Why I think voting is a waste of time, but I do it anyway

Election, election, election, primaries, primaries, primaries, issues, issues, candidates, senators, Obama, Clinton, Giuliani, Romney -- I'm fucking sick of hearing all of this stupid shit. Everybody and the goddamned neighbor's dog is talking about the primary elections, Iowa, New Hampshire, how Hillary Clinton cried, Bill O'Reilly shoving an Obama staffer, Romney's stupid religion -- everybody has just gotten sucked into this vacuum of bullshit and it pisses me off to have to see it.

First off, what the hell makes any of you people think that anything these jokers running for president say is in any way forthright or honest in any way, shape, or form? Just the way our shitty government works means that all any candidate will have to do is sweet-talk people to vote for them on Election Day, and after they rig win the election, any candidate can just throw whatever silly promises they made to the four winds and basically do what they want for the next four years.

I mean, look at the 2006 election. Everybody and their grandmother ousted Republicans from Congress and replaced them with Democrats, hoping the Democrats would clean up the train wreck that Dubya has created in government, and have they been doing that? No! When people clamored for Bush and Cheney to be impeached, Nancy Pelosi, our sad excuse for Speaker of the House, said that "impeachment was off the table". Ending the Iraq war? Forget about it! And Clinton and Obama were off campaigning when, if they actually did give a damn about making things better, they would have been helping that Chris Dodd guy stop that telecom immunity thing from passing, but surprise-surprise, they didn't.

So if the jokers you guys already put into office on the hopes of creating change won't do anything, what the hell makes you think that any candidate put into office in 2008 will?

Second of all, even if there was a candidate who actually did give a fuck about someone other than himself or his/her worthless excuse for a political career, what makes you people think that any election will ever be conducted fairly, if not outright rigged?

I have two reasons to believe that there is no way in hell we'll ever be able to get a fair election regardless of who you're trying to vote for, the most obvious reason -- that all of the candidates are worthless so it doesn't matter anyway -- notwithstanding.

The first and most obvious reason for this is, of course, the Diebold voting machines and how ridiculously easy it is to hack into those fuckers. It doesn't matter if you're a Republican, a Democrat, an Independent or whatever, no matter how an election turns out, it can always be disputed because of the nature of these machines. Even if there was no hacking, you'd still have people bitching about how the election was rigged just because their candidate didn't win. You can't fucking win with these things.

Now that I think about it, it makes me wonder if the Democrats really did win the 2006 elections. Or Bush in 2004. Or if anyone won any election post-2000. And here's another question: do those machines allow write-ins of any kind, or can you only pick between the few jokers on the screen? I'd look it up myself, but fuck it, I'm lazy. :P

My second reason is the fact that Republicans try to keep people from voting just so they can win elections, and apparently, everybody's ok with this. Why aren't the people who do voter caging arrested? Why isn't anyone making examples of these cretins? Why??? How could anyone trust a group or political party, Republican or not, that does something so heinous? What's to stop that from happening this election? If Republicans can apparently get away with this so easily, what will stop anybody else from trying to keep people from voting for whom they don't like?

When you think about it, things just seem so hopeless. Voting in and of itself is a pointless waste of time, and that's really the only legal way any citizen can bring about change in government(as if writing letters to Congressmen who have blatantly refused to listen to people before will help, yeah, sure buddy, tell me another).

But, despite the fact that voting is pointless, I do it anyway, and the reason is simple: I don't want to hear bitching from people who will say "IF YOU DON'T VOTE THEN YOU'RE THE PROBLEM" when you try to tell them how ineffective voting really is and that you don't want to be bothered. I would give the whole speech on how people who choose not to vote aren't to blame and that the problem lies in the way our system has become so corrupted, but damn it all if anybody will listen. So I vote anyway, just to shut them up.

When I go to vote come November, I guess I'll just put on a blindfold and go "Eenie Meenie Miney Moe" to pick who I'm gonna vote for, because that's pretty much how meaningful an election really is these days. Or maybe I'll put a write-in for Bugs Bunny.

And that's it. I guess.


Bookmarkz

Why I don't shop at stores that ban young people.

