VANGUARD: An Election About Nothing? (fwd)

[Eric Murray]

Jim Choate writes:
 
 
> It is a standard litany of conventional science to choose the lesser of two
> evils. Perhaps the lesser of two evils in this corrupted, Constitutionaly
> bereft system is *NOT TO PARTICIPATE*. Sine it obviously doesn't matter who
> wins, since the mighty spectre of compromise will dilute any real difference
> into a verbal shell game devoid of meaning. Maby deToquville (sorry for
> spelling - early morning) was right about mediocrity being the result of
> democracy, except in one fine point. It won't be the people as a whole but
> rather those who are too stupid and wedded to outmoded ideals to change. The
> social and political dinosaurs if you will.


Not voting tells the current politicians that you don't care
what they do to you.  They'd be happier if only 5% of the electorate
bothered to vote- that's fewer people to market to.

If you don't like the Republicrats in office, then vote for
what the media denigrates as a 'fringe cantidate'.  If they
lose, which is likely because Americans tend to want to vote
for the winner, then you'll be satisfied because you voted
against the idiot in office.  If they happen to win, then
you'll either get someone wiht some new ideas which (hopefully) you
agree with, or someone so seriously wierd that they paralyze
government for their entire term. 

Here in California we have Green, Libertarian, Peace and Freedom,
Reform and Natural Law candidates for almost all the state positions.
The Natural Law people are so wierd that it's very tempting to
vote for them, here's a sample:

Jane Ann Bialosky, Natural Law candidate for Secretary of State:
"My ideal is to bring fullfillment to the electoral idea, a wise electorate.
Government is the reflection of collective conciousness....
Our government should sustain the influence of harmony, positivity, wholeness,
in which no one can go wrong and everyone will spontaneously be right...
The government of nature governs from the holistic nasis of creation
according to the principle of least action.... Everything must be held up
by natural law.

Another Natural Law candidate for state Controller:
"My vision is for prevention-oriented government, conflict-free politics
and proven solutions to America's economic problems by cutting taxes deeply
abd responsibly while simultaneously balancing the budget through
cost-effective solutions to America's problems, rather than by cutting
essential services."


I was thinking as I read the voter pamphlet that an Absurdist party
would be quite amusing and would point out the silliness of the
current politicians.  But I don't think I could come up with anything as
wacky as the Natural Law people can.


> Maby the polls where drunk dwarves win over 'serious' candidates is actualy
> demonstrating the absurdity of those who insist their issue are serious.

That's my point.  Absurdisim sends a much stronger message
than just not voting.  Voting for serious 'fringe' candidates
(i.e. Libertarians) also sends a message.  Not voting just
says "I don't care what you do to me".



Of course the whole thing _could_ be rigged- 
last night the ABC web site had pages up with _today's_
voting results, with 100% of the "precincts reporting".

 http://www.abcnews.com/sections/us/elections98/results/senate.html
 http://www.abcnews.com/sections/us/elections98/results/governors.html
 http://www.abcnews.com/sections/us/elections98/results/issues.html

They're not up now, but I managed to get a copy of the senate "results"
yesterday (10/2) at 18:40 PST.  It'll be interesting to see how well
they match the "results" from today. 

A copy of the page I saved is at www.lne.com/ericm/senate.html



-- 
Eric Murray          N*Able Technologies                    www.nabletech.com
(email:  ericm  at the sites lne.com or nabletech.com)     PGP keyid:E03F65E5