I keep hearing people say, “If you don’t vote you have no right to complain.”
This is, of course, nonsense. Your right to complain is inalienable, and should be exercised. Myself, I can’t vote, being an alien, and yet I complain all the time. Complain away.
Everyone else is going to remind you to vote if you can, I’m sure, so I presumably don’t need to. But I do want to tell you that voting is the least you can do. Feeding one bit of information every four years into the political machine is something, but hardly anything. The people at Peterloo died asking for even that basic minimum, and I believe you should honour them not just by voting but by going beyond it.
I’ve been very impressed by the way Obama’s campaign have used slogans like “Yes we can”, rather than something easier like “Yes, Obama can”. Unfortunately, people seem to be reading “Yes we can” as “Yes we can… elect Barack Obama, who will then take over from us, and we can sit back and let other people run our lives from then on.” I was disappointed that when this video says “Did you do enough?”, it means “Did you do enough to get Obama elected?” and not “Did you do enough of the sort of thing we’re actually here to do, did you feed the hungry, did you help oppressed folk find a voice, did you join a union to let your voice be heard, did you give time and resources to Habitat for Humanity or the ACLU, did you work to bring about social justice?” And I worry people have stopped seeing the election as a means to such things and just think that when their chosen candidate’s in power everything will be lovely and they can go back to sleep. However good a person he is– and I believe he is a good, even a great person– he’s not a cross between King Arthur, Jesus Christ, a Jack Kirby superhero and the mythologised version of Abe Lincoln. If you believe he is, you will be disappointed. One person can make mistakes: put not your trust in princes. But you— what will you do?
I can’t vote, being an alien, even though I live here– so make sure you go in my place and the place of millions more who will be affected by this election but have no voice in it. But more importantly, find other ways to make a change over the next four years. Be involved. Complain. Make a difference. It’s not about them, it’s about you.
Update: Join us on #potus on irc.netgoth.org.uk.
The ‘can’t complain’ statement goes like this. I have a problem. I go to my local city council member and say II have a problem” to him. The first words out of my city council member’s mouth are likely to be ‘Did you vote during the last election?” (Note he is not asking did I vote for him!)
Why, you might ask, would that matter? Simply because as an elected representative he will have to answer to those people who do vote.
If you say “No, I didn’t have time.” or “No, my vote doesn’t mean anything.” Then you are telling that representative that the entire process of getting things done, all the work that the politician put in to find out what people needed, etc. was of no interest to you. So why should he, or she, pay any attention to your complaints?
History shows that people who don’t vote in one election by their own decision are likely to not vote in the next election. So if he or she upsets you by not paying attention to your concerns, it’s very unlikely that you are going to do anything effective about it, such as vote for his or her opponent at the next election. In short, as far as the politician is concerned, you gave up your right to act on your complaints. Bitch and moan all you want, but go some place else to do it. You didn’t have time or the strength of conviction to look into the political process last time you had the chance, I’m not going to pay attention to your complaints now. I’ve got hundreds or even thousands of people who have demonstrated that they do believe in the process.
None of the above is relevant to people who either do not have, or have not had the right to vote for most reasons. If your voting privileges were revoked because of a felony, I would suspect that most politicians would look at that as sufficient evidence that you are not worthy of attention. If however you were under age, or an alien going through the process of naturalization, those are entirely different circumstances, and are even likely to get you paid attention to even more because those conditions and the fact you are talking to a politician demonstrates that you are interested in the process, and likely to be a voter, and may even be involved in the political system at some point in the very near future yourself.
But if you have the opportunity to vote, and don’t, then don’t expect the elected representatives to pay even the slightest bit of attention to you.
In relation to the ‘Yes We Can!” theme, by choosing not to vote, you are saying ‘No I Can’t!”
Why then should he pay attention to anyone who didn’t vote for *him*?
“No, I didn’t have time.” or “No, my vote doesn’t mean anything.”
I haven’t said either anywhere.
“I haven’t said either anywhere.”
I wasn’t referring to you specifically, and you’ll note that I do include people who don’t have the franchise to vote as people very likely, in some situations, to be paid attention to.
As to why an elected representative will pay attention to anyone who doesn’t vote for ‘him’ but did vote, it’s very likely that you will be voting again, and by bringing the complaint to him, you are showing that while you may not agree with all of his positions, you are giving him the opportunity to either garner more votes in the next election, or if your concerns are ignored, that you are likely to be a very active agent working for his opposition. By confirming that you did vote, whether it was for or against you are demonstrating that your opinion and concerns matter.
People who don’t have the franchise to vote but who are interested enough to interact with the people who represent them are something else entirely. They are Interested.