MuadDib

I believe very strongly in voting, but I can't pretend that sometimes it isn't an exercise in futility. I grew up in Nebraska and my vote did not count for all intents and purpose. Granted, I still went out and voted because I was hopeful, I did feel civically responsible to do it, I moreover felt it was the right thing to do, and it just made me feel good to do it. However, our system really wasn't made to accommodate a massive voting population and people who don't care for one reason or another shouldn't vote just because. I think it's much more important that politicians make people want to get out and vote so they do than people go out and vote just because they feel that they should. That way it makes politicians cater to the public, build a constituency, and thus create accountability. Civic participation and achievement are ideal and honorable to me, but for many that just isn't the case and voting for the sake of voting would truly create more harm than good as it would almost certainly result in uniformly undesirable political consequences and/or necessitate a complete revamping of our political system and all of the upheaval that would entail.

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"The courts that first rode the warhorse of virtual representation into battle on the res judicata front invested their steed with near-magical properties." ~27 F.3d 751