Hello Everyone and welcome!
Today I am going to be speaking on a subject that many people are very sensitive about. There are many thoughts people have regarding this, but you probably already know the standard thoughts.
I am feeling called to share my own perspective because I feel it is one that many have not considered.
Now before I share my perspective I would like to preface by saying a few things:
- My perspective is just that, my perspective. It is likely different from your perspective. You do not have to like/agree with it.
- I understand that most people are, in fact, going to disagree with me. They will not try to understand me or my point of view, and they will push their P.O.V. onto/over mine.
- What you read here may emotionally trigger you. If you find yourself about to be triggered emotionally I ask that you please mitigate your reaction, step away, and come back at a time when you are able to read everything from top to bottom without reacting emotionally.
- I am sharing something very personal, it goes against the grain, and I will certainly be judged for it. You will be able to see why I have held this close to my heart. I would rather not share my thoughts on the matter here but I cannot fight the call anymore. I ask you to please respect that I have not shared one single thought on this subject because of the reactions I know I will receive.
Ok, with all that in mind, let’s discuss the importance of voting.
I have never voted
I know, I know, I know. ..
“It’s your right/duty!”, “Not everyone can vote, you are squandering your privilege!”, “We have to get [insert “bad” person here] out of office because they are bad for [insert “bad” reason here]”, “If you don’t vote you’re just playing for the other team” (shame on you particularly if you use this last manipulative one).
Really there’s a plethora of different reasons you could say to me in response for never voting, the ones above I really don’t mind so much. What I do mind, and why I have kept this quiet for so long, is the judgement that will inevitably come when I share this with you.
I wouldn’t mind the judgement really, except that it likely comes without even an attempt to understand me before slamming the gavel (This is all judgement and this is why I have learned to keep my thoughts and feelings very close to my chest).
Not once, in the times I’ve shared this with someone, has anyone ever responded, “Why don’t you vote?”. They never try to understand, they immediately attempt to make me feel bad regarding my personal decision or attempt to convince me to change my mind.
I don’t have high hopes for ever being asked this and having a productive conversation about it in the future so I am taking the liberty to tell you why I don’t vote unprompted. Please enjoy and I hope it broadens your horizons.
Why I have never voted
I don’t vote for a lot of reasons, the first being: I don’t know who/what I’m voting for.
“Well you should be an educated voter!” -You
You’re exactly right. Every voter should be educated in casting their ballot and if someone is going to vote on the direction that the country is heading towards then they 100% need to be educated on the system, contenders, AND domestic/world happenings.
I’m not sure about you, but as a youth I didn’t give one lick for politics or the horse it rode in on. I had never once watched the news of my own volition for the first 25 years of my life, I have never looked up my representatives, and I as an eighteen year old sure as heck had ZERO clue how the country should be run (18 year old me was also very susceptible to group-think and misinformation).
As such, I have always felt it prudent and my patriotic duty to abstain from voting. I have always felt that I had no business voting when I don’t know anything about anything. How would I truly know that I was doing the “best” thing for my country? How would I truly know that I wasn’t being manipulated into a greater agenda? Isn’t an ignorant voter worse than an individual who just follows the crowd?
“You would know what you’re voting for if educated yourself, like we said” -You
You’re right, but here’s the thing–
I also didn’t want to educate myself, and can you really blame me?
I never wanted to educate myself on politics for a few reasons, all of them selfish.
To be a PROPERLY educated voter you need to educate yourself, but there is way too much to be educated on. Luckily, if you happened to have paid attention in school, the overall structure and governmental/political system was explained to you so we all have that. However, I don’t have much faith in people’s ability to retain information, especially regarding government/politics and how they work– I am speaking of myself here as well, to be clear.
Let’s say you did remember all of the politics/government you were taught in school (good on ya)– What I was lacking (and most others as well) for a proper knowledgeable vote was still: social knowledge, knowledge of the current people (and their affiliations), knowledge of the law, perspective/knowledge on the U.S. and world. That’s the standard+ type stuff, now if you really don’t want to be manipulated and make the most educated decision for the country, then you need to also research where all the money comes from, how to combat/see through manipulation/propaganda, and have a thorough understanding of where the lines of business, government, and the human psyche all connect.
This is too much and your average “educated” voter doesn’t have near enough knowledge in these areas. The people who tend to have all of the information to vote properly are the seniors of the community as they have been here longer and have (hopefully) learned through time. Some do, some don’t, but most people can’t help getting smarter as they age– it’s just what happens when you experience more, they have more experience .
