As I head for bed this morning (November 8, 2000), now around 5:00am EST, the US Presidential Election is too close to call. Assuming that you believe the figures, who shall be the winner, the next President of the United States of America, the so-called Leader of the Free World, the Emperor of the Universe (so far as it is supposed to matter), depends upon the results of the vote in one single state. In that state, Florida, somewhere near six million votes have been counted. And the two “leading” candidates (neither of which is purported to have a majority, only a plurality of votes cast) are separated by a mere 200 votes. And it may still be tightening.

So it looks like there will be a recount. But this brings up the point that is so often made, your vote counts.

It could theoretically come down to just a single vote. One man or woman, casting their ballot, could determine the fates of millions of people. Will there be a war in the next four years? (Whether declared by Congress or just a fait accompli by the administration, let’s not quibble here.) Odds favor it, given recent history. Who will we war with? Who will die, because you voted one way rather than another.

Who is responsible for the results of your vote? Is it just a matter of expressing a preference, and then washing your hands of it? Or do you bear some responsibility? Can you say that you would be willing to look upon dead men and women, burned children, destroyed lives, and simply shrug your shoulders as if your vote didn’t count?

Your vote counts. Even if you ultimately voted for the losing candidate, you certainly approved the process by which his opponent was chosen. In a race as supposedly close as this, it bears repeating that the candidate you voted for might have won. It’s just too close to call. If you say that your candidate wouldn’t have done the particular things that the winner ends up doing, can you also say with certainty that he wouldn’t have done other similar things? Maybe we wouldn’t have gone to war with this country, maybe we would have bombed that country instead. Different dead people. Different burned children. Different destroyed lives. But in principle, no difference, really.

Your vote counts even if you voted for a third party candidate. Maybe you believe that he had no realistic chance of winning. But look at Florida, and so many other states in which neither of the “major” candidates obtained a majority of votes. You could have voted for one of them. You chose not to, and that made a difference. You preferred another choice, still, you participated in the selection process. You agreed, implicitly, to abide the result. You consented to authorize the winner to exercise his power on your behalf. Even if you disagreed with how you expected him to act. In the same manner as voting for the “major” losing candidate, you cannot wash your hands of it and deny your responsibilities. When you give your consent to a process, you give your consent to the result. Accept this, you are responsible.

Your vote counts if you choose not to vote. It makes just as much difference in the election result as does voting for a third party candidate you don’t believe has a realistic chance of winning. Maybe it sends a more ambiguous “message”. But how much blood are you willing to have on your hands to send a message? And how clear a message is a vote, anyhow? Maybe you even agree with 90% of what a candidate says, how do you say that you disagree with the remaining 10%? Except by just coming out and saying it. Which is a darn good way to send a message anyhow. Just send one. Like this.

kryten42, right on with the censorship advocated by tipper gore, and by holy joe. I deliberately abstained in 2000.

digging up the information isn’t the hard part. dislodging the leeches, even once we know about them, is the hard part. that, and finding non-leeches who actually want the job [senator, president, etc].

public finanacing for campaigns, dismantling the lobbying industry, repealing corporate personhood, these would all help, but everytime we unwrap one of their tentacles, they manage to get two more wrapped around us. worse than hydras.

as for the media, we need them [or a replacement] to not only gather information, but disseminate it too. maybe if we make it all into lolcats….

Americans are all too easily fixated, almost hypnotically, on the main candidate and fail to look around and see what they are trying to hide. Americans see what they are told to see, like they are being controlled by some great illusionist, until it’s too late. The blogs, like this one, have helped change that. But a lot more needs to be done. You are NOT just electing Hillary or Obama or McCain… you are electing everyone around them, everyone they owe allegiance to, everyone they owe a favor too, everyone who knows whatever dirty secret they don’t want anyone else to know. It wasn’t until after Bush stole a second election that Americans finally started to notice the people he had like Rove and others, who had always been there, in control, from the start. The people who have the spotlight and you are all being told to look at, are just a distraction. They are not even important. They will do what they are told.

I don’t get it. I know the MSM can be blamed for a lot of it… but there are other ways to find things out, there always has been.

nader was running as a pretty far left candidate, and gore, at the time was pretty darned centrist. i only voted for gore because it was a vote against the republcans and they needed to be stopped [not that that worked]. most of my naderite friends told me they’d have stayed home if nader hadn’t been in the race. anecdotal evidence and small sample size and all that, but still….

i’m not angry at obama, or clinton, or any of the dem candidates, just the party and the system. and the pundits and the press. much opprobrium for them.

no new naders. nifty slogan.

i used to be angry about nader too, but after rethinking it, i wonder how many of those naderites would have just stayed home if he hadn’t been in the race. would enough of them have turned out to make a difference and vote for gore? possibly maybe perhaps in florida, where it came down to a few hundred votes, but all told they were only avout 2-3% of the vote, so maybe not. unlike ross perot, who garnered 20% of the vote in several states.

as for breaking the democratic party, i don’t have any wish to actually break anything, but it might be workable if we could let the far right have the republican party, let the centrists have the democratic party, and let the leftists take their portion of the democratic party off to start up a new liberal/progressive/whatever party.we could probably naturally end up with close to a 1/3 – 1/3 – 1/3 split, so that no one party had a huge advantage.

My only point is that on June 4, the delegates should make their decision known, and it wouldn’t be a bad bet that they will decide for Barack Obama by a majority.

“Mooommm, Sis did it first!” If hipparchia marched her candidate’s campaign over a cliff, would you follow her? %-)

“As for not having tolerance for people talking about staying home, you just did that above as well.” – Michael

Oh, Michael, you are so clever! Irony-impaired, but clever.

I have no intention… never had any intention… of staying home in November. I was trying to show you how offensive your statement was, and how such language could drive people away. Irony is hard to convey in print, I suppose, and I could have done it better. But I kid you not, Michael, it ill serves Obama’s cause, or Hillary’s for that matter, for their supporters to whine about how unfair opponents and opponents’ supporters are being. Do you want a President McCain? Offending former Hillary supporters is a good way to accomplish that.

“If you’ve lost patience with the Democratic party, I’m thinking that Cynthia McKinney ought to be invited to participate in debates” – Michael

Believe me, I’ve thought all this through, and there are no good approaches. Leaving the DP may eventually be forced upon me, if Obama’s and Clinton’s supporters together succeed in obliterating the party. But that is a poor solution to anything. Anyone in the U.S. outside the two major parties has effectively zero positive power. In today’s circumstance, Greens and Libertarians can destroy, but they cannot accomplish positive things.

I admire former Rep. McKinney in her own right, but running for President is not a game. I have some grudging respect for former Rep. Barr because of his civil libertarian views (not his Libertarian views), but running for President is not a game. My sincere hope is that those two worthies’ participation will cancel out and have no net effect on the race. If the U.S. had a different sort of electoral system, I would welcome all participants, but as it is, my motto is “No new Naders.”