Malcolm: I don't know if you're a U.S. citizen; I guess not or you wouldn't be perplexed. Since you are clearly smart (and unlike some proponents of your views, rational), you should realize the cause and effect relationship between the pathetic choice U.S. voters have typically been offered over the last 30-40 years in presidential elections, and the situation you ponder:
when an obvious idiot is chosen by 49% of the voters and half of those who had the right to vote fail to do so, then I wonder how much effective education there has been.
Do you mean that Gore was such a no-brainer choice over the 2000 edition Bush (not the 2004 edition) that voters who disagree come off as uneducated? I voted for Bush (first Republican or Democrat vote by me for president, ever) knowing he was a not-too-bright and rather empty suit. I did so because I thought he would at least be honest, staunchly defend our national interest, and avoid foreign entanglements. Better, I thought, than another 4 years of the (far) lesser half of Clinton/Gore (that, from someone who thinks Clinton did a poor job as president).
O.K., so my passing fit of optimism about Bush was misplaced, but my revulsion at Gore, a statist dullard of a different stripe, was not. Faced with such a choice, or this year's sorry choice, it seems clear to me why 49% of the eligible don't vote. If you are not embracing big government and quibbling about the details and speed of its implementation, the similarities between nominally opposed statists such as Bush and Kerry are more alarming than their differences. There is good reason not to vote for either major party candidate.
I understand disagreement with my view of these pathetic nominees for our leadership. What I don't understand is people who can't grasp why others see them as pathetic and unworthy of a vote. We don't have to pick our ruler and ratify his status. Given a choice of one apple out of a barrel of bad apples, it makes sense to take a pass. Kerry and Bush are each awful in their own ways.
I think we're heading to an overdue economic accounting in the next 4 years, from an orgy of bipartisan spending and moral hazard, no matter who's in charge. I'm back to voting Libertarian. |
