I agree with Andy Rooney

[teddywolf]

I have a quick message for everybody in the USA who is eligible who chooses not to vote by the end of November 2:

Thank you.
You just made my vote mean that much more. This means my voice is louder than yours.
I like being loud. I like being louder than Loud Howard from Dilbert.
I like shouting from rooftops. I like banging on drums. I like singing Queen songs in public. I like attention.
So stay home, shut up and be quiet. Oh, and don't complain if you didn't get who you wanted. You chose not to choose, which means I choose for you. In fact, the more of you that stay home, the more of you I get to choose for.
I like that.
Besides, you probably don't have the guts to vote.

If you agree with my politics, great - I'll cover for you. If you don't agree with my politics, great - I didn't want your vote to cancel mine.

Have a nice day.

Comments

[littlebuhnee.livejournal.com]

Personally, I'd rather that only people informed on the issues voted, not just anyone guilted into being J. Random Eligible Voter. I don't see how people voting out of ignorance is better than people choosing not to vote at all.

[kayre]

Especially on non-November elections, if people see my "I voted" sticker and comment that "I didn't bother to vote," I just tell them, "That's okay, I voted for you, and 20 of your friends!"

Power is fun. I'm not giving mine away to anyone.

[nsingman.livejournal.com]

You have a nice day, too, newlywed! :-)

I greatly prefer Frederic Bastiat (an excerpt from his 1850 work "The Law" is reproduced below) to Andy Rooney:

"I wish merely to observe here that this controversy over universal suffrage (as well as most other political questions) which agitates, excites, and overthrows nations, would lose nearly all of its importance if the law had always been what it ought to be. In fact, if law were restricted to protecting all persons, all liberties, and all properties; if law were nothing more than the organized combination of the individual's right to self defense; if law were the obstacle, the check, the punisher of all oppression and plunder — is it likely that we citizens would then argue much about the extent of the franchise?

Under these circumstances, is it likely that the extent of the right to vote would endanger that supreme good, the public peace? Is it likely that the excluded classes would refuse to peaceably await the coming of their right to vote? Is it likely that those who had the right to vote would jealously defend their privilege? If the law were confined to its proper functions, everyone's interest in the law would be the same. Is it not clear that, under these circumstances, those who voted could not inconvenience those who did not vote?"

I don't care who votes and who doesn't. What matters is what they're allowed to vote for. Arguing that we should vote to protect ourselves from the votes of others is attacking the symptom rather than the disease.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

You bet I'd argue about the extent of the franchise. Because the only way for me to have a chance of doing something about it if those allegedly protected rights suddenly stopped being protected is to be able to vote and recruit like-minded people also to vote.

Yes, enlightened monarchs do a better job of ruling than anything else we've yet found. The catch is how to ensure that the monarchs we get are enlightened. I won't risk what happens when someone in power decides to change those laws which punish oppression and plunder.

[azaz-al.livejournal.com]

I hope you aren't mad at me...

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

Nah. If I were I would have said so in your journal as opposed to making a passive-aggresive post. Seriously. This is not directed at anybody on my Friends-list.

[azaz-al.livejournal.com]

Oh, okay :)

[warinbear.livejournal.com]

Dude, you rock.

I liked something that omimouse said on the way back from the polls today [1]. "I know way too many people who only voted last election because MTV told them to."

[1] Early voting. Ain't it wonderful? <g>

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

That's a neat way to look at it...