Circus
(self-promotion postcard and blog-post)

“Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.” - James Bovard

I grew up in a family of intelligent Independents, an environment that fostered an early belief that local and national election choices were not decided by influential sound-bites, manipulative platforms, or religious doctrines, but rather by studying each candidate’s backgrounds and skills, by noting the present state of local, national and international affairs, and then by choosing which person on the current ballot seemed best equipped for the job at hand.

These days, it seems instead that each election pushes both candidates and voters into increasingly distant and segregated extremes. Most candidates seem to obscure their individual strengths and expertise, and instead act as puppets, surrendering entirely to party-declared stances and over-simplified, over-polarized propaganda and pandering. With each election this leaves me, as a voter, feeling increasingly forced out of any real choice. If I believe in freedom on matters A or B, I can only vote Republican. If I believe in C or D, then Democrats are my sole supporters. Heaven help me if I dare to see that A and C are not opposites as the attack ads claim, and that neither B or D will resolve anything, but we actually need E instead.

Well-funded minorities claim that there is no middle ground: Agree blindly with “us” and you will be saved, or you are “them” and hell awaits you. To me, this is not voting. This is putting a coin into the slot of a machine rigged by people who don’t care what I think, who don’t care what is best for this country, who don’t care about the countries we impact. Even the coin itself now feels like a foil-covered candy confection, one that the machine-riggers would prefer that I eat, and not use to vote at all.

Perhaps I’m being naive. Perhaps the machine was always rigged, and it is simply more obvious now. The manipulators found ways to legalize their fraud, so they no longer need to hide behind aliases and subtlety. Or perhaps such pessimism is their goal. Pessimism keeps people inactive; it maintains and spreads a loss of faith manipulators find quite useful. Pessimism discourages voters from looking beneath the propaganda, from thinking, from deciding for themselves. Pessimists easily abandon the expectation that their vote will have any meaningful impact.

I can’t swallow that option. I don’t accept the claims of “us” vs “them”. I care enough to educate myself beyond the press releases and sensationalized sound-bites. I refuse to hand over my power to those so intent on making me believe that my power doesn’t exist. It does exist, and it is much stronger than they realize.