November 2nd is coming around, and I thought it’d be good to write up a little rant about my thoughts on this election, and why I’ve chosen to vote (write-in is more like it) for Ralph Nader.
Four years ago I didn’t give a damn about the election. I wasn’t registered, and to me, Gore and Bush were pretty much identical. None of the issues seemed important to me at the time, and if you asked me, it didn’t really matter who won. They were both full of it, wouldn’t hold to their promises, and four years later none would be the wiser.
This time around, it’s almost the same. I still don’t really care for either Bush or Kerry, because as far as I know they’re both lying to the American public. For most people it seems to be a choice of the “lesser of two evils”, which just seems utterly worthless to me. In the end, nothing will have really changed.
I do really, really, hate Bush though. The reasons are rather obvious; Lied about WMDs, got the whole world hating us, giving tax breaks to the rich. I could really get into this, but I’ll restrain myself. I would just love to see this man taken out of office.
So why then, am I voting for Nader and not Kerry? The Electoral College. According to some experts, Kerry already has California by a good measure. And because of the way our democratic process works, my single vote (and all of the Republican votes) in California won’t mean jack shit. I’m safe to vote for Nader and still know that Kerry has received all the Electoral votes from California.
It should be noted that this is perhaps one of the pros of the electoral college. We’ll pretend that we don’t know about electing a president that doesn’t win the popular vote, or the fact that if Democrats started voting Green then the Republicans would always win. On a side note as well, I’m getting the feeling that this election is going to be very close, and that in the final outcome Bush will be president again. Gotta love America.
When it really comes down to it though, and if this were the year 2000, I would still vote for Nader, simply because I really hate this two-party system. We have to make compromises on values we’ve come to believe in, and end up voting for the candidate that most closely matches our own ideals. Anyone else see something wrong with this?
Kurt Vonnegut put it best:
If you want to take my guns away from me, and you’re all for murdering fetuses, and love it when homosexuals marry each other, and want to give them kitchen appliances at their showers, and you’re for the poor, you’re a liberal.
If you are against those perversions and for the rich, you’re a conservative.
What could be simpler?
It comes down to this: A vote to rid the country of what I’ve come to see as one of the most hated presidents in recent history, or a vote to fight the two-party process.
It’s fairly obvious which choice I’ve taken.
Syndicate this site