EDITORIAL: You Will Not Guilt Me Into Voting

(Me succumbing to the 2008 Voting propaganda)

 

        The last time I voted, the United States of America was on the cusp of change. I wore my “I Voted” sticker proudly on my hat not just for that day but for months after until the ink faded, and the adhesive dissipated and it fell off. The last ballot I cast helped ensure the moral magnanimity of this country and helped this country realize the dreams of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution and all of the Civil Rights legislation. I was apart of history! Pinch me we are not dreaming anymore Martin Luther King Junior! We made it to the mountaintop! The sparrow has flown out of view! Every voice that lifted sung! 2008, the first year of the American utopia! I cannot believe my vote did all of that... How amazing! The power of the vote! My vote is powerful my vote can bring about change.

        At that time, I wasn't truly that optimistic. In fact, I was a highly questionable voter. I was leaning more towards not voting but reasoned with myself and voted for the "black" candidated. I will openly admit that I only voted for the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee because he was "black". I hate that I did. I regret it frankly because I knew better. His being Black was the only reason I could find because what his message was too altruistic and his political experience did not bolster an image of some higher consciousness political idealist. He essentially came out of nowhere. I'm a poet and also a student of history so I understood all that flowery language as bullshit.  I would get into very heated and intense arguments with friends who challenged my distaste for the Trojan Horse that would be the first half non-white immigrant President of the United States of America. Me wearing that sticker was an oxymoron. I wore it waiting for that sticker to mean what all the idealists and morally righteous said it meant, absolutely understanding that was pure delusion. I was hoping that sticker meant that the world would be alright and all I had to do was vote for the right person, absolutely understanding that the right person will almost certainly be a tyrant or at the very least lead us on the road to accepting tyrannical figures.

        I must be upfront and announce that I am apolitical, which essentially means that my political ideology is some amalgamation of the ideologies of the American political dichotomy, the political system in which I am subjected.  That does not mean I am in the “middle” or that I align my political ideologies with any platform on the “right” or “left” that holds steadfast in the consciousness of society.  It also does not mean that I cannot align myself with other ideologies outside of the sinister political dichotomy or any political ideology outside of the American political spectrum.  My only ideology is Black empowerment, that's all I ask from my candidates. But in this system, most candidates are for Black genocide no matter their race or creed and I have the political record to back me up. So as a sane man, despite all attempts to label me otherwise, I cannot vote for any of these people. No way.

        Actually, let me come at this differently. Every four years people attempt to guilt the universe into voting. They make these grandiose claims that if you don't mail in your ballot or stand in line for six hours on November 3rd not only are you the scum of the earth (despite them arguing for you to vote for the scum of the earth) you are also going to automatically die the day after the election. No, now you're not only going to die, but you're also going to kill a lot of other people around the country too. Now, I'm complicit in millions of deaths because I didn't vote, or better yet because I voted for Trump. I specifically attach that to him because people who are voting for Biden have automatically ascribed themselves the moral high ground. When one could argue that a vote for Biden is actually validating how Biden's Law decimated the black community and actually can be correlated with the rampant militarization of the police (that people want to defund, by the way, Biden doesn't!). People act like the police were militarized four years ago. It took the black community decades to get to this moment and Biden helped exacerbate an already destitute position... Anyways, I always write a political essay every four years to this effect, this very post upholding the ritual. But every four years I can't wait to tell those corrupt system propagandists outside of grocery stores with petitions that need to be signed "I'm not registered". Every four years is when this bombardment of virtue signaling about voting comes to the fore and people get to feel like Gods because they let you know that they voted for something or against something or someone. They don't know what or who that is but I do. That's why I don't vote.

        Why is it only every four years that I'm told I am going to be instantly incinerated the day of the election if I don't vote. There are elections all the time it seems and most of the people have not and will not EVER vote in a local election. How many people clamoring for you to vote and "shaking in rage" because you are not voting like them have even voted for the Mayor of their city or town? If you look at the election results for most cities around the country most of them have not. I also don't vote because you must be an educated voter, you must know who is working in your interests and what they are doing and are going to do to ensure that your interests are fulfilled. And this election most people are voting either against someone or to prevent something, a lot of doomsday projecting (not saying that it isn't valid because if you believe in Biblical prophecy it seems like it's almost that time but I think a lot of this is media projection and fear-mongering). 

An aside: Despite the reason for the last vote I cast, I reject identity or some incidental characteristic about an official meaning that the official will do what is best for the people that they are incidentally linked and characterized. Hitler killed a lot of white people, Mao killed a lot of Chinese... some of the most ardent homophobic people are homosexual... "What about Black on Black crime?" You get my point? 

I feel like I am an intelligent person (sometimes I feel like I’m being laughed at all the time for thinking this way, and that I am a perpetual jester), and as an intelligent person, it does not make sense for me to vote for someone whose interests are antithetical to mine own.  Not only do these candidates have nothing in mind for my interests neither do the parties they represent. I will not believe in the illusions, well outright lies, that they will propagate to attempt to get my vote. The distortion of history for their political record, the twisted fact checks. I will not be caught up in this “I want to be on the winning team” mentality that these political gangs adopt. I most definitely will not be guilted into voting because some other group and/or political interests, interests will be negatively affected. This is about my interests.

