Op-Ed: Think it's righteous to abstain from voting when you don't like the choices? Think again (via latimesopinion)
I am a slacktivist. I sit at my computer and fill out surveys and sign petitions. I write postcards and letters to potential voters and occasionally make a donation to causes or candidates. I get angry and disgusted on Twitter and post what I think are pithy, clever tweets in retort. I feel as if I’m doing something, making my voice heard, standing up for what I believe.
Voting versus abstaining is a standard philosophical debate, much like the famous trolley dilemma. You’re standing at a lever and a trolley is coming down the tracks heading for five people. If you move the lever, it will change tracks and run over only one. What do you do? Walking away and doing nothing is, as philosopher William James said, “in itself a decision.” Someone will die and you did nothing to save anyone.
In a famous speech in 1964, Malcolm X had nothing good to say about white politicians, Democrats or Republicans. But he recognized the potential power of a Black voting bloc on the civil rights struggle and equated it with the power of revolution. He said, “It’s time now for you and me to become more politically mature and realize what the ballot is for; what we’re supposed to get when we cast a ballot. … It’s either a ballot or a bullet.
Think about it, though — has low voter turnout in one or another race greatly improved the slate of candidates we’re offered? Are people better off because nonvoters took their version of the high road? The “independent state legislature theory” would leave state courts, constitutions and others powerless to stop voter suppression.
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