Why I'm Not Voting

I don't understand the compulsion that everyone has to go out and vote today. I've voted once in my life and I'm certain it made no difference whatsoever. Now, all of the sudden, everyone is freaking out because this election is so important.

Is it?

What will really change in my daily life as a result of who is president? Will my bank account increase overnight, or worse, decrease? Will I suddenly be thinner, fatter, happier, stupider, angrier, faster, stronger, more/less likable? Will my daily commute be shorter? Will I get a bigger cubicle at work, or possibly a secretary? Will Rhea suddenly learn a foreign language and start reading for the blind? Will we be shot into space in order to study zero gravity sex? Will our phones get more bars in more areas? Will our credit score change? Will I find a new respect for the homeless? Will I begin each sentence with "According to Obama"? Will I require fewer visits to the dentist? Will my farts smell better? Will I not need to buy Christmas presents for my family? Will food taste better? Will I realize that I'm really good at Scene It?

It's ridiculous to think that something like will change your life on anything other than a mental level. You still have to go to work. You still have to pay your bills. You still have to raise your kids. There is nothing that McCain or Obama are going to do to change that. You still have to worry about the same shit you worried about yesterday.

So I say fuck it. Who ever they announce as the next president will be just some asshole that has his own agenda. He will have said whatever it took to get elected. The promises mean nothing once they're actually in office, so why get all worked up? It's a waste of energy. Energy that could be spent doing something that actually matters, like paying your bills or teaching your kid the difference between right and wrong.

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship.

The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage."

Alexander Tyler