Why Most Voters Shouldn't Vote
Often
the most fanciful ideas become the least questioned assumptions. In this election season, a few have made
themselves apparent, such as the notion that “change” is good by definition and
“experience” is definitely good. Yet an
even better example is the oft-repeated platitude that greater voter participation
yields a healthier republic.
Ah,
I’ve transgressed against dogma, but let’s be logical. Most of us agree that having an educated
populace is a prerequisite for a sound democratic republic. We also know that not everyone is well-educated. Thus, it cannot be a good thing for everyone to vote. For those of you who had trouble following
that line of reasoning, please remember that Election Day is November 5.
And
one needn’t be disenchanted with universal suffrage to agree. It’s one thing to have one man, one vote;
it’s quite another to have one man, one obligation to vote. Yet we still hear that it’s our “civic duty”
to go to the polls. Well, no, actually,
it’s a civic duty to make ourselves worthy to do so.
This
“vote first, ask questions later” idea reaches the very nadir of inanity when
it manifests itself in get-out-the-vote drives, which can quite correctly be
defined as an effort to rally the idiot vote disguised as a noble exercise in
democracy. Yet whether the call to the
polls is organized or incidental, I would always make the same point: If people
don’t have the initiative to get out and vote without prodding, it follows that
they don’t have the greater initiative necessary to inform themselves on the
issues; thus, they shouldn’t vote. As I said years ago in “Get-out-the-dopes
Drives”:
“.
. . this is a problem that takes care of itself when we let nature take its
course. Those who don’t care may not
inform themselves, but more often than not a result of that will be that they
won’t vote, so no harm done. The problem
arises when we put the cart before the horse and encourage those who can’t yet
drive to take the wheel.”
This
is no minor point. When people don’t
vote, it’s for the same reason why they don’t repair cars, fly planes, or
perform brain surgery.
They’re
not interested in those things.
This
is important because, generally speaking, interest is a prerequisite for
competency. How often have you met
someone who became adept at something through disinterest? “You know, I don’t like playing the piano,
but one day someone convinced me to tickle the ivories, and my fingers started
playing Mozart’s Concerto No. 9.” When
you hear that, let me know.
Really,
we delude ourselves. We see a lot of
posturing about getting people “engaged in the process,” but it’s all talk. A process is just that, a process, “a systematic series of actions directed to some end” [1], while voting is
simply an action. Or perhaps we could say it’s a reaction – catalyzed by one’s own
knowledge and passion.
If
people really were interested in the health of the “process,” they would start
at the beginning of that “systematic series of actions” – which is the step
whereby you encourage people to care, study, and inform themselves – not at the
end with voting. They would understand
that once this step was tended to, people would naturally cast ballots, as it
is merely a by-product of personal political health.
Yet
we entertain the folly that for some mysterious, inexplicable reason everyone
should participate, that it’s a good thing, regardless of how ignorant or
ill-informed he may be. Well, why don’t
we apply this to other matters? We
might as well say that if everyone flies a jumbo jet, air travel will somehow
be better; we should assume that if everyone performs brain surgery, medical
care will somehow improve. Why? Well . . . participation is the answer! That is enough.
Does
it sound ridiculous? It’s no more so
than asserting that having everyone vote will yield a healthier nation. What we should do is take the Hippocratic
Oath: “First, do no harm.” This applies
not just to those too ill-informed to vote but also those ill-informed enough
to encourage them to do so.
You
can call me an elitist, but it’s getting easier to achieve that designation all
the time. Study after study after study has revealed an appalling
lack of historical knowledge among American youth – which carries over to
adulthood – and our grasp of significant current events is no better. Quoting author of The Age of American Unreason, Susan Jacoby, The Wall Street Journal writes,
“(One
poll that [sic] found more than three years into the
Moreover,
many aren’t any better at navigating the political map – some people don’t even
know the name of our vice president (hard to believe, but true). Despite this, there still are those who would
convince the uninformed to vote, even though when pulling the lever at a
polling place, the latter have no more grasp of the consequences of their
actions than if they were to pull one in a casino.
Yet,
when some encourage the ignorant to vote, there is method to their
madness. The people I speak of do in
fact care about the “process,” it’s just that their process – that “systematic
series of actions directed to some end” – probably isn’t the same as
yours. This is because they seek a very
different end: the attainment of power.
The
people I refer to are liberals.
It’s
well known that the greater the voter turn-out, the more likely it is that
liberal politicians will prevail. Thus,
liberals reason that low turn-out is bad because it’s bad for them. This, of course, means it’s good for
Many
will bristle at what I’ve said, but just take a look at how liberals plumb the
depths of the barrel for votes. They
want convicts and the homeless (many of whom are mentally ill, a perfect leftist
constituency) to vote; they aggressively get out the vote in urban wastelands,
their strongholds, which are plagued by crime, drug use, and high abortion
rates; and their constituencies are people such as homosexuals and others with
aberrant lifestyles. Liberals in
And
there is an irony here, one I’d like to ask our liberal friends about. I know you believe you’re much smarter than
we traditionalists, as you often attribute the embrace of our ideology to
stupidity. I was, in fact, once told by
a certain bit-part, liberal actor (forgive the redundancy) that I just wasn’t
as “evolved” as he was.
Thus,
I wonder about something. How is it that,
with few exceptions, the more degraded, immoral, criminally inclined, immature,
and ignorant voters are, the better it is for liberal candidates? If these normally apathetic people are in
fact voting correctly, as you liberals assert, to what do you attribute
it? Beginner’s luck? And does this make you liberals question your
ideology at all? Does it make you think,
even for a moment, that maybe you’re on the wrong side?
I
won’t hold my breath waiting for a good answer, but I will mention another
irony. Liberals are completely taken
with gun control; some of them even say that no one but the police should own
firearms. Yet they believe that people too
irresponsible to have their finger on the trigger should influence the choice
of who will have his finger on the button.
Selwyn Duke lives in
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