This is one of the most annoying things I hear – “you’re not voting for <insert establishment candidate here>? Aren’t you aware that you’re wasting your vote?
The title of the post is my standard response. A vote of your conscience is never wasted.
Just the other day, I was talking to someone who is voting for John McCain, and I asked him what he thought of his candidate. His response was “lesser of two evils.”
News flash: When you vote for the lesser of two evils, you still wind up with evil.
I poked around on the web one day trying to further understand this phenomena. Why do people vote for a candidate they don’t believe in? I came across an interesting perspective at a blog called The Spin Factor, that what people are engaging in is a game of “predict the winner” – a form of gambling, actually. Then there’s the explanation that people want to be on the winning team to fulfill their ego needs.
I don’t know the answer, all I know is that its wrong. When the establishment props up before you two candidates who will continue to destroy what’s left of the constitution, I say “none of the above.”
I’ll be writing in Ron Paul. And I’ll sleep well with my decision.