the guy who voted.

Jessey-V

I think you owe it to us to at least reply to one of our statements.

Its is a forum after all

originally posted by: VirusGuard
Jessey-V

I think you owe it to us to at least reply to one of our statements.

Its is a forum after all

Its highly unlikely that its jesse posting anyways , but rather a gorilla marketing ploy with his threads .

lol! This is coming from someone who is not a citizen and is not allowed to vote.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: JohnnyCanuck

i don't have to join the local party to ask questions. Mostly because in a small town like this, its all readily accessible to me. Even better, we have this dude who was a child prodigy. However, schizophrenia became a real problem for him. He is now seen as this really eccentric and annoying guy that disrupts all county and city public meetings with his questions. To me, he is the local watchdog. The city council does so much as sniffle and he is there calling them on it. A brilliant mind sharpened into focus by his mental illness...he is pretty good at what he does when he isn't hospitalized.

I try to not involve myself in local politics because it would hurt my career. My career is based on not pissing off the folks with money. Some of whom exert influence far beyond the limits of our little town.

Thats kind of what I was talking about. Either you are in "the club" or your aren't. And if you aren't, you can still benefit by at least being polite and showing discretion. Otherwise, you are like that crazy dude that just pisses off anyone who could provide any form of opportunity.

I suggest that one joins the party closest to their moral and philosophical outlook because it allows them access that the average person doesn't necessarily have. That doesn't mean one has to be a sycophant, but it allows one to ask tough questions and expect an answer. Like I said, I bitched out a cabinet minister for the Toronto G20...she became premier, and the offending law is being removed. It wasn't just me...but I know I helped.

I also know that as one involved in several not-for profit organisations that depend to a degree on local government for support...well, I'm careful who I piss off. But if you join the local party executive, you have a voice, and if you are asked to sign a potential candidate's nomination papers, you have his/her ear. And if you are visible and respected in the community for your good works...they come to you. And, I am by no means in 'the club'...in fact I confuse the heck out of those who are....LOL!

a reply to: interupt42

No. The arrangement is for Jesse to be active in these threads.

Hey leotards,

The thinly veiled assertions, that you're the lesser person for voting, are opinion.
So are the "vote or shut up" demands.

By all means:

Vote, Bitch.

Vote and Bitch.

Bitch about Voting.

Vote about Bitching.

Vote about Voting.

and...

Bitch about Bitching.

This aint North Korea.

a reply to: ThichHeaded

I was gonna post a bunch with George Carlin, but you got there first.

Elections really are an illusion of choice. I can practically guarantee if you put out all the profile pics of every person that ran for office, you couldn't tell what party they would be from. In the long run, that would mean nothing. Who do I vote for? The older rich white guy on the left, or the older rich white guy on the right? Our political system is really vanilla ice cream with sporadic colored sprinkles. It's all b.s.

Missing George Carlin right now.

As for myself ... I'm gonna bitch bitch bitch because my choices are rigged, and my voice won't actually be heard. Unless I was a Koch brother, my voice won't count.

a reply to: JesseVentura

So if the only people that are on the ballot are Republicans and Democrats, we aren't allowed to complain for not voting when we didn't want to vote for either party? So in your world, we have to choose the lesser of two evils in order to voice our dissatisfaction? What happened to non-participation being a message of dissatisfaction? I believe it's called boycott.

a reply to: JohnnyCanuck

Ron Paul was a real good example of an extremely vibrant grass root effort being struck down by both the Democrat party and even worse by his own Republican Party.

Lawrence Lessig is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School, and director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University.

He explains how the system is rigged.



Voting and participating in a corrupt system gives you only a corrupt end result.

The only way to change the system is for BOTH party members to stop their Party from talking about the symptoms : (economy,healthcare,gay marriage, racial tension,SS, medicare, global warming,Oil,immigration, etc)

and DEMAND that they only talk and take action in regards to lobbying and corruption reform in congress. Until than the lobbyist will continue to do as they please.

Not likely to happen. We are screwed and when I say We I mean Humanity because the US has its hands in all the cookie jars.

I'm a fan of Jesse and the work he does. He's been a voice we've needed. He's off base here though. Jesse, you've presented a scenario where you either participate in and vote along with a corrupt, broken system which is owned by the lobbyists and the banks, or you apparently have no right to complain about the broken system in the first place.

The issue is the system. The issue is corruption and the political climate in Washington, which is far closer to corporate fascism than a democracy where our votes can effect change. This is almost akin to arguing, you don't get an opinion on domestic violence unless you participate in domestic violence yourself. An opinion on a broken system has nothing to do with participation in said broken system.

Jesse, I also wish you'd actually participate in your threads. Members take the time to respond to you. I believe it's a fair expectation for you to have at least a mild presence in your own threads.

a reply to: JesseVentura
Yes, people who consider them self a consenting citizen should vote before their complaint means anything, but then even that isn't enough. You have to take action your self.

If you are going to complain about it, then be willing to do something about it yourself! If someone is complaining about the rich-poor gap and they don't them self do anything individually like buy fair wage products, then they've got "no right to complain" because asking a politician to fix their own problem doesn't cut it. Either be part of the solution or get out of the way... don't just grovel at the feet of politicians in hopes they will pretend they care about you and throw you a few scraps of justice or liberty.

If something can't be done right, you've got to do it yourself!

Whether someone is really in the wrong to complain depends on why they didn't vote. If they believe its their duty to vote as a citizen, then yeah they are in the wrong to complain about a politician when they didn't bother to vote either way. For a few people, voting at all is supporting a broken system. I don't really agree with them but I'd say they still have a place to complain. I know a lot of people have already said something like this but I thought I'd put my 2 cents worth out there.

The first response was saying that people have a right to complain any time for any reason because of the constitution. Well, there are legal rights and there are moral rights. On ATS when people are talking about rights its pretty much always legal rights. But, you are talking about moral rights... which is different. When someone is doing something against morality, then they doing something they don't have a moral right to do even though they have a legal right to do it.