© originator of blogspot:aka Jandzhs, aka Jaņdžs
We suggest you view the links imbedded in these blogs as an integral part of our argument. It helps to better feel and understand the space we live in.
THE-NOT-VOTER
1 Introduction
What if...
they declared war and nobody came?
The answer is of course that "they" will come after you and compel you to go to war or perhaps they will even shoot you as a traitor to peace.
The world remembers well the so-called draft, the calling up of men for military duty by age groups in time of war. After a medical examination—where the draftee has a chance of being rejected because he is, say, blind in one eye or because he carries a doctor’s note identifying him as crippled by a missing link of his vertebrae—and a brief swearing in ceremony, you are subject to court martial if you disobey orders from your "superiors".
Who are “they”, the "superiors"?
A long time ago “they” was the so-called “sacred king”. At its most fundamental, the office of the king served (and someday may yet again serve) to lead a crowd lost in the forest out of the woods.
If a hundred people get lost in a forest, the best way of finding the way out and remain a group or a community is to choose one person to lead. The chosen leader picks a direction that he-she believes will be the shortest and quicked way out of the thicket and follows it. He or she (auntie might know more about the wood because she has gone mushroom picking there) and all those whom she-he lead, go in the same direction the leader goes. Everyone sticks to the direction chosen by the leader no matter what—even if they have to cross swamps and climb up and down many ravines. If the direction chosen is not the right one and everyone dies before getting out of the forest, the sacred king/queen dies as well. However, if the way out of the forest is found, the leader has earned a charisma that stays with him-her for the rest of their lives. In short, they lived and led by example, not violently enforced priviledge.
The surrender to the wisdom and will of one is an essential element of a society that wishes to survive its excessive overdrafts (and who does not occasionally have them?). It may be something of a paradox, but there is safety in numbers if the numbers are led by one who shares in all the risks that are encountered by the society community.
However, today “they” are a democracy, which—like it or not—has all too many people who have no experience of the real. Today belongs to virtual reality and virtual leaders. While the rule of how to find the way out of the forest still applies, it is more than likely that whoever is chosen to be the leader will not even be able to tell the north from the south.
What if...
they declared an election and nobody came to vote?
The answer is that today "they" are likely to attempt to compel you to vote by subtly suggesting or by outright telling everyone within hearing that you are not a good citizen, because voting is so IMPORTANT. If you do not believe this, here is a dose of overkill.
But why is it important to vote if there is no one on the voting list you care to vote for? Why should you vote for parties that have been in office for a long time, but like ticks burrowed deep in a dog’s fur cannot be removed from office? Well, you then use fun-fun-fun overkill.
Even so, the answer is: do the NOT-VOTE when to your mind there is no one to vote for. It is the honest thing to do. Also, to not-vote does not mean that you will not vote on other occasions. However, on THIS occasion you and many, possibly millions of others, indeed almost everyone who is entitled to vote, does a NOT-VOTE. You vote by not dropping your ballot in the ballot box, but you "not-vote" by walking past the polling station.
A “not-vote”—has it ever been
successfully implemented?
There are many occasions when people have NOT-VOTED. You and I, for example. We have not-voted at least on one occasion if we are as old as 70, but almost certainly one if we are just over eighteen twenty-one.
Nevertheless, for some funny (actually weird) reason, I cannot (nor can you) say no, because every time I want to say “I will not-vote”, it comes out “yes”. See here for "I can't say no". This strange compulsion is worthy of a study not only of sociologists, but anthropologists, too. Why can’t I say “no” on the YouTube? Almost every where we look, the answer seems to come out Lenny Kravitz. If you do not believe this, try finding more by clicking the Search button for “I can’t say no” on your own. It is a combo of words upon which the imagination is as zippered an event as here by zipping Sam illustrates.
Of course, along with NOT-VOTING, we will also discuss in future blogs the NON-VOTER and VOTER and try explain the difference. We hope our readers are intelligent enough to know that a not-voter is not the same as a non-voter. Everyone knows (or ought to know) that with regard to some things, we all appear to have been manipulated in such a way that we appear unable to say NO. There are many many people like this out there. This is why here we hope to reach all the not-voters the world over—be it this time or next. We trust that in the course of time this site present the argument why the not-vote is an important and timely concept. It may, by and by, bring some governments down, remove the infected appendix, put the stomach back in shape, and return it to a life become accountable to both voters and former not-voters.
Your suggestions are welcome on our Contact/letters window. The “editor” of this site presumes the privilege of reprinting any e-letter as a blog.
Interesting links:
Compulsory voting 1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_voting
Compulsory voting 2
Read this one for sure. The Not-Voter,
Yandzhs, will write a blog or two on this one.
http://www.ceps.eu/files/book/1886.pdf
Democracy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy
Parliamentary democracy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_democracy
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