Why My Vote Is Not Wasted

Let’s take a little quiz.

If you told your child a good serving was 2 brownies, and instead they ate 10, would you:

1.  Never make brownies again and start a campaign to make brownies illegal.

2.  Complain that now there is no way everyone in the family could have an equal amount of brownies because there were only 12 to begin with, and make more brownies.

3.  Tell your child to eat the other 2 brownies so you could put the plate in the dishwasher, knowing that if he wasn’t already sick to his stomach, he would be then, and would learn his lesson.

My answer, I would pick #3.  He might not get it right away.  Heck, he might even do it again, maybe a few times.   Eventually, however, he will understand that maybe things need to change, maybe always doing the same things the same way just gets us to the same consequences.   That maybe he should do things differently if he wants a different outcome.

And to that end, when I vote Libertarian, it is not a vote “wasted” as many like to say. There is a purpose to what I do. I know that there will be no immediate dramatic change.  I know there will not be some sense of satisfaction of being on the “winning” side.  I know that the result of my actions will not in any way give me any sort of credit, not even in the long run.  I get it. 

I, however, also know that I am planting a seed or two or three.  A seed that shows there is an option other than the status quo.  A seed that shows the establishment that not everyone is happy with their representation.  A seed that helps others to understand that it’s OK to vote based on what they actually believe instead of if there is an R or a D next to a name.  A seed that shows my child that it’s perfectly alright to still like a team that you know will probably lose, if that is who stands for who you are.   

One day, those seeds will grow into a mature tree with more than 2 branches. That day may not be until my child is grown.  It may not even be in my lifetime.  But it will come.  And so I will continue to nourish that sapling and vote my conscious, and to have the peace that I did not settle for someone I did not believe in.

The only vote wasted is the one that is not cast.  One day we'll be able to have a viable choice that is not just the lesser of two evils.

Until then, that’s why they have wine.