[at-l] Voting and Citizenship, some final thoughts.....

[baltimorejack@hotmail.com (Jack Tarlin)]

    My first response on reading Malcolm Fuller's extraordinary post was to
send him a private letter advising him to upgrade the level of security at
his home and office, as it was evident that some wretched simpleton had
figured out how to access his computer and was trying to embarass him.  As a
courtesy, I thought I should inform him of this unfortunate situation.

   Then, God forbid, I realized he was serious.  A minute later, I heard
from Steve; something about wanting to pour molten lead into my eyes.  Geez,
and I thought all I was doing was telling folks that voting was a good idea.
  Didn't realize I had been advocating something so horrible.  What fun mail
to come home to!  Sure glad the dogs are healthy and everyone in the house
can shoot!

   Well. I lack both the time and the inclination to deal with this
ridiculous correspondence line by line; this honors the unworthy.  But to
Malcolm, let me say this:

   For the sake of argument, Malcolm, let's forget Thoreau, who you
incidentally don't seem to know a whole hell of a lot about.  Thoreau a
fire-breathing anarchist?   Hardly.  His "wilderness" experience at Walden
consisted of building a cabin in his family's back yard in suburban Concord,
an area that had ceased to be wilderness 175 years before; he had visitors
from town almost every day, and he made it clear theye were more welcome if
they brought food and treats;  when he went home to see the folks, he always
brought along a couple of big sacks of laundry, like a college freshman
coming home for Thanksgiving.  Yeah, some anarchist.  A real revolutionary,
lemme tell ya.  If he wasn't getting in a hissy fit over war in Mexico, then
he was berating the family maid for over-starching his shorts.  Yeah, whatta
rebel.  Gosh, Henry David is absolutely my hero and role model, and I'll
haveta start quoting him more often, especially when I wanna score some
Internet points on an outdoorsy environmentalish sort of website.
  Seriously, it's amazing how he's venerated today by folks who either
mis-read his works or know little about the man's actual life.  But what the
hell, what you SAY isn't important, it's who you quote that matters, and
Thoreau is always impressive.

    Anyway, forget Thoreau, Malcom, and forget the 1840's.  Let's talk about
last week.  Do you honestly, for one minute, think it doesn't matter who
occupies the White House?  Or who controls the Senate and the House?  Or who
picks supreme Court Justices or appoints Federal judges?

    Let's look at just one example.  The Senate is almost deadlocked.  When
the Senate splits 50-50 on a decision, Malcolm, the deciding vote is cast
(and more often than you think) by the Vice Preseident, one of whose duties
it is to preside over that body.  The sitting Vice-President, Dick Cheyney,
is an extremely conservative man.  When serving in Congress, his only
memorable piece of legislation was an attempt to allow unlimited
snowmobiling in America's National Parks.  Geez, Malcolm, I REALLY want
somone like this making decisions on crucial environmental matters, don't
you?   Oh, sorry, you don't care, because you think it doesn't matter who
the vice-president is, who runs Congress, who decides where we go to war,
etc.  Gee, sorry, I forgot.  People that pull levers on election day,
according to you, are "retards", and people that disagree with you are
"fools."

    Geez, enough of this, I'm not sure what the point is in continuing.   I
could point out that one recent race for the US senate was decided by 527
votes.  In other words, Malcolm, if 500-odd people in South Dakota had
gotten off their lazy complacent asses and voted, it would've made a VERY
big difference on election day.  And all across the country, dozens of other
races were decided by similar, or even smaller margins.  And this happens
EVERY election season, by the way, and not just this year.  To deny that
crucial elections are annually decided by very small ammounts of individuals
who took the trouble to participate---well, to deny that is to deny reality.

    I've said enough on this; if Malcolm wants to continue this dialogue and
have the last word, he's welcome to it.  Will close by saying this:  This
whole thread came about because someone took it upon themselves to remind us
to vote, and they did this in an in-offensive, non-partisan way.  They
didn't tell us WHO to vote for, or what issues we should think about.  All
they said was that we should take two minutes on Tuesday and vote.
Malcolm, in addition to saying "No, Thanks!" took it upon himself to let us
know how well-read and erudite he was by quoting H.D. Thoreau.  I then
pointed out that Thoreau was a hypocrite; his alleged political awareness
was fraudulent, and that if he truly cared about such things as the
expansion of slavery or an imperialistic war in Mexico, that perhaps his
energies would've been better spent in making sure his state and nation were
led by better people; in short, Thoreau might've been happier if he helped
pick his country's leaders instead of whining later about their performance.

   Anyway, that's where this thread is at right now.  Here's my last word on
the subject:  Malcolm, if you wanna buttress your argument, find someone
worthier to quote than Thoreau.  And secondly, if you choose not to
participate on election day, that's entirely your privilege, as I said
before.  But it's tiresome to see non-voters talking politics, and
pretending to be be politically aware and involved.  You're not involved if
you don't vote, and your political "awareness" is fraudulent.  Your opinion
doesn't matter.  You can blather all you want about fools and retards,
Malcolm, but here's the news:  You're not occupying the moral high ground
here, in fact you're not occupying ANY ground.  If you're not interested in
picking your representatives and legislators, then you've no right to
discuss their performance---in short, nobody cares about your opinion.  If
it makes you feel good to insult people, Malcolm, well, fine.  Enjoy it.
But if you think for one minute that your recent post has elevated either
you or your position, you're mistaken.

    In short:  If you're represented, at either a local, state, or national
level, by a good man or woman; a person whose character, sensibilities, and
intelligence are clear and apparent---well, it's obviously in your best
interest to help that person keep their job.  And likewise, if you're
represented by an incompetent or a scoundrel, then it's obviously in your
best interest to get off your ass and help to get someone else elected in
their place.  Well, that's what voting is all about.  If you care enough to
participate, I salute you.  If you don't----well, you're really not worth a
moment's thought.

And with that, I happily withdraw from this discussion, and look forward in
future posts to discussing Trail matters.   My apologies for the long
Off-Topic posts, but sometimes this happens.   If anyone else has an opinion
on this, feel free to send it along.










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