Thursday, July 31, 2014

Don't Think Your Vote Matters?

Ask The Citizens of Gaza

Many people don't vote.  Their reasons (excuses, actually) vary: 
1. I forgot.
2. Who cares? They're all the same.
3. I don't understand the issues, so I don't want to cancel the vote of someone who does.
4. I would, but why bother? The other side is going to win, according to the pollsters. (Or my side is going to win anyway, according to the pollsters.)
5.  One vote doesn't matter, and besides I have to work.

The list is much longer, but the end result is the same: that person doesn't vote.

A vote matters.

To the non-voters, I say I don't want to hear you bitching about political matters.  You haven't earned the right to complain.

In 2006 the citizens of Gaza elected a slate of Hamas candidates to run their tiny country.  Now, most of the civilized world and even some Arab countries have Hamas at the top of their Terrorist Organizations list, right there with Al Qaeda.

So the citizens voted to be run by a terrorist organization.

Now they are dying - not for the first time - from Israeli artillery and air strikes, retribution brought about because over the years the duly elected Gaza government has fired more than 10,000 rockets into Israel, trying to kill its citizens.  Hamas, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, has sent kidnap teams into Israel, terror squads into Israel.

And now Hamas is being killed by Israel.  As they die, they hide their rockets and weapons in hospitals and schools and shoot at Israeli from those facilities, hoping that Israel will strike them and kill school children and hospital patients.  Israel does.  The photos show up on their accomplice network, CNN.  Hell, Hamas shoots their own citizens if they dare to object to having rockets launched from their front yard.

Hamas wants as many of their countrymen to die as possible.  A huge pile of children's corpses would be, in their view, a triumph.

While I wonder now how many of the Gaza citizens might have voted differently had they thought more than ten seconds about who Hamas is, I have no sympathy for them.  They elected this government, now they get to reap the whirlwind.  

There are, to your otherwise lovable Ostrich Killer's thinking, no innocent voters just as there are no innocent non-voters.

But these idiots have a way to save themselves: get rid of Hamas.  Seek them out, kill them wherever they are found.  Then hold new elections and see if they can join the community of civilized nations.

Don't think a vote matters?  Many Gaza citizens might now argue with that sort of mindless bullshit thinking.

But wait, some might say.  That's Gaza.  We're Americans.

Yes, we are.  Look who is President.  Look what he is doing.  He is LITERALLY singlehandedly and in direct violation of the Constitution destroying the United States, because that is what he wants to do.  And the majority of the electorate (voters) want him to do that.  Apparently, because they elected him.  Twice.

Makes me wonder about the oft-cited wisdom of the American voter.  There is scant evidence of significant populations of such creatures in our pop-culture saturated society.

A vote matters.  Yours.  Mine.  The neighbor's. Take it seriously, and use your brain instead of your emotions.  Think.

As usual, some of my readers may wonder if I have my facts right.  As usual, they are free to verify them for themselves.  That is what Google is for.

Now, another beer.  Too late for coffee.

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