Despite all my hard work, lectures, daily phone calls, and threats to never speak to either one of them again (which has become incentive, I'm sure), I have two family members who refuse to vote this year. Flat out refuse.
Both are men, unrelated to one another (other than by my parents defunked marriage thirty some-odd years ago), both are intelligent and customarily engaged with and concerned about politics. However they couldn't be more wildly different in every other way--from temperament to registered party and socio-economic status--so I find it interesting (and infuriating) that their reasons for sitting out are exactly the same.
They share the opinion that "The System" and "The Government" have become irreversibly corrupted, a handful of corporations and the patrician elite run the world unchecked, and the presidency itself is a sham, a cover-up, since any candidate is ultimately beholden to the Satans with whom they were forced to lie in order to run for the fake post in the first place, and from whom they will be receiving orders when they're in office. The short form: It doesn't matter. The world will spin along as per the design of the puppet-masters, and you're fooling yourself if you think pulling a lever in a booth somewhere will have any effect over the outcome. In the least.
So you see my struggle. It's kinda hard to argue with that. The usual suspect platitudes are out the window: you can't use the If you don't vote, you can't bitch line, or a speech about voting being a right people have died to grant us. And forget about pointing out how if we're all going to Hell in a hand-basket, we should, at a minimum, give a shit about whose basket we're riding in. Even a protest vote, a Nader vote, or a write-in is useless to a person who thinks the only way it would be counted is after a civil war. The truth is, I don't disagree with their dismal assessment of things, but letting the bastards break you is not the way deal with it. I'll go so far as to say, it's what (the proverbial) THEY want.
I've tried every appeal. I'm spent.
Suggestions?
Posted by Antigeist at October 25, 2004 10:31 AMI've taken to aiming an assault weapon at people who say they're not gonna vote and screaming "VOTE OR I SWEAR TO GOD I'LL BLOW YOUR FUCKIN' HEAD OFF!". It doesn't work, but it makes me feel better.
Posted by: monk at October 25, 2004 12:35 PMThen why even fucking brush your teeth? Or eat? What's the goddamn point in ANYTHING?
Be the change you want to see in the world, or something.
You maybe want to initiate a competitive knife game, you know, just to get their hearts beating again.
Posted by: Red Ghost at October 25, 2004 01:55 PMI know. I've even gone the route of "I don't care if you *gulp* vote for Bush, the important thing is that you vote."
Family member #2 just sniggered at that one, said, "C'mon, you expect me to believe that?"
What can I say? He had me.
Posted by: antigeist at October 25, 2004 02:01 PMyou're related to KRS-ONE?
Posted by: Vidiot at October 25, 2004 04:27 PMAren't we ALL related to KRS-ONE...
Posted by: antigeist at October 25, 2004 07:50 PM