more voting angst

"If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." - Emma Goldman (1869-1940)

I realize that I'm spending a lot of energy thinking about this whole voting thing and I can be spending that energy doing something more productive and stuff but I have three weeks to decide on this shit and it's important to me. I also realize that in the most likely scenario, I will end up casting a ballot. But why do I even feel that way? Am I so brainwashed that I will forego my ethics and be an active participant in the corrupt system?

I related it in this beautiful simile today. Okay, so it's not a great simile but it's helping me make sense of my situation here...

Voting for an elected official is like deciding who you want to punch you in the face. First, you have to decide who is least likely to lie about the fact that they're going to punch you in the face. You know that all of them probably will but some might have a lighter touch, so you have to consider that. Maybe they don't want to punch you in the face but at the end of the day, it will be their job. At the very least, they'll be standing a little off to the side, complicit in the fact that you're getting punched.

Then there's the guy in the corner with the green banner saying that they've never punched anyone in the face. But they also haven't had the chance to. And they probably won't get that chance.

Even people who wholeheartedly believe in democracy will tell you that politicians lie. Then the people who are critical of the current electoral system will tell you that the first past the post system does not create representative governments. And so we have to cast a ballot choosing between evil things so we can get someone to maybe not punch us in the face.

Great. Yeah. Sign me up.

If I check off someone's name and drop it in that box, isn't that me buying into the system? Isn't that me giving consent for someone to punch me in the face, even though I had the chance to pick who? Doesn't that make me a complicit member of the corruption that goes on every election and in the space between them?

Will someone please help me? I'm drowning in the gray area of my moral compass.