Everyone who thinks his or her vote against the machine doesn't count or doesn't matter because no alternative is possible needs to watch this five minute argument against their moral vacuity. Pay attention because it will be on the final.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at October 26, 2014 6:25 AM
But it's so much easier to jump to the conclusion nothing can help so I'll just watch the next episode of Wheel of Fortune. Other generations here and elsewhere fought wars, survived chaos, etc and our generation won't even do the smallest possible action in our system.
Winston Churchill
"We have not journeyed across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy."
—Canadian Parliament, Ottawa, 30 December 1941.
Posted by: Scott M at October 24, 2014 2:56 AM“The people in power will not disappear voluntarily.” Burroughs
"When Blacks riot, neighborhoods burn. When Whites riot, continents burn."
Posted by: chasmatic at October 24, 2014 5:01 AMYour lack of morality is no justification for me to do likewise. I will NEVER ask someone to violate your natural rights. Voting is for cowards and thieves.
Posted by: ghostsniper at October 24, 2014 8:09 AMThat's not a vote against the machine. That's a vote to not run the machine into the ground.
Only a coward would vote Republican. So, I'm a coward. But I'm not their bitch. Whittle is a bitch.
Posted by: james wilson at October 24, 2014 8:12 AMWhether or not Republicans are incompetent and self-serving, the alternative is Democrats. How fuckin hard is this? Republicans have proven themselves to be feckless bumblers. Democrats have proven themselves to be upfront criminals. The choice is between your idiot uncle and the Mafia. There exists no other alternative.
If you don't vote for Republicans you are actively choosing to hand over your destiny to people who smilingly promise on national television to steal everything you've got and then fuck your daughters in the ass while you watch. And expect you to laugh and say thank you.
Jesus, kids, wake the fuck up.
Posted by: Rob De Witt at October 24, 2014 11:10 AMRob de Witt knows whereof he speaks.
Posted by: Van der Leun at October 24, 2014 2:18 PMI mean, really, boys and girls it is not such a time consuming and odious task, is it?
Voting got us here, voting will keep us here, every election destroys more of our freedom.
This isn't even arguable any more.
Posted by: ghostsniper at October 24, 2014 6:04 PM"Vote Republican in 2014! This time it'll work! No, really! We promise!"
With all due respect to Mr. Whittle and those who sincerely believe that voting makes a difference: no, thanks.
Posted by: B Lewis at October 24, 2014 7:24 PMIt might all be useless, but I'll by-gawd vote if for no other reason than to tie up traffic on a good day.
I'll vote just to show Republicans that, averse as they are to power and clueless as they are when they obtain it, I am still the grantor of that power. You'd think that the stay at home crowd, of which I was NOT one, that handed the GOP their defeat would have had more impact on the RNC but apparently they are slow learners. I will vote, but I reserve the right to LOUDLY threaten to withhold it. They have their strategies, I have mine.
Posted by: Joan of Argghh! at October 24, 2014 8:10 PMNot Voting got us here, Not voting will keep us here, every election dominated by Not voting destroys more of our freedom.
This isn't even arguable any more.
Posted by: Van der Leun at October 24, 2014 8:53 PMKeep something in mind: the Democrats did not take our country away from us, we gave it to them.
The Republicans that don't measure up to the ideal of what a politician should be, somebody voted for them.
Not voting accomplishes what, exactly? Gonna show everybody you don't believe in all this electoral crap?
Like if enough people withhold their votes we won't have an election, nobody will step in and serve?
The way I see it, if a person does not vote they got no business getting up on their hind legs complaining about what kind of government they get.
There are plenty countries in the world, they don't have elections. The people take what is shoved at them.
The way to change things is to get the crooks out of office that got us into the mess. If we don't do it at the poles we have to do it with force of arms.
I don't see any of the militias in the redoubts getting ready for a violent overthrow of the present government.
I don't see any states preparing to secede from the union, start their own government and run it the way it supposed to be run.
I don't see any group offer anything to replace the electoral process. We all can't live out in the woods and have no man be our master.
The lesser of two evils is a valid strategy.
Posted by: chasmatic at October 24, 2014 10:20 PM"What tries my patience even more than that is the insistence that there are two morally equivalent ideological forces battling it out for the soul of the people. No one in the ruling class has any serious thoughts about changing things. Why should they? It’s a good deal for them. What we have is a jostling for minor status points amongst the political parties. No matter who wins, nothing will change. Both parties talk big in the same way beer companies subtly promise you their product will get you laid. Carrying on like there’s a real ideological battle being waged with real consequences just makes the writer a sales rep for the status quo." -- The Z Blog, "Me and Make Believe", 24 Oct 2014
Posted by: B Lewis at October 24, 2014 10:24 PMB Lewis: therein lies the frustration, the feelings of impotence. Helpless so to speak.
