Comparing the last two years of fail to the six years of fail before it, I cannot come to the same conclusion.

A vote is a vote; part of a storm or a flood or a river. Without raindrops there is no rain.

But without a raindrop there is still rain. I understand the aggregation argument, but what I have control over is not the aggregate.

(Plus, I’d like the storm/flood/river to stop entirely one day. Seems like no matter where it gets diverted, it still manages to find new towns to wash away.)

Of course that’s only about 7 or 8 months after this election.

At least that’s what it will seem like when the 2012 presidential campaign starts Wednesday night.

And voting doesn’t take Herculean amounts of effort. If you don’t want to vote in person, get an absentee ballot. *Easy* to fill out and mail in. Even I can do it, and I have a job and a commute that has me leaving the house at 5am and returning at 8pm or even later.

Plus things like Proposition 8 go in or out based on votes. And so do presidents and your reps and your sentors. How will you fight for or against such things? To say that presidents don’t matter ignores the last eight years of fail. To say that congress doesn’t matter… also ignores the last eight years of fail. To say that them failing didn’t affect our lives—at least look at what’s happened lately. To say that propositions don’t matter ignores the fact that they may destroy marriages or take money away from necessary projects or de-regulate the folks who’re supposed to take care of the elderly in nursing homes.

What can you do against such things?

Are you going to try to break laws? Revoke things by protest? Write letters? Protest? Flee to other states or countries, or encourage others to? If you’re going to do these things, then you might as well vote as a preventative measure. A vote is a vote; part of a storm or a flood or a river. Without raindrops there is no rain.

I really don’t see how voting doesn’t matter, unless you’re just counting on everyone *else* to vote, so you don’t have to.

The analogy was only meant to go so far.

And not voting does not mean that I don’t care. I just care about focusing my attention on the most effective (metaphorical) weapons, and in my estimation, a vote ranks waaaaay down the list.

The analogy only goes so far. If you answer a poll about a car, it’s not likely to affect your life for the next four years.

Whereas on this issue, your life will be affected for the next four years. And your family’s lives. And your friends’ lives.

That’s why I care.

Me and my friends always had disagreements on politics, sometimes very vehement ones that can result in people only talking about, say, weather for the next several days. But one thing we all agree on—we have to care about this country, because we live in it. Our friends live in it, our families live in it, our lives are here.

If you’re not going to commit suicide, life is unfortunately not an opt-out experience.

John @ 17:

I think that as many people should vote as possible, so that the elections reflect as closely as possible the actual political view of the citizenry.

I agree with the second half of this . . . it’s just that, to reflect as closely as possible my political views, I shouldn’t vote. It’s like polling people to pick the car they find least harmful to the environment–there’s no inherent contradiction in the concept, but it’s also obvious that there might be some people whose preference of “none of the above” is outside the parameters of the question.

And I early voted on Tuesday so I could have hip replacement surgery on Wednesday. Trust me, you don’t want it. The only thing worse would not having it as an option and winding up in a wheelchair eventually.

Back to doing laps around the second floor of the hospital.