The title of this post is a bit misleading, to say the least. Really, this is more of a guide for how to vote based on my experiences in the past 12 years of voting every year and finding out that nothing really changes for the better. And believe me, in 12 years, things could have gotten a lot better as my own life has gotten much better in that span of time.
I’m going to be honest: I have not paid much attention to the current election year. The fact is, when I have little regard for even the third party candidates, I have no desire to hear them out. I don’t like Gary Johnson because he is not a libertarian as a true libertarian would reject marriage as an institution of the State. I could go on about the inadequacies of the other other candidates, but I thought I would point out the one everyone probably assumes I’m picking.
In any case, my guide for this year is simple: either don’t vote or write your name in. On top of that, vote against any ballot initiatives that expand the scope of the local and state governments. This is why I recommend that people do vote, largely because those ballot initiatives are a drag on the local economies. I would say vote “no” to all of them, but sometimes they are worded in a manner where preventing the expansion of government requires a “yes” vote.
As for writing your own name in, I highly recommend doing this instead of not voting. If the 90 million people who don’t vote all just wrote their own name in for all of the candidate positions (if their state allows it), then you would see a massive shift in politics that the overlords could not ignore. When you do not vote, you basically are passively accepting the rule of the State by stating that you don’t care what they do, no matter how absurd or idiotic their laws and mandates truly are. At the very least, you are telling them that you know better than the State-approved morons who are presented as the only choice you have.
This kind of thing will cause the leaders of both major parties to reassess what they are dealing with and recognize the non-voter as someone who could, given the right motivation, vote for them provided the shape up and start doing what they are supposed to be doing.
Of course, that’s probably just a pipe dream. But I think it is necessary for me to simply write my own name in on all the candidate boxes and leave it at that. I would hope that many others would follow suit, but I doubt even one person will take the advice of some obscure blogger.
But if you do vote for anyone with whom you do not agree with at least 85% of the time, then you are a sell-out and a hack.