I know my vote is only one and I know the vote counts are rigged. I know that we could change the jersies, those on one side of the aisle swap seats with those on the other side and no one will notice any difference. I know what will happen when all the illegals vote. The outcome is rigged is what I think. The only way I see is overthrow by force of arms.
One way or another the powers that be will keep hold of the power, the control.
"No matter who you vote for, the government gets elected."
Is there anybody reading this stuff that still believes if only we had:
•Republicans
•Democrats
•Tea Party
•Libertarians
•Penguins for a Gun-free Antarctica
•Sarah Palin
•Donald Trump
•all of the above
•none of the above
that all our troubles would go away?
"Political conflicts are merely surface manifestations. If conflicts arise you may be sure that certain powers intend to keep the conflicts under operation since they hope to profit from the situation." — W. S. Burroughs
Vote! Of Course!
Just don't kid yourself. Voting, per se, won't fix the federal government. It wasn't created that way, it wasn't corrupted that way, the degenerate status quo isn't maintained that way and it can't be fixed that way.
That's because the game is rigged. No matter who they are, or how they start out - with very few, very rare exceptions - every politician elected to office in D.C. becomes part of The Beltway Party. chasmatic is absolutely right in this respect: "No matter who you vote for, the government gets elected."
The Beltway Party has one goal: retaining the political & economic power and civil authority it has, as well as the salaries, bonuses, benefits, pensions, perquisites, prestige, job security, staff, status and sense of self-importance that go with them. The motivation to maintain this broken system pervades every one of the millions of government employees from the POTUS down to the lowliest postal or welfare office worker. Holding on to all that means relentlessly seizing any untapped power and authority it can find, at every level it can be found. And since the federal government has usurped sole authority over the limits of the federal government's authority, and all pretense of "separation of powers" has been completely abandoned, any corrective will have to originate from outside this broken infrastructure. Constitutionally, that leaves one option: action by the several, sovereign States, which created the thing in the first place.
As to the folly of wasting any effort on forcing Obama "own" his policies, that it will only serve one purpose: to distract from the root cause of the problem. That problem is the mechanism that has facilitated Obama's - and his predecessors' - actions and made them so cumulatively destructive: the corrupted, self-affirming, omnipotent state he directs.
Posted by: goy at October 25, 2014 8:31 AMI for one welcome our new Revolutionary overlords. The sooner they start shooting us, the sooner we get to cast the only vote that matters.
"Our regime is based on bayonets and blood, not on hypocritical elections" -- Gmo. Francisco Franco
Posted by: B Lewis at October 25, 2014 10:30 AMBastard ALREADY owns it - we know it and he knows it (ie, his claim that this mid-term election is about HIS agenda) - the only question remaining is - how and when is he going to PAY for it? For me, I'll vote - SURE! I plan to vote for a write-in candidate called "CONSENT REVOKED"
Posted by: downeast hillbilly at October 25, 2014 1:00 PMWhat's this talk of the 'Ruling Class?"
The RC cared enough about their [perverted] view of what America should be for at least the last 50 years, and spent that time organizing and successfully promoting their termitic attack on our foundations.
We the "Drooling Crass" were too dumb, fat, happy, and hardworking to understand and care enough to stop the betrayal.
Here are some bottom-ups suggestions for reversing the descent into tyranny; expect a 10-year effort, at least:
1. Find others in your community (Tea Party folk, patriots of any label) and organize to pressure all your state legislatures to permit recall votes of Federal Reps and Senators. Some states have these laws.
2. Demand, via your concerned group, regular meetings with your Federal Reps and Senators.
Kick their "buts" and "butts" as necessary.
3. Organize letter writing to your local newspaper editorial boards, demanding their support for public policy discussions with your Congress people, at local libraries or school auditoriums. Demand objective detailed coverage of those 'town hall' meetings by the newspapers in a timely fashion. Threaten boycott of the papers if your reasonable citizen demands are not met quickly and consistently -- indicate you will be contacting the papers' advertisers regarding your demands and boycott plans.
4. Get to your local school boards and examine the textbooks and curricula being purveyed. Do you agree with the lessons being promoted? Are they promoting or denigrating our founding principles? Get involved. Attend school board meetings and make your views, with printed handouts, known. Call your newspapers so that they have non-sycophantic, competent reporters present.
5. As above, ask for a personal meeting with your Rep/Senator to express your concern and outrage, and ask "What and when will you be doing to correct the situation." At the least, write a letter describing your concerns and asking for answers to your questions. When you get the replies, send a copy of the Q & A to your local newspapers for comment.
