So this morning I turn on the radio (yeah, I know, usually a mistake), and there’s a talk show on about voting, and this anarchist dude calls up and proceeds to explain in a self-righteous tone how he’s 22 and he’s never voted and never will because it just encourages the system (or some other stupid slogan someone taught him to parrot). Instead, he says he takes to the street and protests and that’s how he expresses his voice (gee, I’ve attended a few anarchist protests and I can’t think of one time when the anarchists actually got what they wanted; those protests sure stopped the war in Iraq, didn’t they?).

I used to hear this kind of argument a lot more in the past than now (now many of the Y2K little anarchists are registering to vote against George W. having learned that their argument from 4 years ago that it didn’t matter who you voted for since Bush and Gore were the same anyway held as much water as used kitty litter). I used to be a lot more tactful in refuting it, pointing out that many people in power are quite happy to hear people say that they don’t vote because it makes the politician’s job that much easier. After all, then the politicians don’t have to even throw a rhetorical bone in the nonvoter’s direction, much less direct public policy in any way that would matter to the nonvoter. Instead, the politicians can use the nonvoters as a punching bag (like they do felons and kids) to appeal to people who do vote (why do politicians use kid gloves on the elderly and direct so much public policy to them? Because they vote in large numbers.). Furthermore, appealing to the smaller block of the population that does vote (and consequently are more likely to be closer ideologically) makes it less likely that one has to engage in rat-fucking and other shenanigans on election day (you know like stuffing ballot boxes, dropping people likely to vote for your opponent off the rolls before the election, killing your opponent the week before election day by faking a plane crash, and other black ops stuff, all of which is risky and harder to pull off than just playing by the rules).

Now I realize that when someone tells me that they don’t vote because voting doesn’t matter or that direct action is a better way to engage politically (where the idea that one can’t vote and still protest comes from is beyond me; I think it’s just fear of getting jury duty among other possible civic responsibilities, after all one can’t just blow that off like one can blow off an antiwar march if one is hungover), I just agree with them and actually encourage them to persist in this line of thinking.

Am I a cretin or fascist? No, I believe in democracy and that we all benefit when everyone’s voice is heard and involved in a decision, but the people like the call-in anarchist (who apparently can find time in his busy schedule to listen and call a radio talk show but spending all of the ten minutes it takes to vote twice a year is too much work) have already proved that they make poor decisions (i.e., not bothering to vote), so why would I want them to actually vote? They’d probably still make poor decisions (you know like voting for Bush in the logic that the creepier and more reactionary the candidate in office, the quicker the day of the "glorious revolution" or vote for a third party in a tight race because since the Dem and Rep both wear suits so they must be the same anyway), and this time their poor decisions would actually affect my life. So when dumb people don’t vote, it makes it that much less likely that their poor decisions will ever affect me. And thank Saint Fuck for that, my friends.

As Winston Churchill is reported to have quipped, "Democracy is the worst system of government, except for all the others."