Unfortunately those who are seniors in age and educated are largely not listened to by the younger populous, the ones who doesn’t take the time to understand things that are older than them and their (the elders) warnings fall upon deaf ears whose holes between them shout “get out of the way old man!”. I digress… back to the point of this section..
I have certain wants/goals in this life and unfortunately due to my constraints it will take ALL of my valuable time and attention and I don’t currently have time to dig through the cesspool of political sludge and make heads or tails of it in a meaningful way.
After all, look at your social media(s), look at the news footage/headlines, look at how getting into politics can ruin relationships and PREVENTS UNITY. I know that you have seen all of the political circus and it is EXHAUSTING. It also is so FRUSTRATING to watch normally good people transmute into something nasty the moment politics (and lifestyle/religion too for that matter) come into the picture and it comes to light that your opinions differ.
Can you really sit there and be mad/upset/judgmental at me for wanting to have no participation in that?
Instead of people being thoroughly educated in exercising the right to vote, we have people who only have a surface level understanding of the political system and how it works and no further knowledge beyond that (if I may be so gracious). They are satisfied with all articles and propaganda on social media without ever questioning the source. They have never tried to understand further and this can immediately be seen in attempting to have ZERO (CIVIL) discourse on the matter when it comes to opinions that are different than their own.
When discussing politics people are NASTY and, pulling from a metaphor above, gets political sludge ALL over relationships. Relationships that I would rather have unsoiled due to the other party’s inability to see past differences and/or agree to disagree while still being able to remain friends without judgement. Without voting I don’t declare alliance to a party and get to remain neutral to maintain my relationships.
“You’re not neutral! You’re helping the other side to win!”
Did I do that? Me? I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that my one singular vote helped to turn the tide of the battle!– Oh wait I did, that’s why I abstain. (Please forgive the sarcasm, I’m sure it’s not doing me any favors.).
This is a very manipulative and short sighted comment on your part should you choose to say this.
Political parties are not “teams”. I refuse to see sides here. It is SO detrimental to treat politics like sports teams. Would you like to know what I see? I see one people (Americans). We should all be on the same side (AMERICA) .
You know what else? I have things I agree with and disagree with on both sides, I would really love to just have one political party working together for the greater good. Of course everyone has different ideas and methodologies of how this should be done, and this is where our disagreements come from. What we should be doing is managing/discussing our differences and finding the “right” way of doing things which is through a compromise everyone can agree on and THIS IS POSSIBLE and we could do it if we could ever get over the fact that there are different people with different thoughts/beliefs/methods but that doesn’t seem to be happening any time soon.
As far as political parties and teams go, there is no “right” side. This is another reason why I have never voted. Everyone gets into a divisive hive mentality and if you are undecided they attempt to convince you to pick a side. That’s all fine and dandy if they had the right intention, but more often than not their intention is not “What do you believe?” or “What are your morals?”, no. Their intention is just to merely get another body on their side. They do NOT care about your morals, and they often do not care HOW to do what they want or the RAMIFICATIONS of their actions.
The moment you begin to question what they are saying or try to say that you don’t agree with everything that they do they go right back to their same tricks “They’re worse!!!”. Are they truly? Are you sure? Have you ever had a PROPER conversation with them to TRULY understand what they are talking about? Have you ever tried to converse with more than one? How many have you talked to? If it’s 50 people in a row that’s still not an accurate idea of America. Plus, you are telling me bad things about your OPPONENT and you want me to be on your side– why should I trust you about someone else? Someone you’re looking to beat? Someone who’s against you? You can say whatever you want to get me onto your side but at that point it’s not about you doing the right thing, it’s about you beating the other person.
No thank you. Actually, I will go speak to them personally as well before making any decisions so I know the full story/perspective. I want to make it clear that neither side is innocent here, you both do it, which makes it even harder for me to actually pick.
Yes, inaction can certainly be framed in an “us vs them” way, where not picking a side is being an enemy and if you would like to do so, then please, by all means go ahead; I can’t stop you.
“You have to vote for [X]! [Y] is a bad person”
*sigh* I see we’ve resorted to character attacks now.
The content of one’s character is a valid point when determining who you would like to align yourself with (especially if that person is representing you), I am not contesting that.
However, I take every single mention of someone’s character with a grain of salt. This is especially true when talking in our current context (or a similar one), which is concerning the president of the United States.
