rock the vote...but only if you're gonna rock it my way

WARNING: Things are about to get political.

So tomorrow is Election Day, and usually I am pretty apathetic about things like exercising the right granted to me by the 19th amendment, mostly because of my increasingly cynical world view, but also because I live in a state overwhelmingly supportive of the candidate I would vote for anyway. During the first election I was eligible to vote, my philosophy was that my vote would be canceled by my boyfriend at the time’s anyway, so if neither of us got off our asses then the scales would remain in balance. After voting for the first time 4 years ago, the election turned out so f-ed up that I vowed never to vote again, reason being if you had enough money and power you could override the system to suit your needs and my vote made not one bit of difference.

But.

This time, regardless of the fact that California’s electoral votes are going to Obama whether I vote or not, notwithstanding my severe reservations that anything can save our country from the downward, self-destructing spiral we’ve been in for the past 7 years, and despite the possibility that I am setting myself up for major disappointment yet again, I am going to vote tomorrow because damned if I am going to say I did nothing to prevent the country I live in (for now, we’ll see what happens after tomorrow) from being handed over to a near-senile old man and his psychobitch running mate. For the first time, I feel like even if I don’t get the results I want, if I do nothing to affect the outcome either way, I will be a useless turd and will have no right to complain when I’m standing in line for my watered-down cabbage soup next year.

Another reason I am voting tomorrow is to attempt to prevent California from making the mistake of becoming a bigoted asshole like the Midwest. I can’t believe Proposition 8 has even made it on the ballot, let alone that it may actually pass. To attempt to force one’s views on another is what I thought this country was against in the most basic of principles? I don’t care if you don’t believe that two people of the same sex should be married, what gives you the right to make other people adhere to your moral rules? Banning gay marriage is not going to make people straight. We’ve come way too far to even have to justify this point. I’m ashamed that there are still so many people living in this state, in this day, where we are supposed to be so forward-thinking and setting examples for the rest of the nation, out there in the rain waving signs about keeping marriage sacred and using scare tactics to appeal to the parents who are terrified that their little Melanie is going to be taught to be a dyke in kindergarten because Prop 8 didn’t pass. Just ridiculous. So…yeah, I’m voting against that.

Anyway, vote tomorrow. Unless you want to be a useless turd. And unless you’re planning on voting for McCain. In that case, stay home, cause you’ve probably got to watch your stories anyway.