Elections are another more than a farce to give us citizens the feeling that we hold some kind of authority in this country when the truth is, we have no power at all and can be fucked over at anytime by the powers that be.
Lol I hate that term "powers that be". No one seems to know exactly who or what the "powers that be" are, but they're sure that they control everything. Weird.
Who are "they"? What do "they" want? How do they control everything? The vagueness of these theories is really what annoys me. And how does not voting help anything? Aren't you just relinquishing whatever control you do have?
Whatever control you thought you had was just an illusion they put in place to make you think you could play a part when it was really a rigged game to begin with. They is the wealthy elite. They control the media, they control both major political parties, they control corporations, they control the stock market, and they want nothing more than to pit the little people against each other with this farce of an election. Keep us going at each other so we don't wake up to reality.
So your position is that a wealthy elite controls everything in America, yet they insist on holding elections? Usually when a wealthy elite controls everything, you get a dictatorship. The average modern American holds more political power than 99% of people throughout history. Hell, more than most other people today. Is the system perfect? No, but Americans sure enjoy a hell of a lot more representation from their rulers than most of humanity ever had. And especially in this Internet Age, the media is certainly not 100% controlled by the state/elite. The real illusion "they" want to sell you is that you have no power, when in reality you do.
If there was no election there would be a revolution. And the elites don't want that because then all their money (pieces of paper) are useless. So they put on this game show every 4 years to keep the people occupied. Who is telling you that you have no power? Most of the media is very pro voting and using your 'political power', when in reality, your vote is worthless. You should stick to Canadian politics.
The OP here is telling everyone that they have no power and elections are pointless. You say no election would lead to a revolution. So if this revolution did happen, what system would you replace the current one with? Because if you look at recent revolutions around the world, a consistent problem is people overthrowing their current government and then having no real idea what to replace it with. Look at Egypt, they overthrew Mubarak only to replace him with the Islamist Morsi. Saying "the system sucks/is broken" is only really half a thought. What is your better plan? BTW stick to the actual topic rather than telling me what I should or shouldn't have an opinion on.
By the way, I'm actually voting for Gary Johnson. The reason I took the don't vote approach here is because of the thoughts/discussions it could provoke.
Nothing wrong with voting Libertarian. I'd probably do the same if I was American. It's definitely better than not voting.
The 'powers that be' is a term that generally refers to the known and unknown players. Instead of saying 'illuminati' 'masons' 'nazi' 'rockefellers' etc, using the term PTB is less presumptuous, basically admitting you are not quite sure where the real power structure lies.
There are many powers that be. Their primary goal is to continue to be. They don't take a lot of chances because that threatens their position in the world. They don't try to wipe out the other powers that be but only to make small gains from them. The church, the party, the company. These are the powers that be. Not every church, every party, or every company, but just the ones that extend their influence enough that they are woven into the balance such that to topple them would risk toppling other competing and cooperating powers that be.
Good point, there's an actual example of a rigged system. So really though, what's your better alternative?