I don’t put a lot of weight into these comments for a few reasons.
Once a character attack comes into play I know that you likely have nothing to say about what a person has done. There are assholes in the world and there are many reasons why you may/may not like a person but when it comes to being President, I don’t care about that. I care about what they have done and why they did it. And what they will do and what they’re going to do and why they’re doing these things If they are working for the same interest or have proper justifications for their actions I couldn’t care less about what they are like socially.
And just to be perfectly clear, when I speak about what someone does or doesn’t do, I’m referring to what they do while they have power, while they’re in office, their policies.
I don’t care about the personal lives of these people because that’s their business. That’s none of my business, that’s none of your business, that’s nobody’s business (their personal life).
What’s your business is what affects you, so that’s their policies, not how they live their personal life. People who vote smart look at the policies, because this is how you can convince people, with things that affect them personally.
Who a person is on a personal level doesn’t affect anybody.
You can say that their ideas and the way they live, the person that they are and people saying that, condones their behavior. But I would have to disagree, I don’t think that that one’s persons ideals represents everyone’s ideals that voted for that person because most people are voting on policy. That person’s ideals and the way that they live is to them. It doesn’t represent anyone else, it just represents that one specific person. So if you have problems direct it at the person, not the people that voted them.
What a person does in their personal life is their freedom to do, so long as it doesn’t hurt another person. So long as it’s within the confines of the law.
So why have a problem with what you can’t help?
They have the freedom to be whoever they want to be and they’re just gonna be it until they learn way they shouldn’t be like that– which is us kindly informing them on the ways humans should be these days. But even then, telling someone how they should be is infringing on their free will, and not good.
We can kindly suggest, we can question, we can propose… but we can’t make anybody do anything.
I think once one accepts that I think a lot of the emotions that may have been riding them, can calm down.
One last thing that I think a lot of people are having trouble coming to terms with. Is that there are people out in the world a good lot of them, and these are the smart people I would say— they look at the whole picture, they just don’t stare at what some people say is a good or bad thing.
#1 They look at it themselves and decide for themselves based on their own morals
#2 They look at the whole picture, so they look at each SEPARATE thing, and decide OVERALL if this person is good or bad, whether they want to be involved with them, whether they vote for them in this case… things like that.
When speaking of people in the spotlight and media these comments lose even more weight to me.
This is because media and all parties speaking on this person are biased, and let us not forget– the media has an agenda.
If you don’t believe that, then you are choosing to live in ignorance. People own these services, big people, and they have their own interests. When anyone begins to disparage someone’s good name, I always begin to question “Why?”– there could be a myriad of reasons as to why this could be and I won’t get into it now, but I will present you with a question:
How many times have you heard negative things about a person/place/thing and, upon thoroughly experiencing it yourself, realized that the person who was telling you negative things was wrong? How many times has that experience been a result of that person having their own personal shallow personal dispositions? Or a lack of understanding?
The media, and yourself, have no idea who this person is and the majority of them haven’t spent any time with, let alone met this person personally. How can you judge them or hold any weight to these claims when it is all just hearsay?
Most people commenting on character are solely regurgitating what they hear from the mainstream media who are biased and trying to sell you a narrative. I wouldn’t mind people speaking on character should they watch media from all places and form an opinion from that, but far too often (definitely the majority of the time) people are only learning from one media/news source (or multiple sources with the same point of view). Or they’re listening to another source that tells them what sources to listen to. GO LOOK YOURSELF and then decide, go listen, and I mean REALLY listen. listen for like a week or a month and look regularly. And if you spend all that time and you still don’t wanna do it, well then fine, now you know. But you don’t know ANYTHING based on what somebody else tells you, I’m sorry but you don’t.
Let’s continue on.
I’ve also never voted because I have yet to be somewhere that I can really call home.
This is a smaller reason, but it is valid and also must be stated so you can have further understanding of my personal predicament and thoughts concerning it.
I have never felt like I was at home where I was.
I always knew I would be leaving Texas upon finishing school, I really needed to go experience new perspectives and ways of living. Things happen in the cities, and not in the (I say this with love) hodunk quaint little town where I’m from.
Any voting I could have done while I was living in Texas falls under the point above but also I realized that the votes I could have cast in my time there could have effects on the people when I wasn’t even a resident there. Why should I have any voice over what happens in my community if I’m not going to be living in it?
