Life: The Case Against Voting
A few weeks ago, I had a blog about politics that posited my reasons for never voting. I do it privately, and I don’t really evangelize it as a perspective because I don’t really care. I do, however, often get lots of people haranguing me about my decision and extolling the importance of voting, how people died for me to have the chance to vote, et cetera, yadda yadda. None of these people, of course, are nihilists.
Here are the reasons of some other people who you may know, which I often throw out to bat down the people bothering me when I make an informed and conscious adult decision, hell bent on changing my mind …
“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” — Winston Churchill
“In politics we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state. When we are ill … we do not ask for the handsomest physician, or the most eloquent one.” — Plato
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’” — Isaac Asimov
“The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don’t have to waste your time voting.” — Charles Bukowski
“If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.” — Emma Goldman
“I have never voted in my life …I have always known and understood that the idiots are in a majority so it’s certain they will win.” — Louis-Ferdinand Celine
“It is useless for sheep to pass a resolution in favor of vegetarianism while wolves remain of a different opinion.” — William Inge
“Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything.” — Joseph Stalin
“Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.” — Wendell Berry
As I so often say, see you in hell.
Playing (Music): “Fall in Love” by Estelle
The same arguments can be applied to so many other participatory activities in life, some of which i’m sure you’re a part of. Fools are everywhere.
Also, you should write about the effect that your kids have had on your nihilism.
I’ll consider that. The short answer: “not much.”
[...] I also covered all of this two years back. [...]