Re:Get Informed (Score 1)

Why don't I vote anymore? I don't have much real choice when I look at what's being offered. Propositions that are either "Yes" or "No" are an exception to this statement. Reelection of judges (again, sort of a "Yes" or "No" option) are not quite as comprehensive - it isn't clear what a preponderance of "No" votes entails.

As for voting that gives me a choice of "Candidate A" versus "Candidate B," the "choice" I'm offered is, in a realpolitik sense, no choice at all. Until I have the option of a "Neither" vote that has real consequences (for example, the office remains vacant and neither candidate is permitted to run again until the office is filled by a "Not-A and Not-B" person) then all such selections are meaningless. They provide no incentive for any party to get its act together and actually respond to the wishes of the people, because we in the U.S. don't have a Constitutional fall-through to deal with the very realistic cases of unacceptably low voter turnout or its vocal equivalent, the extreme no-confidence vote. I don't think the current state of the election process is what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they set about establishing the Republic. And I reject the assertion that this mess is what the soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen of the past and present fought and died for. Instead it is the living that have so spitefully and wantonly degraded our political process to the place it find itself today. Fans of Heinlein's book Starship Troopers, can I get an Amen?

So, you can say period, end of story all you want. Until I am offered a full frame of discernment (those of you who have studied Dempster-Shafer Theory, or evidential reasoning, will know what I'm talking about) on my ballot, I won't come back. Let the stupid and the smart fight it out with hot dogs and doughnuts, because that's all that's available under the current system. I'll still get fed the same junk anyway and I can ignore the entire process, saving myself from no end of aggravation and disgust along the way. At least I don't have to feel like I actually affirmed the grand vision of some corrupt greedy dingbat degenerate when all I really wanted was to prevent an even more corrupt greedy dingbat degenerate from holding the same office.

In summary: a choice for the evil of two (or more) lessers (I jumbled your statement intentionally, I like my version better) is no choice at all. I shall abstain ad infinitum until I can effect change by voting "No Confidence" across the board. Go ahead, mod me bitter...