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IPFS

A Waste, A Weapon, A Warning, A Wager or Withheld—What Will Become of Your Vote?<br>by Barry Hess

Written by Subject: Voting - Election Integrity
By Barry Hess

Those who cast the votes decide nothing, those who count the votes decide everything” Josef Stalin

When it comes to participating in the electoral process, people expect to be able to trust the “official” tallies that directly impact their liberties, their property and their pocketbooks. You would think they might want to actually verify the accuracy of the count every here and again.

The assumption for this diatribe is that if you were allowed (it is literally illegal in Arizona) to compare the actual paper ballots with the numbers the voting machine spits out, they would be the same, though I am absolutely certain they would not even be close.

Those who actually understand how this democratic Republic called, America is set up recognize that voting in (honest) elections is the heart and soul of the very idea of respect for individual rights and national freedom. The sanctity of elections and public votes are what supports the foundation of this nation, the Constitution. Pretty serious stuff.

Before we can determine what you or I should ‘do’ with our respective votes, we first have to establish 1) If it’s worth the time or effort to even participate, and if it is, 2) Why what you do with your vote should be of serious weight and importance.

Do you believe pollsters? Should you? Did you know that polls were invented as marketing tools, not as reflections of the thoughts, feelings, beliefs or intentions of a given population? If they were—they could never be wrong, and they almost always are. Just look how wrong they were in the Iowa, New Hampshire, Louisiana, Florida and South Carolina presidential primary/caucus’, 2008. They weren’t just “off”—they were wrong.

Polls are an organized effort to disseminate propaganda, disguised as an effort to gather information.

Ask yourself; of the hundreds of polls that have already been quoted by the olde media in regard to the presidential (2008) elections, how many have given you the actual verbatim text of the questions that were asked of participants? How’s about the exact criteria used to determine who would be called to participate (they use different database pools), and, oh yeah—exactly who commissioned, wrote and had final say on the wording of the questions and which candidates would even be mentioned?

Would it be unreasonable to think those who actually pay the polling companies and write the questions, might have some idea of how they ‘want’ the results to come out? Would it be unreasonable to think that some polling companies (which are fundamentally boiler rooms with warm bodies and telephone lines for hire) are simply fronts pretending to be separate from the subject of the poll? Would it be unreasonable to think there is a sufficient amount of money and power at stake to corrupt some people’s integrity?

I continue to participate in several national polls like Zogby, Polling Point and Rasmussen and the questions asked are clearly and deliberately designed to get the answers they want. I stopped getting upset when they leave specific candidates out of the selections, give really stupid answer choices and then say “which do you agree with the most?” (Usually ‘none’—but you have to answer to keep going) or word questions in very misleading or downright deceptive ways. Instead, I like to harass them in the comments or ‘other’ selections. But that’s just me.

Once you realize that these phony pollsters aren’t even slightly interested in what you think or believe, they are only trying to tell you how to think and what to believe, you get a clearer understanding of who ‘they’ really are. They’re really washed up used car salesmen pitching for the Democrat/Republican party machine. Zogby, Rasmussen, AP, CBS, Mitofsky, Edison Media ‘Research’, NBC, CNN, Faux News, ABC Rocky Mountain ‘Research’—take your pick, they’re all the same.

Note: Our assumption for this essay is that the tallies announced to the public are the actual, honest votes cast by qualified participants. This is only an operating assumption for this essay, and not reflective of my personal conclusions.

To think the olde media doesn’t play a very intentional role in shaping the way the public perceives particular events and trends would be a serious miscalculation. It was through a concerted media effort that voters were introduced to the idea that they could actually “waste” their vote(s) if they didn’t vote for one of the ‘two’ candidates forwarded by the Republican/Democrat party. (Hey, how come they get two candidates, and we only get one?)

