So here are my basic views about voting. I could go deeply into the philosophy of it (which makes no sense, by the way) but I'd rather keep this strictly to indisputable ideas.
About voting in general:
You stick your ballot into that little machine, it registers a vote for whoever and you walk away.
Thats how it is supposed to work, in theory. Here is how it actually will work.
You walk into the voting booth and there is a computer there. It has a touch screen. You push the candidate that you want to vote for. If you vote for bush then your vote will count. If you vote for bush then you will be a full 100% citizen with all of your rights. Meanwhile, if you vote for kerry, hobgoblins will eat your vote and laugh in your face in between chewing.
You have no idea how much voting pains me. While I cannot do it (a crime) I am amazed by how stupid it seems. What guarantee do you have of anything? There simply is no reason to assume that your vote has counted in the past and will in the future. Especially in the immediate future due to a few reasons:
One: supreme court decided that all states must use one of two computer voting machines.
Two: Both voting machines are made by Republican backed companies.
Two B: one is made by the governor of Ohio who promised to give all of Ohio's votes to bush (Sketchy).
Three: The computers are completely digital. So there will be no hard copy of anything.
The voting machines could simply deprive you of your vote if they didn't like who you voted for.
While this already sucks, I would be fine with it if I could trust the machines. However recent circumstances have eaten my trust away.
When asked if a printer could be attached to the voting machines so that their could be hard copies of each vote the republicans said "NO".
Now if this wasn't scary enough, then this is the coup de grace. Why the hell not? What are they trying to hide?!!!! Why do they want there to be no hard copy?
This in itself is almost proof that something less then moral is going on.
Of course the republicans came up with a reason. They said that they don't have the technology. Of course the funny thing about this story is that the technology has existed since the dawn of electrical computers.
It's a little friend of mine that I like to call "the printer".
It's actually a clever device. It takes what's on the computer screen and puts it on paper. Incredible! it also makes a lot of awesome noises while doing it.
So what's the moral of the story? People don't seem to mind having their rights trodden upon. Almost nobody that I have talked to has heard of this and why? because the news doesn't report it. did I say the news? I meant the liberal media doesn't report it.
Oh yeah I almost forgot. People did a study that was featured on the "daily show" and they concluded that it would take less then 5 minutes for somebody to hack into the voting machines and manipulate the votes however they feel like. And since printers are just beyond republican comprehension, there would be no way to notice.
Regardless, here is some links to sites regarding this scandal
www.commondreams.org/views/121400-108.htm ;
www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00065.htm (this one has several links in it)....
Thats all I can find right now, but I recall not having to search that hard to find more.
For the next subject in my filibuster, the electoral college:
I won't waste everybody's time with the history but the idea revolved around how Thomas Jefferson thought that the general population was to stupid to vote for the correct guy (interesting enough he turned out to be right). So he devised the electoral college. The idea was that idiots could vote for smart people to vote for the idiots who were running to represent the idiots who are too stupid to vote for themselves. This was also assuming that people wouldn't be fanatical for their party.
The hope was that if all of the idiots in america voted for another idiot, the smarter electoral college would be able to choose a better person.
This seems like a good idea, sorta.
I believe it was plato who said that "The people are not smart enough to act in their own best interest" and I think he is perfectly correct. But neither the electoral college nor his solution (Philosopher kings) is the correct answer to this problem.
Moving on to voting age.
I should be able to vote. Over and done with.
People say that kids just side with there parents. Conceivably if this was true and every political party had on average as many children as adults then it would just double the votes and so nothing would change.
But the point is that it's not like that. Some side has more children (probably liberal) and so that side would get a boost. The only kids votes that would really make a difference are the kids who disagree with their parents, since this would negate at least one of their parents.
If you think about it more then there is really no reason not to let at least teenagers vote. Especially since voting is self selecting.
My short views about voting have been expressed.....
