I don't vote and I don't give excuses I give reasons

Just to get this out, I’m not writing this to persuade you to stop voting. You have your rights and you should do as you please. I personally don’t have a problem with people who vote. I have a problem when they think they’re right and tell everyone to do the same. Even worse, some people label non-voters ignorant and misinformed. That’s completely false, there are successful people out there who follow candidates and debates but refuse to vote because they don’t think the candidates represent them. I voted before but not planning to vote anytime soon unless the system changes. Here are a few reasons why I don’t vote.

1) Many people argue that you should vote to practice your freedom and let your voice be heard. I see it differently. Voting doesn’t represent freedom, it’s the opposite. Many people are enslaved to voting for the same candidate / party regardless of who’s running. Many people vote for certain candidates based solely on their race, many do not vote for certain candidates based solely on their race. Many voted more than once, many dead people registered and voted… There are so many problems with it.

2) If you don’t like the rule of the system, don’t support it. The electoral college system is designed so that your votes DON’T matter. If your votes matter, they will count up all the popular votes and whoever has more popular votes will win. Gore would have won the 2000 elections over Bush since he had more popular votes (Not that I like Al Gore or Bush, just an example). The electoral college system is designed so that political parties can control certain states. Only a few swing states matter (like Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida, Ohio…). Even in those swing states, your candidate has to win by exactly 1 vote for your vote to matter. If he won by 2 or more, then whether you voted for him or not didn't matter. What are the chances that will happen? If you live in Hawaii, the election is already decided by the time you get out of work, why bother voting at that point?

3) There are only 2 parties. Forget the other parties and their candidates, they are there to give you the illusions of freedom of choice in America. They are not even invited to the debates. In fact, they got arrested for showing up. Yup, presidential candidates (from Green Party) got arrested for showing up at presidential debates. There are no real differences between the Democratic party vs Republican party. Their policies are similar. There are only a few differences in social issues to keep people fighting each other. It’s like the Communist party split into 2 and let you vote. The 2 parties are like the left and right wings of the same bird heading in the same direction. They will rack up debts, manipulate currency, go to war to benefit special interest groups, bail out, create loop holes, reduce personal liberties in the name of keeping you safe… Also, I don’t like the idea that one party is a watchdog when the other party is in office. This happens all the times and it creates gridlocks. I refuse to vote for the “lesser of the two evils”. If two people want to take your money and go to the casino to gamble, does it matter if one is playing play Black Jack and the other is playing Poker? Do you opt out?

4) Many people argue that it’s “your duty” to vote. That’s completely false. Voting is a right, not a duty. You may choose to practice that right or abstain. I have a right to divorce but it doesn’t mean that I should do it. Another false statement is “if you don’t vote, don’t complain”. If you’re uninformed about certain issues (like the majority of the public are), it’s best that you don’t cast your uninformed vote. When there’s no candidate representing me or my view point, I don’t vote. If you don’t like the rule of the game, don’t come cheer for either team. Now, if you voted for the wrong choice and they come into office and screw up everything, you voted them in, you are to blame for the mess that they created.

5) The system is corrupt. Big companies spend millions to support their candidates through campaign donation. When the candidates get in office, they’ll make laws to benefit their donors. When those companies are not doing so well, they get bailed out. Everybody else is not part of that cycle. What makes you think a candidate spend millions or hundreds of millions dollars to run for a job that pay $1 million? You probably say they are not in it for the money. You might be right, they are not in it for the money, they are in it for someone else’s money (their donors).

The best way to fight the corrupt system is to withdraw your consent from it. By voting and being a part of it, you continue to feed the corrupt system and it will never change.

The Art of Scam

Last week, I received an email from a guy named Peter from kozlov.peter@rambler.ru. He offered me a job to edit and proofread texts for $5/KB. It sounds too good to be true and sounds like a scam. Still, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and played along. Usually, I don't really care for these ads or scam emails. However, I only use this email address for job search awhile back. He actually got a hold of my resume through these career center / job searching web sites. That's how sophisticated scammers are nowadays.

The first email is like this:

kozlov.peter@rambler.ru

Please edit the text.
It's 8Kb - $40.00 on your account in our company.
Please make the correction of texts TODAY and send it back.
Send it back to our email in formats: .txt; .doc or in the body of
message.
text is below:


I sent back the same unedited text to see if he actually read it. Here's his reply:

Very nice. Thank you. You do your job really good.
Please tell us a little about yourself, what do you do on your free
time, where do you work, what plans for future.

Your balance - $80.00 (USD)

we will send you new texts today or tomorrow and you should edit them at
the same day. Don't forget to tell us about yourself.

Sincerely,
Travel Service


Here's a screenshot of my email reply to him.



Be careful, don't fall for these scams. Scammers can actually go into job search websites and get your resume and your real information.

Soul

A very good video about soul, freedom vs power




Embedded from youtube, I don't own this video. Go there to see credits.