This reasoning translated to Arizona where I went to school for only a year, I didn’t feel my voice to be worthy there either.
This reasoning has still stuck with me through my five past years in New York as well, they say it takes ten years to become a full fledged New Yorker– I’m pretty sure my intake was accelerated due to living here through intense protests as well as a global pandemic.
In my five years of living here, I still don’t know the layout of Manhattan as well as others, you can say the name of a borough and I’ll have no idea, I have never really been to the Bronx or Queens. Queens, maybe 5-10 times.
My understanding of New York and its inner-workings is so minuscule that again, I still don’t feel like my voice should be lent or have any say in what goes on in New York– even more so when I consider that this place will not become my permanent home.
Regardless of what I believe, if I do not have proper knowledge of what it means to be a resident of that place and if I don’t feel like a place is truly my home— my voice is not worthy and should not be contributed to the discussion regarding actual government/legislation of residents. To me, this is immoral on so many levels.
I think we would do well to instigate a transition period when people change homes where they can’t vote till they have the proper knowledge of where they’re living and only after a certain period of living there to help mitigate things changing just because a bunch of people move there from somewhere else, but what do I know…?
The biggest reason I have never voted:
While I didn’t used to have any time/desire/confidence to vote and know that I was aligning my voice in a way that was true to myself and my own ideas about America, what I did have was faith and trust.
I trust my fellow Americans. I trust them with my whole heart.
I had faith/trust that where I was weak, others were strong. I had faith/trust that no matter what, even if tensions run high that we would be able to make it though this. Faith/trust that there are others who are smart enough to do what I couldn’t.
I felt like even if I wasn’t contributing, that there were enough good people sailing the ship that even if I weren’t able to help that they would be able to handle it and keep it on and going. This is because we are all on the same ship and it is in ALL of our best interests to make sure that it stays afloat. Theoretically, anything completely unreasonable, or anything that may cause the ship to sink will be stopped by everyone because our number one motivation is to stay above water and we ultimately know what is acceptable/unacceptable for us. It should be and mostly is a safe bet, you may disagree but that is because you don’t see and think the same way I do, you are fine to disagree.
I trusted people because they’re smart, say what you like but no matter what side of the isle you’re on there are smart and intelligent people on BOTH sides and, while we’re not able to always agree on some things, everyone should be able to see when something is detrimental to us as a people/country/nation.
UPDATE 25 Aug 2022: Consider the below stricken through words removed. I need to update this article to align with the new feelings I’ve grown about this since it was written. I will do that when I’m able. Poke me about it if I forget.
You may have noticed that the majority of this last section that I just chiseled out is mainly in past tense– you see these are no longer my feelings any more.
What this last election has showed me is that far too many people are susceptible to manipulation and group-think. There are too many of you who do not question things properly, do not set aside their emotions to have civil discourse, do not look at things from multiple perspectives. Far too many people do not think critically enough.
I’m not sure about all of you, but I was taught to think before I act.
How long did you wait before deciding which horse you’d like to back? What research did you do? Did you think before you spoke or did you just grab someone’s hand and jump in with everyone else?
“What thinking is there to be done? It’s obvious.” – You may say
No, no it is not obvious.. not by a long shot.. There is much thinking to be done, and if you don’t think so then I beg you to please, look again and continue to look until you see it. You will see small flickers that will peak your interest, things that may prompt you to ask questions– ask them, follow this curiosity.
It took eight years of critically thinking and watching for me to finally decide that my voice is ready to be thrown into the cacophony. Eight years to form my opinions and solidify my view points of the world and stand ready to defend them. I would still rather not have to be a part of the conversation going forward, but at this point in time there are too many things in flux, there are too many things that don’t make sense for me to not lend my voice to the conversation and raise questions myself.
Rest assured, I will be voting in every election I can going forward.
In summary,
I hope this article has shown you a different perspective. I hope it has shown you that there are many reasons why someone may or may not do something. It is so tiresome to me to have both sides of the isle shaming people who don’t want to participate or those who have reasonings such as mine to be vilified for not adhering to the status quo. I find these reasonings to be perfectly acceptable and if you disagree, well that’s your right.
Things I have said here may have resonated within yourself or maybe with some others who have come to mind.
It’s very possible you had similar sentiments as mine regarding a certain group of people in the world and you felt aligned with my comments regarding them.. If that is the case I have one question for you.. How do you know that the people I was referring to.. isn’t you?
All the best,
FCP 🙃
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