So this is my first rant, and I shall start off with a subject that seriously pisses me off. Namely, places that ban children or teenagers. For example, these things that have popped in the news from time to time:

Disney World Bans Children From One Of Their Restaurants

Shopping centers showing mallrats the door

These are just two examples of what I'm talking about; if you want to see any more, just do a Google search, there are a ton of articles like this around. I'd talk about more, but I'm lazy. :P

The one thing I have to say about places that do this is... well, this: I will not go to, shop or eat at places that ban children or teenagers. It will not happen, EVER. And I have two reasons for this.

The first one is that I find this kind of nonsense absurd, discriminatory and morally reprehensible. You do not ban a group of people from your store, your restaurant, your mall, or any normal place based on what they are from the outside. Ever. No, I do not give a shit if it's "private property and the owners can do what they want", because no, you can't. If any store or restaurant or mall owner today tried to ban other groups of people, like, say, black people or males, you can bet any money there'd be a huge media shitstorm about it and everybody would be all up in arms about violating their rights. Blanket bans would never fly when applied to any other group of people, yet it's acceptable when it's done to young people? I don't fucking think so. It's not acceptable to me, anyway.

The second reason is that the main excuse used to justify this -- "curbing bad behavior" -- is nothing but bullshit. Not only is this playing on worthless stereotypes, it's also not the real reason places are banning young people. If it was really about behavior and not age, then they'd simply oust the people who are actually causing trouble regardless of age and leave everybody else alone. But instead, they resort to a blanket ban, and the real reason is simple: Instead of doing the right thing, the malls, restaurants and stores just want to bilk money out of self-centered, ignorant older people who are offended and intimidated by people younger than them.

This is blatant in the Disney article(really, Disney banning children from one of their restaurants? Good god, what is this world coming to?). I mean, really, the people who wanted the ban in the Disney restaurant were whining about wanting an ADULT ATMPOSPHERE in a place that is DESIGNED TO CATER TO CHILDREN AND FAMILIES. That's like bitching about Chuck. E. Cheese not having a freaking bar and peep show in the back. If you want to go to a place to have a vacation and an adult atmosphere, maybe you could try, oh, gee, I don't know... NOT GOING TO DISNEY WORLD. There are other amusement parks that have bars and stuff, go to one of those and stop ruining shit for the rest of us just for your convenience.

The Cleveland mall article isn't so straightforward about this, and if you think about the excuses they used to enact their ban, you'll see how utterly ridiculous they really are. Too loud? It's a mall, what do you expect people to do, whisper? Being in large groups? Are you out of your minds? Vulgar language? Well, I'm sorry, I didn't know that this was communist China and not America. And then it talks about loitering even though the article itself says that teenagers who shop at malls spend $56.50 per trip. As for the other things like fighting, those are things you'd throw out anyone from any other age group for doing, so why only complain when teenagers are the ones doing it? These excuses just reek of bullshit.

A lot of these complaints just make it seem like the thing that bothers older shoppers is the fact that younger people are around them, and if that's the case, the older complainers need to get the fuck over themselves and realize that they're not the only ones who exist on the planet Earth. There is no reason to be fearful or hateful of someone else based on age, younger people are not out to get you, idiotic behavior happens in all age groups, and younger people have a right to go to malls, stores, restaurants and other regular places like everybody else.

And if you seriously are scared of teenagers or children, then you need to take a good long look in the mirror, and then go get your head examined.

Honestly, some people... :/

Anyway, the point of all of this is that I don't shop at places that ban younger people. I'm not giving my money to people who cater to discriminatory practices just to line their pockets.

And that's it. I guess.


Bookmarkz

I'm not really good at introductions, so let me just say that I don't expect this little excursion of mine to turn out very well. The reason is because my opinions on things, political or otherwise, are of the kind I have found to be quite unpopular in real life, and I very highly doubt it will be any different in the blogosphere. I am well aware of the fact that I will catch a lot of heat for the things I intend to say here, but I'll do it anyway.

I shall speak up, not because of some delusion of holding the moral high ground, but because I am tired of going day after day keeping my thoughts to myself. I will say the things that other people don't want to hear, no matter how much they bitch or cry about it, because I am pretty sure I am right about a lot of these things. And I will not falter in doing so, because a good man once said that our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter, and that is something that I have had to learn the hard way. Plus, it makes me feel better. :3

I guess that's kind of a cheesy way to start off a blog, but what else can I say? It's the truth. >.>;