Voting in the U.S. -NorwichBulletin
You can write letters to your congressman, employ a lobbyist to push your agenda, march in a peaceful protest, or any of a number of other things to try and influence an elected federal official but for the average citizen our voice is heard one moment of one day once a year when we close the curtain behind us in the voting booth.
Inside that voting booth there may be a handful of different options but at the federal level with rare exception there are only two candidates who have a reasonable chance at election; one Republican and one Democrat.
We have reduced everything to black or white, zeros and ones, liberal and conservative, and that is why I’m not voting. What I want does not fit into a ballot box; what I want can not be reduced to a sound bite; what I want is control over my own life. The real choice we have come November 2nd is not Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, with the President or in opposition to him, the real choice is whether we vote at all.
The pendulum will swing but the paradigm will never shift because of any vote, and if you’re satisfied with just altering a few glitches but maintaining the same core structure than by all means you should go to the polls. But if you are not, and if you think that we need a complete restructuring rather than just a face lift, then there are far more productive things you may do with your time on November 2nd and everyday after.
Here comes the tough part; only you can decide what that is. Maybe you can plant a tree, or help a neighbor or volunteer at the library, or anything else. Your life and decisions can not be whittled down to fit into two neat side by side rows, and that’s kind of the point.
licensed under creative commons-nc/nd/by