To Vote, or Not to Vote.

Growing increasingly disgusted with the seedy game of politics, both local and national, I feel drawn to follow the respected advice of others and just stop participating in such an illegitimate charade. Lew makes an excellent point about the sham of our democracy and how it's manipulated to further the state's agenda. But I've always voted because I feel it legitimizes the complaints I have, and it allows me to exert a microscopically small amount of power over the government-inflicted conditions impacting my life.

But in his bidding to drop out of the elections process to instill fear by eliminating government's mandate, Lew focuses exclusively on the presidential race. I wholeheartedly agree that "neither of the candidates for president wants to do anything about" the problems that are rapidly eroding our freedoms. And I agree that among the two major candidates it's a choice between socialism and fascism. I would argue however that voting for a third party, or a write-in candidate of your choosing, has the same effect on reducing the mandate afforded to the victor of that particular office.

The damages inflicted on liberty over the last hundred years have not transpired solely at the hands of the president; none of his actions would be successful without the full complicity of the criminal gang of legislators up on the hill. When Lew talks about the need to instill fear into the government, I can think of no better method than holding each legislator personally responsible for his complicity and firing his ass at the earliest opportunity.

Which brings me to the crux of my dilemma: the need to hold these criminals responsible for, among other things, their one single vote that officially enslaved every citizen of this nation in service to mammon far outweighs the urge to just ignore them all by not voting.

Not voting is essentially ignoring these parasites, passively condoning their insidious behavior while also "voluntarily" funding it with our taxes. Evil prevails when good people do nothing, and I have a difficult time convincing myself that doing nothing will diminish the evil that has already entrenched itself in our lives.

And I cannot just sit here while Congress contemplates sacrificing our firstborn to Wall Street. The senators and congressmen who voted for this bailout bill have to be punished, and I'm eager to pile it on with vote after vote for this year's incumbent challengers. It's as close to a public flogging as we'll get in this country.