6. WTF are your local community college and state universities, and private universities' political science, journalism, and legal departments doing to help you in your efforts? Yes, yes I know most schools are liberal [libertine] oriented, still assistance to your group may earn senior students thesis credits for assisting local citizen groups, or whatever satisfaction as citizens. You are the friggin' taxpayers supporting the schools [especially if they don't have a football team funding the school]. Let the school president know you need the school's support for certain things and demand support, or else! You are still allowed to picket schools in this country. Do it if needed, or rue it!
How the hell do you think worthwhile things got done by the citizenry in days gone by, in days of mine and yore? I suspect truly concerned patriots got off their broad backsides and contested and protested in the streets, at newspaper offices, government offices, as well as by letter and boycott.
Cripes! When I was a lot younger I was activist enough to do much of the above, with beneficial effect, in getting some justice for a 7-year old kid 'crucified' for playing in school with a piece of paper torn into the shape of a gun, and helped in getting some justice for others brutalized by thuggish police. I was rewarded with a visit from the the U.S. Marshals department for a letter I'd written to the judge presiding over one of these police brutality cases; I'd dared to invoke the name of Robert Jackson, one of our judges at the Nuremberg Trials, and suggesting that he adhere to the testimony and evidence presented, as had Jackson.
'We are our problem,' as that Peanuts cartoonist said so long ago, or maybe it was Mark Twain.
Have you forgotten our national credo, "Take No Crap."
Teach your children well, lest they become as inactive and slouching, whining slaves as their parents. Present company excluded?
]
Mr. Nelson: Letter-writing campaigns? School board meetings?
No disrespect to your personally, but you might as well address those letters to Bonnie Prince Charlie. You'll get results faster that way.
My friend, we are long past the point where letter-writing campaigns, voting, or any of those other Leave It To Beaver shenanigans will work. You can write all the letters you want, vote Republican all you want, and walk around with a Gadsden Flag in your hands all you want, and the next day abortion will still be legal, invaders will still be streaming across the border, and a man will still be able to pretend he is married to another man.
And no amount of voting, school-board elections, or letter-writing is going to change that.
"But what will change that?" The answer: turning your back on the Founders, democracy, representative government, John Locke -- the whole Enlightenment narrative. The answer is Madrid, July 1936.
Not a good answer? Don't like it? Me, either. Reality isn't always pleasant -- but one either faces Reality or dies.
I know you mean well, and if I have offended you by these words I sincerely apologize. But Reality is as it is and we do ourselves no favor by pretending. That is why it's time we all took off the Mayberry-colored glasses and faced the reality of politics in America.
Posted by: B Lewis at October 25, 2014 6:12 PMB. Lewis, no umbrage taken. I know your comments come from a raging heart and educated mind.
Well, insurrection, rebellion, and revolution sound good but won't get rolling before the armed rebels are all placed in detention centers [concentration camps]as dangerous kooks, like the madmen militia types that blew up that mid-west government building 10-15 years ago. Government surveillance would have those rebels picked up long before they were organized in sufficient numbers to pose an imminent threat to anything but a small town police force.
Our imagination and sense of history is failing us and disheartening us for the state by state, municipality by municipality effort that's possible and necessary.
The doomsday scenario of uncivil war: half the citizenry that hates the government, half the citizenry that would vote for Obama a 3rd time, and at best a divided military -- a part loyal to the existing government and president and another part in rebellion. Be assured in such an event ALL electronic and electrical systems will be sabotaged, food distribution and water supplies disrupted, criminal street gangs rampant -- this would be the norm. I believe we are far from that kind of necessity and situation.
If you are correct, we should expect to see violent protests in the streets by 1000's of 'white' participants all over the country being opposed by 'blacks' and 'browns' who, tho being raped by Obama and the Democrats still support him in vast percentages.
No chance of that confrontation for a long, long time; things are still too good and durable in the USA today. With even Democrats, parts of the MSM, and talk show liberals distancing themselves from Obama, and Black-American support reportedly down from 95% to 85% it may be the downtrend in the culture is slowing if not yet turning upward.
Various states are already rejecting the 'core curriculum' put out by the Feds. How'd that happen without popular support? It didn't. The popular rejection happened WITH citizen support. Some citizens are not as lazy and uncaring as they are portrayed to be by the despairing.
The children of today will be the adults tomorrow.
Will their schooling adulterate them or will WE ensure they are educated as critical thinkers instead of clueless pawns?
Had the 10-year effort started 10 years ago we'd be on the upturn by now. What will we say 10 years hence, "Oh, we should have started this at least 10 or 20 years ago"?
Vote early and often and recall any slimeball in office that deserves burial in a shit pit. That kind of message will quickly go viral and activate the non-dead.
Regarding Prince Charlie, he doesn't read English any more; he reads subservience to Islam. I might get a quicker response from him, but I prefer the 10-year response from effective Americans.
Posted by: Howard Nelson at October 25, 2014 7:12 PMMost conservatives fundamentally misunderstand the nature of democracy. The left understands quite well.
