In which Steve marvels at Andy's ability to belabor trivialities in pursuit of negating reality

The fact is that neither Andy nor any other voter who is genetically predisposed to vote Republican can offer a single, rational reason why allowing the Republicans to retain control of our government is any better an idea than handing it to the Democrats. All that is offered is the "feeling" or "belief" that the GOP is suddenly about the realize the error of its ways and return to the values of Reagan. There is no evidence, historical or predictive, offered that this is about to happen because there is no such evidence. The unfortunate part of all this is that if they allow the GOP to retain power, it will believe that it is on the correct course after all and things will get substantially worse from the point of view of anyone favoring limited government, fiscal responsibility, and a sane foreign policy.

In fact, as long as we pretend at this game of participatory democracy and as long as universal suffrage remains the goal and actuality in this country, it will make little difference who one votes for or even who gets elected. There is no point in voting on principle, the only candidate to vote for will be the one who will raid the treasury to your own greatest benefit. Some of us still value principle and some of us recognize the poisonous nature of voting ourselves wealth. For those reasons, more and more of us choose to withhold our consent to be governed and opt out of the process.

I will probably go vote next month for a couple of people I know personally and who are still crazy enough to believe they can change the system from inside. Once the inevitable event that I don't know anyone personally on the ballot comes along, I will probably stop voting altogether.