Why Voting is a Waste of Time, and Why I Stopped

In recent years, I have made many sweeping changes in my life, from arguing with the written word on this very column to verbal discussions I supported and emphatically promoted voting as a vehicle of change. Unfortunately, I began to wake up and look around. The arguments I used and others now use against me began to lose all of their logic and simply looked silly.

When a friend of mine recently stated their reasons for voting and asked me how I could stop, my response was straightforward. "Nothing will change, regardless of candidate, nothing will ever change." I told him that historically and currently in the USA, as well as every other significant government, the "people" have never had any real say in what happens with the government.

I related several of the hundreds of incidents of police and military use of force against domestic and foreign targets and asked him if he had OK'd that use of force. I related the passage of the permanent Patriot Act and TARP against the majority of active voting people's desires and his response was expected, as I have used it before.

His response was, "until everyone or even a clear majority of the citizens of this nation stand up and vote government will keep doing this." I asked him how 200,000,000 people voting could change what 35,000,000 could not. Logically, when 500+ individuals comprising government leadership ignore the desires of 35,000,000 people it means that they will ignore 200,000,000 just as easily. They fear for valid reasons; the government has hundreds of thousands of police and military who have been trained to do whatever they are ordered to do.

I no longer vote because it is pointless and a waste of time. If the 35,000,000 active, disgruntled voting bases simply stood up and said, "no more" would changes happen? However, since they are "restricted" to simply checking boxes and rarely do more than that the government does not fear them and acts with impunity. The voting base fears retaliation by police and military they choose and rightly so, to avoid that and simply bow their heads. So is it the voters fault or does the real fault lay in DC?

You decide, and while you're doing it, think about what liberty is, I did and now I hope you can too.

Withdraw consent, embrace liberty and spread the message