Don't Vote with Your Wallet

Tomorrow, American citizens with some form of government issued ID will vote for the next President. Not directly, but through the Electoral College consisting of 538 delegates (435 from the House Representatives, 100 Senators and 3 for the District of Columbia) and which has been outdated since the invention of television. A delegate pledges to vote for a certain candidate and the candidate who receives the most votes (270 or more) wins. Proponents of the Electoral College will argue that it allows for the smaller states not to be ruled by attitudes of bigger states but since the majority of votes comes from the House of Representatives and the number of representatives a state has is based on population, I find this a weak argument. Not to mention that there is currently no law that forces the electoral delegates to vote for the person they are pledged to vote for. So, when you cast your vote, there is nothing stopping the person you elected to vote for you from actually voting however they want.

This is a disturbing reality to grasp for anyone who believes in democracy and liberty and the whole "all men are created equal" thing. Wouldn't it make more sense for votes to count directly for the person being voted for and whoever has the most wins? It's hard convincing your friends and family to vote when they may not even get what they bargained for when trying to exercise one of the core freedoms our founding documents allow us to have.

It is easy to see how voters can become disillusioned about the Presidential election, with an awkward election process and an almost infinite sea of political jargon that is thrown at you up to two years in advance. By the time you step into the booth you've been told over and over how everything you believed about one candidate is wrong by another candidate whose own credibility has been destroyed by the other. The pros and cons of both start to meld together as the two candidates approach the actual election because they've come so far from the promises they made to their followers in the beginning that they are now just trying to say anything that anyone wants to hear. In that moment, the true enemy of freedom rears its ugly head. Apathy. That uncaring emotion that allows for all the B.S. reasons for voting to take control of your brain and allow you to rationalize voting for a particular candidate based on the flimsiest of excuses. This is how votes are wasted, this is how societal norms continue to constrain the minority of intelligent, forward thinking people in our country and how the political machine can continue rolling without any signs of changing, therefore subjecting another generation to the same apathetic tendencies.

If you haven't given up hope and decided to let the political machine eat you up, I believe there are a few pitfalls that you can navigate that would allow you to sift through the haze of political spin and allow you to vote and still look at yourself in the mirror in the morning with any ounce of sociological/philosophical respect. There are a lot of reasons to weigh when choosing who to vote for but I believe avoiding these reasons will allow you to focus on the other issues more clearly.

#1 Don't Vote with Your Wallet

Don't vote with your wallet. I know how it sounds, money to most people is the most important thing in the world, which is half the problem. Even if money doesn't completely rule your life most of you would probably argue that it's pretty damn important. From a day to day stand point you'll find little argument from me. However, when adjusting your world view to include an event that affects so many people like choosing the President, money begins to wain in importance when compared to war, civil rights and liberty. When you can realistically envision a scenario that includes the government telling you what career opportunities are available to you, who you can and cannot marry and what to do with your own body, the price of gas really doesn't matter much anymore. Human beings were here before money and we'll be here after money. If we all woke up tomorrow and decided that green paper rectangles didn't hold any value, they wouldn't. It's an illusion we've all agreed means something. That should show you the power of the human condition and just where money should fall on our list of things that actually matter. Women in this country, no matter how hard they work, are still being subjected to societal prejudices and are being restricted in their professional lives. They are being told that their bodies are not their own and someone else can decide what happens to it. It's hard to worry about the government taking money out of your wallet when their other hand is down your pants.

#2 Leave Your Religious Beliefs at Home

Leave your religious beliefs at home. This is another tough one but a very important issue that voters need to realize has absolutely no place in deciding who the president should be. Religion in some form is vital to our everyday lives but all religions aim to speak to you on a personal level. I don't think any rational person would argue that the founding fathers revolted against a country that had the power to religiously oppress them, in order to form another country where they religiously oppressed people. America is not a Christian nation, America is a nation that has a lot of Christians in it. Nearly all the founding fathers wrote papers on the subject of this country being a land of many faiths, despite their personal beliefs. Yet, most voters seem to think the election is some kind of holy war and the outcome of a certain faith taking control of the country depending on which faith you believe in, will surely usher in Armageddon. There are people in this country who do not have the freedom to live the life they want simply because the majority of people in power don't agree with  them. That's how small and irrational that argument really is. It goes against every single tenet this country stands for when you vote to take away the civil rights of another human being because your religion says something different. Our constitution guarantees every citizen the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It doesn't say "only the white, straight, Christians," no matter how much some people want it to.

#3 Do Not Vote Based on Looks

I can't believe I actually have to print this one but unfortunately I have actually heard enough people in my everyday life try and rationally defend this argument. Usually this is the bottom of the barrel voter who has already succumbed to the Apathy Party. Looks can be deceiving. Talk to anyone who was actually alive during the time when most Americans lost faith in the political system, Watergate. Anyone not entirely cynical will tell you that they were absolutely shocked by it. Richard Nixon was a charming, never raise his voice much less swear, Quaker for God's sake, who pulled the rug out from an entire country. This is America, there are plenty of good looking people to choose from, not all of them should be given power. Not a single winner of the Miss USA Pageant has been a serious contender for the presidency and there are very good reasons for that. Sarah Palin was a beauty queen and also a weather girl before becoming the Governor of Alaska (kinda) and she was almost Vice President. By those standards Al Roker is a swimsuit contest away from having the qualifications to nuke Iran.

We the people, are allowing this to happen. We the people, have a responsibility to fight for freedom if not for the sake of political ideology, for the sake of humanity. Have we really come 236 years to give all of this up now? Have we really decided to turn in our sense of right and wrong we honestly had as children for ideas so petty as money, religion or looks? I truly hope not. I truly hope that we take a long look at which side wants freedom and which side wants to keep the machine running. It's up to us. It's always up to us.

III