I read today on Yahoo! News, that someone(s) are proponents of forcing every person in the country to vote.
Link to said article: Forced Vote
My reply:
Do me a favor, mister. Go to a poll managing class in your county, then be a poll manager (or assistant, or official, or no-goodnik, or whatever it's called wherever you live.) It would work better if you did it more than once, gained an inside perspective instead of a newbie inside perspective, but not exclusively necessary, I suppose. I have worked every election in my county for the past two years, and in June I'm going into top position in the polls (called clerk around here.) I have held lax clerks to the rules, studied the machines, studied the system, chafed about a 35-41.7% turnout, mused on ways to lift it. And I can tell everyone, this is nothing short of an unmitigated disaster of an idea.
We. Are. Not. A. Democracy. We are supposed to be a republic. There's a difference.
Quite aside from the fact that it completely negates the idea of freedom, compelling anyone to do anything - including sit on a jury, including buy health insurance - you simply cannot make everyone vote. Define everyone. Everyone over eighteen? Only men? Only whites? The president is president of men, women, black, white, every legal immigrant, every illegal immigrant, every child. Why not let children have a vote? Do they not count as everyone? Do they not have to obey the laws? Because I'm pretty sure I've seen a juvenile detention center. For that matter, why do you have to be over eighteen to run? Or 21? What's so special about those numbers, is it magic that on your eighteenth birthday you're suddenly so much more mature, and then on your 21st birthday you're even more mature?
Calling unmotivated voters out will not necessarily make them vote. They'll glance disinterestedly at the ballot, pick a person at random, and leave. Going with that, we might end up with the devil incarnate.
Databases are necessary, nitwit. We have to have a record of who has voted and who hasn't. Vote from home? Are you a mental case, or are you intentionally planning fraud? "Oh, I think I'll just go vote for Candidate A seven time and Candidate B four times, because I agree a little bit with both of them, and, let's see - oh yes! Candidate K, because I agree with her on one issue, I'll vote for her three times, because I like her three times as much as anyone of her competition-" Do you see the issue? Not to mention, if you vote from home, you'd only need the polls so the abstainers could come there to declare. A beautiful irony.
Politicians lie. How will making more people vote for them fix that?
Back to point 1. What's the point of making people vote? They will clearly no longer have the option to vote for freedom. If someone can compel you to vote, you're in a tightly controlled police/punishment state. Tax or imprison you because you wouldn't vote against your conscience, because there is no one decent on offer? It's one short step from making everyone vote, to making everyone vote for the same person, to abolishing voting. Wake up, America, 200 years ago, this man would've been shot or tarred and feathered. 100 years ago, even 50 years ago, he would've been laughed to scorn. Now we're taking him seriously. If this is implemented, it will be nothing short of calamitous. We've already lost our ability to travel uninsured. Our right to carry a gun is being severely infringed upon. If you don't wear a seat belt, you're ticketed. When you're in your car, you're in your own private property, the police don't have any authority to tell you to put on a seat belt. However, if you don't, you know what happens.
Where will it go from compelling to vote? Compelling to live in apartments? Children being trained only for the field of work chosen for them, and nothing else at all? Compelling political enemies into concentration camps, or warehouses? Removing all contact from the outside world? Reading emails? Wiretapping? Teargassing entire towns, where some citizens are more vocal, than in other towns? Murdering innocent babies? Blowing up oil pipelines? Suggesting children spy on their parents, and vice versa? All persons drafted into the military? Intentional food shortages? Bio-warfare? Domestic diseases introduced to control an inflated population?
Go ahead, hate on me, call me conspiracy theorist, call me narrow-minded, call me a gun-clinging, Christian bigot. Go ahead. But if push comes to shove, even if I'm not the last one standing, at least I'll be ready for the fight. Open your mind, think, just for a moment, if I'm right. Where will you be, what will happen to you?
Are you for it or against it? Please reply below, maybe even start a debate. A polite one, please, name calling does not prove your point.
