Abstinence From Voting

Conservatives and liberals alike often try to scare people into voting for their respective presidential candidate by encouraging fear, no matter how disproportionate or baseless that fear may be in light of a given political issue.  One of the more popular tactics is to attempt to frighten or shame those who realize the stupidity of both parties into voting for one of them despite their thorough problems when a morally consistent voter would otherwise refuse to vote for either.  Zealous imbeciles from both major parties who use this tactic describe voting as if not voting for any candidate somehow adds a vote for the candidate of the other party.

Abstaining from a vote, by definition, cannot be a vote for any candidate in an election.  In order to vote for someone, a person must participate in voting, which is the opposite of what abstaining from a vote is.  No candidate gains support in an election when someone rejects all contenders and refuses to back any of them.  At most, refraining from voting withholds support for a candidate, and this in no way adds to the numbers of any side.  Anyone who insists that this is not true is merely stupid, afraid, or both at the same time.

Voting is not one of the exceptionally rare scenarios where a person's actions or inaction all bring moral guilt (for examples of this, see here [1]).  In not voting, a person is not committing some heinous evil, but it is entirely possible for there to be situations where supporting either primary candidate in an election is itself an immoral thing.  A vote reveals either support for an ideology or toleration of its intellectual and moral shortcomings, so it is not as if it is an inherently positive thing to vote simply for the sake of participating in elections, as some suggest.

Conservatism and liberalism are both riddled with assumptions, contradictions, and hypocrisies, so it should not be surprising when their candidates fail to meet the minimum leadership qualifications of rationality, consistency, and moral character.  A voter cannot be rational and think that an irrational candidate is intelligent, moreover, and neither can a voter care about justice while mistaking a candidate with unjust ideologies for a servant of justice.  Contrarily, a voter's own worldview is at least somewhat reflected in the philosophy and character of whoever they vote for.

Although it does not logically follow from the fact that someone is governed that they have a right to vote on how they are governed (and democratic structures have nothing to do with truth as it is), the ability to vote is still not a trivial thing that can be used without the potential to dramatically change certain outcomes.  The person who votes recklessly or based on fallacious ideas is not rescuing America, but they might be potentially damning it further.  Ironically, this is the thing people who attack others for not voting accuse the latter of.

Logic, people.  It is very fucking helpful.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-morality-of-vows.html