Get out and VOTE!!!
This isn’t strictly game related, but neither can anyone who follows game news deny the amount of play video games get in political circles. Video games are huge money, and the content of those games – especially some of the mature games that we have discussed here – makes for easy political fodder. We have seen recently in the whole ‘Mass Effect’ controversy that facts are no deterrent for someone trying to score points. But while we might not be happy with the situation, we are not powerless.
If you live in any of the 24 states having primary elections tomorrow, please get out and vote. Do not let any of the common complaints – ‘I have no time’, ‘I haven’t decided’, ‘my vote doesn’t matter’, ‘I don’t live in the USA’, ‘I already voted twice’, or whatever else stand in your way! Unless you are one of the Irritables, please make an effort to get out tomorrow and show these candidates that we are watching and listening, and that we do care – and that it is WE who ultimately decides what happens in this country.
Regardless of your critical issues: Iraq, the economy, taxes, health care, Britney Spears, CEO pay, alien abductions, oil company subsidies, or whatever … there is something for everyone to get geared up about. There are really only four candidates likely to get the nominations of the two major parties at this point – but as always, that doesn’t mean there are only four choices! Vote your conscience! Vote using whatever calculus matters to you – just vote. Or, if you are feeling so disillusioned and disenfranchised and whatever else, make the specific choice to NOT vote – apparently joining a significant amount of others. I find that interesting, given that there is absolutely no difference between an apathy abstention and a protest abstention to the corrupt incumbent who wins for the twelfth time in a row due to low voter turnout. But I support anyone who makes a choice and stands by that choice.
So please, whatever yor issue, whomever you support, find the time and get out and vote.
February 4th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
As someone who lives in one of the states (MI) that moved up their primary, my vote really doesn’t count. As punishment, we don’t seat any delegates at the convention. I still voted, anyway, thinking the national party may change their mind.
February 4th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
I really can’t believe that Florida and others messed with the dates in order to hopefully increase their leverage in the overall scheme of things … I’m still mixed on the whole ‘super Tuesday’ versus a longer campaign, but tossing away delegates like that …
February 5th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
I wish I was able to vote in the next election despite my belief that the winner is decided two onths in advance and that Democracy is this countries biggest problem.
February 5th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
Thankfully, we live in a Constitutional Republic, instead of a Democracy. What do you think is the solution?
February 5th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Unfortunately I’m (4 right?) years under age so I can’t. I would though but that might require me to do some research.
February 9th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Actually, I think “just get out and vote, no matter what!” is precisely the problem with our country. People who spend months researching the issues and carefully evaluating each candidate have their votes canceled out by the twit next door who heard it’s “really important” to vote, and picked the dude with the prettiest hair. The system is *supposed* to pick the best person to run the country. Instead, it picks the person who can *sell themselves* as the best person to run the country, and the two are almost never one and the same.
I don’t have a *much* better solution, but a simple quiz prior to voting (“The person you selected a) wants to build a border fence with automated sentry turrets, b) wants to give illegal aliens Social Security benefits, or c) doesn’t care”) would be a step in the right direction.