This new terminology is intended to dismiss, diminish or suppress individual thought. You must vote only for Republican/Democrat candidates, or so you are supposed to think. The marketing of this new “waste” terminology is the result of focus group research and specifically designed to evoke an emotional response from those among the populace who are insecure in their own candidate choices. Through repetition, the olde media and phony pollsters have convinced many among us that we are not smart enough to choose the ‘right’ candidate.

But who is the ‘wrong’ person, really?

In the absence of external emotional influence, (or olde media psycho-propaganda) the ‘wrong’ person would be the one you don’t agree with, believe or trust. It follows that the ‘right’ person would be the one that you, as an individual, do agree with, believe and trust, right?

So how did the olde media convince even a welfare-schooled, dumbed-down population that voting for a candidate ‘they’ say, “can’t win” would be a waste? They used tactics they learned at the Joseph Goebbels School of propaganda…of course now they call it “marketing”.

There is only one winner, right? By their logic, if you cast a vote for the ultimate loser you wasted your vote.

What could it actually mean to “waste” a vote, and where did the concept come from? These are pertinent questions. The olde media’s focus groups found that the vast majority of people are averse to wasting, anything. The word evokes a negative emotion, and in an odd way, a kind of “fear” of doing it. That’s where it came from. As it applies to the political arena, the olde media has been very adept at using simple ‘fear’ words, (like “waste”) to actually control the population and influence its opinions, subtly, subliminally.

The Truth is, the only “wasted” vote—is the vote not cast in good conscience.

Non-thinkers say, “I’m open to ‘third’ parties, but they just steal from the Republican/Democrats. They can’t win, so if you vote for them your wasting your vote…you’re helping the ‘evil-doers’” [term left undefined, ed.]. I just smile to myself as I visualize the mutterers of such nuttery with their heads other than on their shoulders. Unless they’ve won the lottery twice, or possess the gift of pre-cognition, anyone who says such things should not be your sole source of political advice.

If you ever vote for any candidate, other than one you agree with, believe or trust, your vote will be counted in a pile that does not represent y-o-u. The lack of your vote will make the pile that does represent your views smaller, and the one that doesn’t, artificially higher.

Politicians look at the totals, and holy-moley, the pile that represents your real views is tiny (since your particular vote is not on this heap)… so there’s no reason for politicians to pay any attention to you. Oops! You doubly hurt yourself just because you were scared of ‘wasting’ your voice. You’ve created your own political Hell.

How intellectually absent must we now be to forget that all a candidate needs to win--is more votes than the other candidates? Every candidate who makes it to the ballot can win, and your vote could be the vote that elects the candidate you agree with, believe and trust. [Remember, we are working under the assumption of vote tally accuracy. Ed.]

Wouldn’t it be a bummer if your candidate lost by one vote, and you hadn’t voted for him (or her) just because the olde media told you they ‘couldn’t’ win?

It happens all the time.

The words, “steal”, and “third parties” are also emotional buzzwords, the products of focus group research. Everyone knows that ‘stealing’ is a bad thing, and ‘third’ intones something uneven and ‘not paired’. By association, third parties must be thieves!

But, how could third parties ‘steal’ something, anything, that the Republican/Democrats never owned?” Or do they? Is your vote yours…or theirs?

Will you, ‘Wager’ your vote? That’s when the only thing you worry about is whether or not you vote for the candidate who wins, another victim of the ‘sports team’ mentality syndrome (“STMS”). You should never gamble with your political chips.

If you vote for candidates solely because they are signed up in the same political party—you suffer from STMS. The foolishness of this irresponsibility should be pretty obvious to clear-thinking individualists. Bad people sign up, and run for office in your party, too.

How could rational people be fooled into thinking there was some benefit to having voted for any candidate, just because in retrospect, they won? It’s exactly that kind of thinking that ends up with the same people being re-elected to ‘fix’ the same problems they created…and for MORE of your money, privacy and liberties.

Some of the olde media propagandists have tried an interesting tactic. If you won’t support their candidate, they’ll try to scare you into “Weaponizing” (I refer to it as “Defensive” voting)your vote. They’ll say if you don’t vote “against” their opposition, the opposition will win and sic the dingos on your baby. How do you vote against this monster, you ask? By voting for the candidate they want you to, of course.

