Voting Schmoting
In part to respond to the post below, and in part because I want hate mail, I'd like to talk about how irrational voting tomorrow actually is.
I live in a suburb ten minutes north of Boston. Today after class I drove two hours all the way home (disregarding the precious time I would have had to write my column for the Collegian this week, finish up homework due, et cetera) because I was a slacker and forgot to get an absentee ballot. So, tomorrow (voting day) I have to get up at 6:30 am, vote, leave for another two hour ride back to school and make it in time for my first class. I'll be exhausted, unprepared, and grouchy.
So, just minutes ago I'm surfing around online and come across this video of economist Gordon Tullock telling me an argument that I've heard before, but didn't need to hear at this particular point in time (being so preemptively sleepy and grouchy as I am over going through all this trouble to vote).
Watch this. He's saying voting is irrational because the chances your voting is going to make any difference in the election is less likely than winning the mega-millions lottery.
People say that claiming "my vote doesn't count" is a cop out. People say that if i don't vote I have no right to say anything about the election or the issues. Truth is, I've done more by provoking the interest of my friends and family (through conversations and intellectual intercourse), and strangers I'll never meet (through my columns at the Collegian) about real issues than I ever could through voting. I've done more to rightfully claim my thoughtfulness and regard for important national and international issues by my own independent study and my devotion to the classes of my PoliSci major than voting ever could do me.
So to the vote or die crowd, I say "Relax, I voted." But tomorrow morning when I'm unprepared for class, poorer from the gas money I wasted, tired from the sleep I lost, and grouchy because of the rush I was in to get to class from two hours away...I'll sure wish I didn't. And I probably shouldn't have.
I live in a suburb ten minutes north of Boston. Today after class I drove two hours all the way home (disregarding the precious time I would have had to write my column for the Collegian this week, finish up homework due, et cetera) because I was a slacker and forgot to get an absentee ballot. So, tomorrow (voting day) I have to get up at 6:30 am, vote, leave for another two hour ride back to school and make it in time for my first class. I'll be exhausted, unprepared, and grouchy.
So, just minutes ago I'm surfing around online and come across this video of economist Gordon Tullock telling me an argument that I've heard before, but didn't need to hear at this particular point in time (being so preemptively sleepy and grouchy as I am over going through all this trouble to vote).
Watch this. He's saying voting is irrational because the chances your voting is going to make any difference in the election is less likely than winning the mega-millions lottery.
People say that claiming "my vote doesn't count" is a cop out. People say that if i don't vote I have no right to say anything about the election or the issues. Truth is, I've done more by provoking the interest of my friends and family (through conversations and intellectual intercourse), and strangers I'll never meet (through my columns at the Collegian) about real issues than I ever could through voting. I've done more to rightfully claim my thoughtfulness and regard for important national and international issues by my own independent study and my devotion to the classes of my PoliSci major than voting ever could do me.
So to the vote or die crowd, I say "Relax, I voted." But tomorrow morning when I'm unprepared for class, poorer from the gas money I wasted, tired from the sleep I lost, and grouchy because of the rush I was in to get to class from two hours away...I'll sure wish I didn't. And I probably shouldn't have.
posted by John Glaser at
3:53 PM
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