The single phrase that really bothers me the most right now, since Barack “Osama killing” Obama is on the campaign trail for 2012 is that “If you don’t vote, you can’t complain”. I can very easily complain whether I do vote or not, but my biggest problem with this statement is that it just makes entirely no sense. The only way to find any real logic is based on the fact that people are telling you this just because they want you to vote.
I always like to throw both parties out the window, but a few elections back was when this whole thing started. Does anyone remember why? George W. Bush had basically ruined the country and was voted the worst human being alive, so the Democrats wanted the next President to be, well… anyone but him. Enter: John Kerry. John Kerry was once compared to JFK. The only way the two of them will ever have anything in common is if John Kerry should somehow get shot as part of a conspiracy (And even then, he’ll probably just remain a footnote in political history) Yes, the Dems really wanted you to rally up the troops and vote in the masses because it was the most important election ever… or until the next one.
So if it was not just intended as a slogan to get the left into office, then what is the point of saying this? Well, there is no point really. Saying if you don’t vote you forfeit your right to complain is pretty naïve thinking. Imagine if it were any other scenario, such as food for example. Say you go to a fancy five star restaurant and you look at their specials. The two specials for the evening are chicken and fish. But you’re a vegetarian. What do you do? Hey, if you don’t pick one, you can’t complain that you’re hungry. Another theory that is a bit harsher—have you ever played the murder/rape game? You get to choose whether you want to be murdered or raped. And if you don’t choose- we’ll rape you and then murder you. (Or maybe not in that order, depending upon who the offender is) What I’m basically trying to say is that if you want people to vote, either a) Get better choices or b) Simply enlist more choices. Going back to the whole John Kerry fiasco, did anyone ever stop to think anything about this guy other than that he was running against Bush? No, they didn’t. It was a classic case of the great white hype because the Democrats never wanted you to vote for John Kerry, they just wanted you to vote against George W. Bush. And if your own candidate is so weak that you can’t rally people behind him, what makes you think anyone will vote for him?
What it all boils down to is the simple fact that saying you can’t complain if you don’t vote is a cop out. You vote for John Kerry, and then watch as George W. Bush screws up the country and you complain about it and say, “Well, I didn’t vote for him”. Big deal. That is neither productive nor helpful. I seem to recall a certain Halloween episode of The Simpsons when the Presidential candidates have their bodies taken over by aliens. In the end of the episode, Homer says something along the lines of “Don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos”. That’s what I always think of when someone says “If you don’t vote, you can’t complain”. Under the current regime, The Simpsons and their fictional friends were forced into slave labor. Homer’s comment is amusing because if Kodos had won, do you think the result would have been any different?
Old and tired clichés come to mind whenever I think of this expression. “You can’t polish a turd”. “I don’t need to eat shit to know that I wouldn’t like the taste of it”. And we might as well add “If you don’t vote you can’t complain” to the pile because it really has no true meaning.
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