This is a curious twist, isn’t it? But you’re smarter than that, right?

The fear of loss is a far greater motivator of human action than any desire for gain. Politicians know this. Think of how they present themselves. Do they say, “Everything’s rosy and we have the greatest opportunity in the history of mankind to achieve great and bountiful things by following the rule of law”? No, they say, “Booga-Booga, bad people are comin’ to get ya, and bad things will happen if I’m not elected!”

Unless you can personally vouch for a candidate, you shouldn’t vote in that race. It’s okay to skip one, or all of them, on your ballot.

Someone advised me to add “using your vote as a warning” to errant politicians, but I declined. Using your one vote as a “warning”, metaphorically, makes about as much sense as using your last bullet for the same purpose. What kind of warning would or could you send?

Many people believe that the system has just grown too large and it is “too late” to fix it, so it’s futile to try. But is there no point at which people will rise in self-defense before their individuality dies at the hands of their elected representatives? I won’t even pretend to understand that kind of servility, and I refuse to sit and watch America die without giving her my best efforts.

If you’ve concluded it is worthwhile to cast a vote, don’t throw it away. The people who want to control the vote want you to think your individual vote doesn’t matter. But it does. The olde media and the phony pollsters know the fewer voters who turn out, the smaller the gap they have to fake so they try to discourage you from voting at all.

Need an example? Just sift through the olde media and phony poll releases to see how they conspire to not include Dr. Ron Paul in their presidential polls/coverage. The owners of the olde media and phony polls don’t like honest politicians. Honest politicians really do stand up for all individuals. This would upset the controlling class.

A word of advice: Be your own person regardless of what pollsters say everybody else thinks. Always, always lie to pollsters; they’re always lying to you and fair is fair. A lie of omission is still a lie—and pollsters omit more than they include.

Your active participation in this constitutional republic is not an obligation, but it is your responsibility to preserve the individual rights of the next generation, just like the rights you’ve enjoyed were left by previous generations. Nothing less than your family’s future and the idea of “America” are at stake.

On the other hand, many people have decided to withhold their vote. They’ve concluded that by participating, they agree to abide by what the ‘officials’ say are the results and they simply don’t want to play. For good and indisputable reasons they don’t believe ‘official’ results. Have you ever wondered why politicians push for very easily hack-able, paperless voting machines with mysterious source codes. How complicated could this ‘special’ code be that it has to remain secret? After all, my dollar-store handheld solar calculator can add ‘1’ to a cumulative total.

There is no lack of honor, principle or integrity in refusing to participate in a rigged game. Still, withholding your vote can never be called a ‘protest’ because nobody knows you’re even there. The problem is one of appearances--‘somebody’ knows what the real vote totals are. I want them to know you exist, and that you care enough to participate.

One way or the other, it’s your responsibility to ensure that all votes are counted openly and accurately--and to put responsible, honest people in office to oversee the process.

ALL votes and elections are about money and control—ALL of them. You may want to stop thinking about what government will do for you, and start thinking about what you can do for yourself. I hope that at some point your loyalty to your family and your sense of responsibility will lead you to rise up and to weigh your family’s hunger pangs against those of government wants.

Ultimately, regardless of what or who the Democrat/Republicans and their cohorts in the olde media tell you, you do have another choice, you can be responsible, you can vote your conscience.

I’m suggesting we ditch the “W’s” (pun intended) and go with the “I’s”, I’m asking you to consider Investing your vote. Don’t Waste it. Don’t Wager it. Don’t Withhold it, (unless you really, really, really feel the need). Don’t be a willing victim of vote theft. And for the sake of your children, don’t let your vote be counted in the wrong pile.

© Barry Hess 2008, re-print permission granted only in its unedited entirety. The author can be reached at AZGovernor@Earthlink.net

 
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