We have been conditioned to treat politicians like the latest technology, the latest nonsensical critical theorist ideology, the food in a nationally branded grocery store or restaurant, to accept what they are offering blindly. Blind acceptance, compliance, submission. Politicians often have a much longer shelf life than they’re in vogue technological counterparts (because the heartrate of the latest tech must exceed that of its creator) but the flaws and malfunctions and corrupt script of the politicians are accepted, in tech not so much. Most people have more complaints and will do more about Siri not advising the greatest raisin bread recipe of all time on the first command than hold their old ass bullshit politician accountable for ANYTHING. 

Most politicians are like someone using an Atari nowadays and claiming anything it does or computes has relevance to the current reality,  you know it doesn't, but it does have relevance to your reality, in fact, it is creating your reality. You think that technology means progress just like you think voting means progress. 

        Just do this. I can do this in my head, but you should take out a piece of paper and write down not just the qualities of each candidate (you should be doing this anyway, and with all the candidates and laws and initiatives on the ballot) you should be educated and understand exactly what you're voting for because once you cast that ballot you as the voter are consigning everything that politician does. Because your vote is their permission! And it does not matter that they're liars now because we have political history to show us that is the character of a politician, especially these two candidates. Even our own art and our own sense of understanding of morality understand how seedy and just gross politics is. But just complete this exercise using the political parties and the rumors and facts and everything associated with any candidate at any level just recently, in the modern consciousness, forget about history. Write down names of the People aligned with these parties, write down the legislation/movements/platforms they support or profess to support, then evaluate them as people, what they have done,  what they have said, and who they are aligned with. List only verifiable information about the parties. Tally that up and make a moral judgment. In my estimation, if any moral judgment other than most of these people are deplorable scumbags is your assessment your moral compass has malfunctioned. 

        All the verifiable things are just... I'm speechless... that is not to mention all the Eyes Wide Shut, Bacchinalian rights type of rumors that have been hinted at for decades but have not been officially verified. All of that is coming to light slowly but soon everyone will be illuminated to who these politicians truly are.  The masses watch shows on Netflix about politics and politicians and how degenerate they are (the actors portraying political figures degenerate as well) and people have faith in these people to do anything other than what is in the politician's own interests. How can so-called good people, fighting for climate change because it affects all of us,  fighting against homophobia and misogyny, the movements against sexual assault and all this supposed greater good bullshit look to either of these two people as their absolution? Even if you understand they cannot absolve any of those problems the fact that you try to make people feel guilty for not voting like you when you get to choose between to unadulterated scumbags is pure human egoism. 

        It's interesting watching this election expose just how relative morality is. Morality has a varying scale. For example, as long as you've may have allegedly sexually assaulted one woman (and sniffed a bunch of others) that's okay because the person you're running against has dozens more. I just do not understand how people are making these moral assessments. There is a hierarchal morality scale only employed when your own interests are challenged? No one truly believes in the greater good, as in the betterment of their fellow man, woman, and child. It is only about the furthering their own personal interests. And that is the point of voting, so these people who are begging, chastising, shaming, doing whatever they can to get me to vote in their best interests cannot gain any type of moral or righteous positioning in my mind. In fact, that position in my eyes is becoming more odious by the moment. 

Another aside: Not voting is not a vote for Trump! You know what a vote for Trump is? Count up the votes (if you can find them) after the election.

        I have not voted since 2008 and that optimism that all those adulated that change was here, doing backflips and cartwheels down avenues, believing in the many exalting words that were projected from a mirage. The 2008 election also illuminates how racist this country is. This nation and the masses of people assumed that a Black man whose lineage does not come from slavery in the United States of America is some absolution to centuries of problems that have not begun to be eradicated. These problems have only exacerbated. Slavery did not end anything it was the beginning of a new offensive against the black community.

I am not going to outline any argument against either party or candidate. You all can sift through that sewer, that muck and find some shining light, find some, any reasoning that will enable you to vote with a clear conscience. Do what is best for your interests and wear that sticker. 

        But I will not be bullied into voting against my interests, which again is Black empowerment. Trump and the Republicans are against my interests and so are Biden and the Democrats. I will not ascribe some varying moral compass to their crimes, I will not construct some scale where I have to rate their crimes from least offensive to most. Instead, I will be a good American, I will put my head down and work hard, I will do all I can for my family, I will respect and the defend the rights of my neighbors and my fellow citizens and all within our borders IF they do the same with my interests and me. I will not vote to be benevolent and help others' interests, whose interests are antithetical to mine. 

       The voters meet the candidates and initiatives for the first time at the ballot box. So when it takes decades to finish that freeway that went through your neighborhood or for some reason that candidates family and distant relatives businesses get all the government contracts,  you know who let that happen? You the voter! 

        I want people to do what's best for them. I do not judge anyone who votes but I do think that if anyone actually thinks that they are morally superior to another person or that they are doing some sort of good thing or some vital service or they are bettering humanity by voting especially for these presidential candidates they are the most despicable person in society, the moral relativist. If those voting think that they can negatively judge those of us who actually are critiquing the candidates and the system and are boycotting the citizens' signature on what these politicians have been doing to this nation, they are moral cowards with no conviction. 

        Again, take my taxes, I will abide by all just laws (your votes) and so will my family but I will not announce my complicity, I don't want any culpability or at least direct culpability in the crimes that are committed by the people who are being elected. So if we are all in on the murder, which we are, if you vote you're getting 2nd Degree you are a co-conspirator, if you're like me and you're a conscientious objector, Involuntary Manslaughter. I do not feel guilty for not voting at all but maybe you should.