"Universal suffrage is a detestable element of government, and also a powerful revolutionary instrument"--
Tocqueville
"Men’s taste for freedom and equality are, in effect, two different things and I am not afraid to add that in democratic nations they are also unequal. Freedom has revealed itself to men at different times and beneath different forms; it has not been exclusively bound to one social state and it makes its appearance elsewhere than in democracies. Thus it cannot possibly be taken as the distinctive characteristic of democracies"--
Tocqueville
"It is merely a question of time until the views held by intellectuals become the governing force in politics"--
Frederich von Hayek
"My theories explain, but cannot slow the decline of a great civilization. I set out to be a reformer, but only became the historian of decline"--
Ludwig von Mises
"Man seeks to worship what is established beyond dispute, so that all men would agree as one to worship it. And so it will be until the end of the world, even when gods disappear from the earth; they will fall down before idols just the same"--
Dostoevsky
I hear it all the time. "my vote doesn't count", "our state always goes dem because of '???' city"; "I am wasting my time voting", "there is no one worth my vote", and on and on and on.
It has become group-think to the point where liberals will vote (and vote often) while conservatives will not get involved in a "rigged vote"... Well, guess what; that kind of thinking is exactly what allows the rigged vote.
(don't think for an instance that I believe that our voting system is on the up and up. I can't logically think of a way that voting precinct can get even 100% voter turnout, let alone the over 100% reporting that is mathematically and logically impossible)
The vote is simply a matter of convincing a certain type of voter that their vote is useless so they don't bother voting, while encouraging another type of voter that they really do make a difference.
What I am seeing here disgusts me. Conservatives refusing to vote because they feel it makes no difference while liberal voters are encouraged to vote in large numbers regardless of their understanding of how politics and the world works.
Basically my point, as I see it echoed here, is that low info voters vote because they are told to in order to keep their free stuff, while educated conservatives refuse to vote because group-think says their votes don't matter.
This will all prove to be reality in the next election because liberals will get out the vote, and conservatives will hand them the elections simply because they refused to vote.
I think I have just seen a new low in the thinking of my fellow conservatives. The people who refuse to vote are going to give this election to the liberals for no other reason than their refusal to vote in a "corrupt system" (most likely), thereby corrupting the system they are against.
I use to think people who said they wouldn't vote if there wasn't a perfect conservative candidate running for office were grandstanding. Now I know that they really aren't voting, and thereby allowing the liberals to take over their vote by default.
In my book, if you don't vote for or against a candidate, you allowed another person to vote in your stead.
It makes me sick to think that zero won because those who apposed him decided that their best course of action was to sit out the vote for no other reason that they were throwing a hissy fit over their choice of candidates.
I am guessing that approximately zero of these non voters were involved in the primaries, or took the time to promote someone they COULD stand behind to even get them to the primaries in their states and local elections. Voting is more than just deciding between the two offered candidates at election time. It starts way before the elections.
Worst case, if you don't like the candidates and think you can do a better job, get like minded people behind you and run for office yourself.
I know, pipe dream. Gone are the days when normal people with a brain in their heads could run for office. Still, that is no reason not to vote.
Lack of conservatives voting gave zero the white house the first time. Libs and Paulbots helped insure his second term. Conservatives stood by their principles and let him win. Did McCain or Romney belong on those ballots??? That comes down to the people who refused to vote in the primaries.
Sometimes you get what you don't vote for.
You non voters are the problem. Don't vote (you are not obligated to) but be willing to own what you get because you didn't vote.
Posted by: mike at October 27, 2014 6:17 PMYou fellas are very well-read and offer up plausible strategies for enduring and overcoming our current dysfuntion. it seems it is a process, not an event, and requires patience.
We are in the narrow end of the wedge; relativity makes every day critical. Deeper and deeper at a geometric rate.
Not to flog a cliche, but sometimes the sword is mightier than the pen. Those in power will not leave willingly. As has been mentioned, this goes from the top all the way down to the lowly file-checkers with their glasses on a chain and polyester pants.
There will come a time when boots on the ground and steel in hand will be the only way to effect change.
I'd rather die on my feet than keep living on my knees.
Time to ask What do we have to lose?
Posted by: chasmatic at October 27, 2014 8:09 PMFrankly speaking, "Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible."
--- St. Francis of Assisi, h/t BrainyQuote.com
Be like a hummingbird, doing the impossible.
Posted by: Howard Nelson at October 28, 2014 4:43 PMLong ago related to me by a fellow named Billy Beck:
Suppose you arrive home one day to find your neighbors assembled in your driveway, proposing to vote on the disposition of your house and belongings.
Do you join them in that vote?
Posted by: Mike Soja at October 28, 2014 10:57 PM
HOME