well i voted so there

I, personally, didn't vote.

Why not?

The reason is simple: I couldn't decide between either candidate. I don't know, maybe it was the months of them trash-talking each other, pointing fingers at each other, namecalling, and all of the other BS that flies around every Election year, and the fact that neither one of them... just.. meh.

I didn't like Obama for several reasons; one being the guy has no experience in leadership whatsoever at all. Second, he wants to give all kinds of tax breaks here, tax breaks there, that's all he preaches. But that money has to come from somewhere, and there's a saying that goes "When you squeeze the nobility (read: rich), it is the poor who feels the pinch".

If he taxes the rich people more heavily, those rich people who own big businesses and such will just pass the higher taxes along to the poor people in the form of more expensive goods. A Tax break doesn't mean squat if I spend 4+ years paying inflated prices on everything, does it?

On the flipside, you got McCain, who I will refer to "MC" in the rest of this post, my fingers are tired from punching keys on a cash register all night, and "McCain" is a PITA to type out.

Anyways, MC sounds like he means well, he's a war hero, POW, etc, and he wants to change government, but can he really do that?

And his running mate... at first, I liked Palin. She seemed like a woman that was ready to stand up and fight for what's right and all, but it wasn't long until all of these different sources started pinpointing everything bad surrounding her. Most of these things I just shrugged off, I mean, a woman trying to get into the White House? A Republican? Of course they are going to attack her. But then, after so many people doing it, and so many video clips of her own words, started turning me off bigtime.

What was that crap about her "keeping a close eye on Russia" and all, just because she happened to be in Alaska? Eh, okay... whatever.

And like I said earlier, there is this whole trash-talk crap, blah blah... I couldn't decide one way or the other; I find myself wishing that there was a third viable option.

And that brings me to a rant of mine:

WHY on Earth can't we just stick EVERYONE who wants to be President up on a Podium and say "OK, This is who is running for President. Vote for whoever you want." and get rid of this whole Nomination, Democrat Convention, Republican Convention, blah blah bullcrap that is spending millions of dollars in campaign funds, and put that money to something USEFUL, like, eh, rebuilding roads, healthcare, social security, etc?

There are so many things that is screwed up in the government, I have my big doubts that anyone will be able to change it. Not Obama, not McCain, there is just far too much corruption, special interests, under-the-table deals, etc, that one man alone cannot solve.

Honestly, I don't think anything is going to "fix" our government, short of a coup or something similar. I am in no way encouraging any such drastic measures, but sadly, nothing is going to fix it short of a whole revolution.

There's far too much bickering going on between the Democrats and Republicans for anyone to ever get anything done, for real. Whatever happened to "United We Stand"? Right now, our entire nation is divided between two factions; we are pretty much fighting a civil war, but not with guns or violence, but with words and politics.

The best thing we could possibly do, is get rid of the "Parties" and just have People, no parties, no democrats, no republicans, just people and government.

One can only dream, eh?

As long as people keep thinking "Should I vote Democrat, or Republican?", this will never change.

All of you who DID vote, I hope, I seriously hope you voted for a person because of his policies, or his views, or what-not, and NOT because of what ticket he ran under. That's the single worst thing you can do; every time you do that (with anyone, not just the President), you are Encouraging this Two-Party BS that is destroying our country.

"United we stand, divided we fall."

This country is VERY divided.

First, let me just give a heartfelt thank you / congratulations to everyone who voted. Bless you for not being a lazybones and exercising rights people struggled and sometimes died to protect. You're awesome.

What I don't understand is the hostility and smack talk against people that don't choose to vote. Whatever their reason, its their choice. It doesn't make you an idiot because you don't vote, I know many idiots that vote. The two things are not necessarily intertwined. Yelling at a non-voter is like yelling at someone who didn't join the military. How would many civilians feel if they were called idiots because they didn't join the armed forces?

I have several reasons not to vote, but they don't outweigh the fact that I just choose not to. I don't care who wins, I'm sorry if that offends, but I'm just trying to make my ends....(meet)

I also disagree that voting gives you license to complain. I think it's the other way around. If you vote, you are part of the democratic system. When you vote, and your candidate loses, democracy has spoken. George Carlin put it so much more eloquently than I, so you should reference him.

Stop being so mean to people, specifically Xarxes. No need to insult because he stated an opinion. Whoever he is, whatever kind of person he is, even if he's an *******, he deserves our respect because he is a soldier. He made a choice to kill enemies of our country and sacrificed his safety so others didn't have to. So they could sit around and play Warcraft, and vote, or not vote. I think 'soldiers are fighting for our freedom' is cliche, and it seems that they're killing based on the agendas of corrupt officials, and I'm a peace-loving flower child. But soldiers take a lot of crap. They suffer indignity and danger, and someone has to do their job, so thank God to the people who do.

My spelling and grammar, while possible using too many commas, is excellent. There should be no problem then agreeing with everything I say without hesitation.

Also, Night Elves are the best dancers, proving again that they are superior in all ways to all other races.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTahZE4q90U

I'm glad y'all can recognize that real life events are as important (or IMO more important) than WoW events. Some players need to learn that lesson, heehee.

And in response to the military thing, my husband is in the military, deployed right now. How can I hope to make things easier for him if I just sit here and refuse to vote? How can I make a change if I don't make the first step to vote? I agree that the electoral college is an obsolete concept, but it won't change if no one does anything. By sitting on your butt whining about it, you change nothing. Call your senators, send letters to the government, make a difference! Choose to be heard, instead of "exercising your right" to act like a whiny child.
~ Tig

Try being Canadian... for some of the provinces, their entire vote doesn't really seem to matter, as almost half of our population resides in 1 province, Ontario, and the way they choose to vote is what decides the whole damn thing... As for what xarxes said, think of it this way: If you don't vote, you have no right at all to complain or ***** or moan about what the govt is doing. Your vote IS your licence to *****, if you don't use that, you have no right to ***** at all... Because then you are blindly accepting whatever you end up getting. As for actually working the elections, that is a real eye opener. I have worked all 3 levels of elections, and for us the crunch times were lunchtime, after supper, and the closing hour... I can remember 1 of them, just before the polls were about to close, there were something like 400 students that came to vote in one shot, several of us who had no voters to deal with ended up being drafted to help that one poll station, and even then it added 2 hours to the job that night:*)

Best... announcement... ever! <3
Now I hope people actually listen. :)
Happy Voting! DK