I love voting on election day. I especially loved it back when there was a real lever to pull: Ka-CHUNK-A! really made me feel like I'd exercised my right to vote. But Ellesiouville is short several hundred voting machines and Square State has generous absentee-voter regulations, so I voted absentee this morning. Voting absentee frees up my place in line for someone else and also frees me up to work the polls.
I did not like dropping my ballot into the black maw of the USPS mailbox. It felt very much like I was tossing my ballot down a sewer. Of course, some people might say I flushed my vote away anyway. Just wake me up on November 5 and let me know what happened.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
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14 comments:
Good luck. Here's hoping your ballot gets counted.
They will never stop calling you. I get 627 calls each night from the Obama campaign. I am a registered Democrat and I live in a solidly BLUE state neighboring a swing state. Why don't they call the swing state people and let me surf the web in peace?
You still answer your phone? I only have a land line as a repository for exactly these sort of calls; if someone wants to speak to me, they have to call the cell. And I don't give that number out freely.
Oh, manners... sorry. Hi, Angry Professor. Just found you via Cranky Epistles. I figured if Crankylitprof likes you, you must be worth a read. I like your sense of humor. :)
(Former statistically-impaired Sociology major)
I voted today. We have early voting in Illinois. I feel secure in the knowledge that, should I be hit by a bus tomorrow, my voice shall rise from the grave and, clearly and forcefully, cry out for change.
They can call me all they want. It is a small inconvenience I shall pay.
And on the subject of paying -- I am always happy to pay my taxes. This is America. We have more freedoms than anywhere on Earth. And taxes are the price we pay to live in a free society.
You know, Aidan, many of us from other countries find it supremely irritating when Americans assert that they "have more freedoms than anywhere on earth". This is simply not true. As merely one example of a freedom that you do not have, but I do: I may marry any adult that I see fit, regardless of anyone's hateful interpretation of the bible's position on homosexuality.
You may be right. Only 3 states, currently, live up to your test.
But I have a written constitution and 200 years of judicial review to fall back on. I can call our President a limp-dicked douchebag and fear nothing more serious than my grandmother returning from the grave to tell me to watch my language. In many places simply voicing discontent with the Government is punishable by law; Anyone born meeting age and citizenship requirements can run for President of the United States -- and apparently any half-with can actually be considered for the Executive Branch. There are countries where they can put you in prison for calling the head of State a douchbag. I am safe from undo search and siezure, I have the right to my own religion -- my president is not also the Pope, nor does he sit as the head of the official Church of State. My wife doesn't need to cover her hair, she can drive, should she so choose, and she can (and does) make fools of scores of men as part of her job, and she cannot be stoned for it. If I seem arrogant in my enthusiasm for my freedoms, well, you probably have heard of the Ugly American before, and I'm sure I won't be the last. I do hope you will forgive me. Now I must sign off -- I've got a non-christian religion to practice.
"There are countries where they can put you in prison for calling the head of State a douchbag."
Yes, there are. However, your assertion, and you’re hardly the first to make it, was that you, in America, "have more freedoms than anywhere on earth". To pretend that the world is divided into 1) America and 2) everywhere else, where religious observance is curtailed, where women are oppressed, and where one may not speak an ill word of those in power, is absurd, insulting, and the source of much of the poor reputation that America has abroad. I too, by the way, can call my democratically elected leader whatever filthy name I can dream up without any fear of anything. The US does not have the monopoly on the rights that you list. Had you said “we live in one of the most free nations in the world”, I would happily concur, and you and I would not be having a problem.
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Dear Prof Angry,
I’m sorry to have high jacked your comments section in this fashion. I have, of late, had about as much “America, the bastion of all that is good” as I can take. I recently decided that I was going to stop smiling politely when the rest of the world was maligned as though it were a single entity, and I went a whole week without feeling the need to put my new decision into practice. I then started catching up on my favourite blogs, and here we are. I do, nonetheless, sincerely apologise for the tangent along which I have dragged us.
Sincerely,
Postdoc
I always liked the old voting machines because I could pretend that "Ka-CHUNK!" was the sound of a guillotine blade being engaged. (Well, and the swank curtains they had.)
They won't stop calling here, either. Or pounding on our doors. Or hollering over the fence if we are in the yard. Or running asinine commercials approximately every three minutes.
Come November 5, I am going to revel in the SILENCE.
But along that tangent: you can call the president whatever you want, but if you do it near a convention for the next candidate, and outside the "Free Speech" fenced in area, you can get detained.
And if you happen to live in the "wrong area" or have dark skin, you may find it significantly more difficult to vote, yes, still.
Of course, in those other free nations of the world - let's just assume this applies to at least the set of advanced industrialized democracies - citizens tend to pay even higher taxes than they do in the U.S. So I am assuming, following Aidan's logic, that they probably have even more freedoms! (And as postdoc so aptly pointed out... yes they probably do.) But, yay us, those lucky enough to live in advanced industrialized democracies (both US and non-US). We can vote, and all sorts of different groups can work the phones and the doorbells trying to get out the vote, and they are not subject to harassment or violent retribution.
That said, I totally have caller ID. No way am I going to talk to those people.
I'm an Oregonian, and we've been voting by mail as long as I've been a voter (the ballot measure that led to mail-in-voting was passed in the first election I ever voted in, so I've only been to a polling place once). Now I live in Washington and my county does mail elections, so I've trusted my ballot to the USPS as long as I've been a voter (really, I trust it to the county elections office since I drop it off in person).
While I'd like the experience of pulling the lever just once, it was pretty satisfying to drop off my ballot this week after nearly two years of watching this campaign.
Yeah, we have the First Amendment, but that doesn't stop some crazy zealot from punishing you for applying it.
I hear ya, sister. The sooner this whole thing's over, the better I'll feel.
Im in the same boat as Jobetta, proud Oregonian. I love mail in elections, especially this year. We had quite a few measures on the ballot, and many of them were quite complicated. I sat down with my ballot, and the two voters guides, for over 2 hours. Vote by mail gives us the time we need to sift through the complex issues we face. I verily recommend it. Plus it has the benefit of raising participation.
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