Leadership to Freedom

Should you vote because that is your right? Should we be voting because people fought for our right to vote? Is it our responsibility as a citizen to make our voice heard by voting?

I believe it depends. First and foremost I believe in freedom of choice, and that no one should be forced one way or the other. In some cases i would say people shouldn’t vote, while in others they should. In all cases I believe it is up to the person himself that is responsible for that decision; even if I don’t think you should vote, I should not be able to take that ability away from you, nor should anyone else.

So when is voting the right thing to do?

It is right when you are informed about what is going on, and about what each party plans on doing. When you know how each party stands, and understand the consequences of each parties stated goals – then you have the responsibility to make your voice heard. When you know what you’re talking about, you can make a good educated decision. This however does not mean you need to vote, and I’ll explain why in a bit.

Let’s first look at why it might be wrong to vote.

A vote is a statement, saying you want that particular person or party in power speaking for you (realizing that they speak and act on their own beliefs or interests, and not yours.) so if you don’t even know what the parties stand for, and you don’t know what they will do, it is basically a random vote you are placing; this can be considered wasted. I say wasted because it has no meaning to you. If you have your head in the sand, oblivious to everything that is going on, then what are you really saying with your vote? You can end up putting people in power that no one really wants. You might put someone in power that would do everything you disagree with, all because you liked his teeth, leaving you to complain about the very person you voted for. The other wasted aspect of it, is that you would be stopping those that have done their research from having much sway by diluting the quality of the votes. My point is not to say that you should never vote if you are not informed, but that you should start the learning process. Get to the point of being able to make an educated decision before placing a vote. I think one of the biggest problems in our society today is that not many people know what is happening in our political climate, or why. Not too many people know the consequences of the different political platforms.

So why would you not vote if you did have an understanding of what is going on?

One reason is because you might not support any party or person running. If you vote for a party just because it is he lesser of the evils, then you are still giving voice to that evil. That person or party can stand up and say “I have the votes, so the platform I ran on is what the people want.” This is obviously not true, but it’s hard to argue against that statement. I believe that the best thing to do in these situations is to make your voice heard by NOT voting. Low voter turnout means that the parties are not offering anything the people want, and will force them to change, or allow a new party to start up offering something different; something good.

I’m not saying you should never go the route of voting for the lesser of evils. if there is a party that is REALLY against what you believe, it might be best to vote for a party that comes closer to your beliefs if it’s a close race. I strongly urge against this however, as it does send the wrong message in the end.

One thing that you should never do when voting is to discount the smaller parties that have very little or no chance of winning. Many people will look at this as a wasted vote, but remember that voting is about making your voice heard. It’s not just about electing someone. For example, if you lean towards not running a deficit, and only one party has this platform, it might be best to vote for them even if they are not up in the polls. By doing this, everyone will see the number of votes that party got. They might change their policies to fit that model, knowing that this is what people want. Remember that the goal of politicians is to stay in power, and will often do what it takes to stay there.

Let’s make it clear what we want and vote (or don’t vote) accordingly. Only when we are clear with our voting will we have a chance to influence the politicians to our way of thinking.