I decided that I’d vote this election, even though I never gave a crap about voting before. Why the change?

Well, I still hold to the fact that the US isn’t a true Democracy – voting isn’t fair, and your vote doesn’t necessarily count as much as everyone else’s vote. That’s just the way it is. So, despite my previous feelings of not wanting to endorse the “lesser of two evils” and that getting involved is somehow worse than not doing anything at all, I’m voting by absentee ballot this time around.

It’s not like I think that anyone is necessarily better than dubya. I mean, he’s probably a nice guy all in all if you were out drinkin’ or shootin’ something, or some other outdoor sport. Or even hangin’ out at Camp David, or sailing in the Caribbean. He’s probably funny and has some interesting stories to tell nowadays. But the problem is he’s the president, not a buddy of you or me or anyone. Him being a nice fella isn’t good enough reason to choose him to be the representative, military leader, head diplomat, and head peacekeeper of our country. And ever since he lied to us, all he has left is his personal reputation. Perhaps I am alone with this one – but once someone lies to me, they lose my trust. And I hate to see the most powerful country in the world today run by a group of people that have blatantly proven that they simply cannot be trusted. Sure, you must initially put your trust in any newly elected government – but once it’s been lost, there isn’t any way to magically get it back from me.

People generally are pretty stupid, I think (including me). Usually most people believe what they hear, in the media or othewise. And what the president says should generally be believeable – but dubya has somehow screwed that all up. Even the most normal (I don’t want to say “dumb”, but what’s a good replacement word for that? “common”?) people realize that they can’t trust the words of the world’s most powerful leader. If elected again, would anyone actually believe anything he said? Grain of salt, anyone?I remember watching TV when I was in the US, before the war in Iraq. One particular report used the recent anthrax scare to illustrate how much anthrax Saddam had. Basically, the report said that Saddam had a mountain of anthrax just wating to be dispersed into our water, air, planes, toilet seat lids, baby food, cereal, you name it. At the time, I thought “Wow: that’s a lot of Anthrax! We should do something about that! I guess the war really is a good idea, seeing how much anthrax he’s got!”. Now I feel like an idiot for not instantly calling “bullshit!” on that one – as well as most of the other drivel that came from the Republican Regime and was amplified into static uncertainty in the media.

And how the regime has been using fear as a weapon since 9/11 is just sickening.

Back to the absentee ballot – it’s just a piece of paper with all the candidates listed that you can vote for (take a look at the picture below, it’s an actual one). The interesting thing about it is that there are people on there that I’ve never even heard of, and even some political parties that I’ve never read about.

For example, in Maryland, you have the choices of Republican, Democrat, Green, Libertarian, Constitution, and Populist parties. What the heck are Green, Libertarian, Constitution, and Populist? I never heard of them before!

I wonder why that is? Could it be related to media coverage? Well, a quick look on news.google.com for references to the above parties shows:

• Republican 75,200 results
• Democrat 37,100 results
• Green 10,700 results
• Libertarian 3,120 results
• Populist 1,700 results
• Constitution 448 results

No wonder I haven’t heard of those other guys! They’re barely in the news at all! (The green party seems to have lots of references, even though I can’t say that I’ve consciously heard them referenced before). I guess only the “more informed” voter knows about those other parties.

I guess us lucky people with internet can at least figure out what our other options are. Someone should make up a document that states the positions of each of the parties in an easy to read format – like a simple table, so that stupid people like me can get the gist of things without needing to go to the library. We are, afterall, in a world of instant gratification