don't VOTE

VOTE is what the giant flag atop Dixie Flag Company says. I see it on my way home from Bobbie's school every day, and any other time I'm on that part of I-35.

VOTE.

Simple, right? We're Americans. It is our right. Or our duty. Or sommat like that that, anyhoo.

I'm going to go a bit against the grain. The loud, popular grain, that is. Every celebrity and his brother tells us to vote. Heck, there was a Rock the Vote tent set up on campus for more than a month. Register to vote, get a free Scantron. Geez, thanks. Appreciate that gum too, dude.

Just do it! I keep seeing that. Just get out and vote! It doesn't matter who you vote for. Except that it does.

Me, I don't want chicks like this having a say in the next leader of the free world. Do you?

It's my experience that the "just vote" mantra comes mainly from the left. They're the progenitors of the "anybody but Bush" slogan back in 2004. Conservatives tend to be mostly like me, looking askance at anybody who plans to just vote without bothering to educate themselves.

Is it a huge secret who these newly-minted, poorly-informed voters tend to pull the lever for? I don't think so. Though I savored the delicious irony back in '04 of a self-proclaimed bleeding heart liberal on a board I used to belong to metaphorically crapping herself because she encountered a woman whose stated reason she'd vote for Bush was "he can't be as bad as everyone says he is", I agree that it was poor reasoning. No moreso than those who were voting for John Kerry because he wasn't George HW Bush's son, but poor nonetheless.

One of the gals in my Psych class (yeah, this is the only one wherein we discuss politics) asked, the Wednesday after the registration deadline had passed, when it was. She was crushed when I told her. "I forgot to register! This was going to be the first election when I could vote, and I wanted to vote so bad, but then I forgot!" Um. Yeah. About that...thanks. Thanks for forgetting. But if you could walk past the Rock the Vote tent three days a week (at least) for two months and never bother stopping by (again, Dude, Scantrons!) and picking up one of their pencils and one of their registration forms, somehow I'm not betting you've bothered to gather information from any source other than the Daily Show. And while I love ol' Mr Stewart like anyone else, he's not a news source. So I'm glad you'll stay home. That allows me to cancel out the vote of the loudmouthed gal on the other side of the room who doesn't grasp the fact that America is the last true superpower, and it's not just because we say we are.