Know what your vote means. A so-called democracy in which some 70% of the American population no longer votes, has lost the right to be called a democracy. Your vote is a sign of confidence in the perpetuity of a system electing a President in absentia.
“There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who believe there are two kinds of people in this world and those who are smart enough to know better.”
Tom Robbins
We all see much chatter about the quality and integrity of our current presidential candidates, including most recently an explicit desire for a new Republican candidate to join the fray, less than a month before the election. So much for the validity of the vetting process used by the two-party process (a fallacy of freedom in its own right), and to push a quality nominee forward.
We should spend less time hating the players; their eventual impact in the relay race to support our society’s capacity and ingenuity is generally overrated anyway (not in the least stymied by the current legislative power of Congress). Instead, we should spend our time hating the game that produces candidates with no experience or wherewithal to reinvent our country upstream, from a new normalization of a more responsible societal cause. We must challenge the systems that produce widespread apathy amongst the American people. All systems, including our constitution, if need be.
Let’s be clear. A democracy in which roughly 70% of our population no longer votes can hardly be called a democracy. We have built a make-believe democracy that has lost its audience. With clowns, a minority of us (around 15% from a choice of two) elect our puppet master. More gravely with a system that stifles the pursuit of a meritocracy that would otherwise represent a renewable opportunity for all Americans.
Turning off TV is the right thing to do when you do not like its programming or are bothered (like I am) by the excessive ads for medical products you do not need and cannot buy without a prescription from a doctor. Exercising your right not to vote based on your apathy to the hollow promises of politicians is as important as your right to partake. Such is what constitutes a meritocracy. Our system should just not allow a President to be elected unless it can find buy-in from the majority of Americans, and keep the current President in office until the American people do.
I am in awe of the collective intelligence, diversity, and day-to-day pragmatism of the people in this country. It’s leaders we elect through a pageantry system; we appear so proud of, not so much. Another candidate produced by the same system, from either side of the aisle, will not move the dial of harvesting our collective capacity and ingenuity in a more responsible direction.
When our systems do not represent our people, it is time to ditch our systems. Along with a constitution frozen in time that has run out of relevant answers, perpetuates the evolution of flawed consequences downstream, and offers little believable and brighter foresight, away from the endless regurgitation of hindsight.
It is time to reinvent ourselves and prove to the world what we, the American people, are made of. We are in charge of the systems that perpetuate the mediocrity we put on stage today. Change worth a damn seldom comes from within, and do not expect our legislature to make itself obsolete or re-stack its deck.
Your vote for another clown from the current system only serves to keep our dysfunctional systems alive, in blatant violation of the most rudimentary principles of freedom. To abstain means you send a more powerful message, a message we have sent our two major television distributors in this country already. A choice of two is not at all a choice that represents the diversity innate to us. A significant reason for the popularity of the internet as a distribution medium, for all the good and wrong reasons, as it provides escapism to the shoehorn of limited choices offered before.
Television is killing itself by poisoning its well (of merit), and so does our electoral system. We, the people, only care about legislation that protects our collective interests, from damaging the pursuit and freedom of our unique personal interests, whoever or whatever makes it so. We seek a freedom of choice beyond what our current systems endorse. A freedom we promised ourselves and failed to deliver on. A freedom we will seek until we find.
Listen to musician Cass McCombs express his sentiment.
