George Takei's Based Voting Take [Rule}
George Takei's Based Voting Take [Rule}
Image Transcription:
A tweet from the George Takei Twitter account which states:
"A Democrat was in the White House when my family was sent to the internment camps in 1941. It was an egregious violation of our human and civil rights.
It would have been understandable if people like me said they’d never vote for a Democrat again, given what had been done to us.
But being a liberal, being a progressive, means being able to look past my own grievances and concerns and think of the greater good. It means working from within the Democratic party to make it better, even when it has betrayed its values.
I went on to campaign for Adlai Stevenson when I became an adult. I marched for civil rights and had the honor of meeting Dr. Martin Luther King. I fought for redress for my community and have spent my life ensuring that America understood that we could not betray our Constitution in such a way ever again.
Bill Clinton broke my heart when he signed DOMA into law. It was a slap in the face to the LGBTQ community. And I knew that we still had much work to do. But I voted for him again in 1996 despite my misgivings, because the alternative was far worse. And my obligation as a citizen was to help choose the best leader for it, not to check out by not voting out of anger or protest.
There is no leader who will make the decision you want her or him to make 100 percent of the time. Your vote is a tool of hope for a better world. Use it wisely, for it is precious. Use it for others, for they are in need of your support, too."
End Transcription.
The last paragraph I find particularly powerful and something more people really should take into account.
You're viewing a single thread.
I think using a vote strategically is fine, but I also think not voting out of protest is fine.
The point of voting is it is your choice, and the logic for how each individual determines how to use it is not my concern.
Each vote accounts for so little impact on the political process that individually they are literally meaningless, but at the same time, that sentiment being held by too many people literally breaks the concept of voting from functioning entirely. It is almost paradoxical.
I think it is best to keep moral arguments and opinions about how other people vote to a minimum, and try to keep the conversation more about the candidates themselves.
Choosing not to vote is doing far more damage. Your protest is saying, "I don't mind if you're oppressed, my life is fine as it is."
One vote can only ever have one vote's worth of impact, which in almost all cases is completely negligible. I think it is an unfair exaggeration to say "far more damage". If anything, the risk is the act of trying to convince other people to not vote out of protest, which I am against the same way I am against implying a lack of a support for one party is somehow support for their main competitor. Strategic voting does not dictate morality.
Arguing about this and demanding people fall in line also contributes to voter apathy. The best way to motivate people to participate is to give them the freedom to come to their own conclusions.
Rugged individualism weaponized.
You have to spoil your ballot of you want to not vote in protest.
Every ballot that is cast is counted, even spoiled ones. But if you don't cast a ballot at all, it cannot be counted and no one will ever know of your "protest".
The only valid way to protest by not voting is to spoil your ballot.
I think using a vote strategically is fine, but I also think not voting out of protest is fine.
It's amazing how you contradict yourself in your first sentence.