Nice post. I like the strategy of living on a ranch and fixing it up. I have done that. I will do it again. We moved closer to the city during the pandemic to try and cut the travel time down. I am having some regrets. We are on our way back to the countryside soon. Many people disagree with me on the differences between McConnell, Biden, Schumer and Trump. It is true that Trump was an outlier. He did not come from the Senate, and he behaves accordingly. Obviously - Biden, Harris, Clinton, Kane, Obama, Biden, Romney, Ryan, McCain, Kerry, Edwards, Gore and Dole had a lot more in common than Trump, LOL. You make a good point.Gadianton wrote: ↑Mon Aug 01, 2022 4:04 amThe bottom line for me, h, is that I'm just naturally not much of a participator and kind of an outsider. If I weren't married and laden with responsibilities, and with a career firmly remote at this point, I'd live out in the middle of nowhere in like, one of these small ranches and fix up the place and stay away from people most of the time.
I've never paid much attention to politics, figuring that anything I'm dissatisfied in life about can be fixed far more directly by other means rather than by voting. I've never liked the personality types in politics because the job seems to require a certain level of charlatanism to succeed. Also, I've never really felt like there would be much difference between presidential candidates. I abhor listening to speeches. I can't stand all the "ra ra ra" Amway convention BS in politics. I don't want to go to an event and feel all the energy behind a candidates platform and get excited about it. I don't like religion, and politics is very similar to religion.
My biggest exposure to politics was probably EA, since we'd been friends since Z and he was really into politics, and I enjoyed getting his take on things. Since then I've enjoyed you others who have cropped up since EA chickened out and left. EA convinced me that Hilary would be better than Trump. But not enough to actually vote. My little exposure to political science in school did convince me of the importance of gridlock, and if anything, I'd get concerned about a president with too much ability to get things done. I figured Hilary with all her connections and experience would get a crapload done, and getting things done means changing the nature of the game you have to play as a citizen. I figured Trump was too much of an idiot to accomplish anything, and so maybe he'd be better. Boy, was I wrong. Trump "accomplished" way more than I could ever imagine, and most of it bad.
Binger is wrong about one thing. While my counterfactual votes up to 2020 wouldn't have counted for much, in 2020, I was living in a swing state, and I'm proud to say that I voted, and my vote kept Ajax's president out of office . This time, there is no question that the president makes a difference. I really hope we can go back to my vote not being needed. You guys can hammer out the little stuff, I just want the basics in place, which are now at risk, thanks to right-wing fanaticism. Unfortunately, I fear I will need to vote in future elections.
I don't know all the voting distinctions, I voted with a ballot that came to me in the mail, but I didn't mail it, I dropped it off at the voting tent. The thought did occur to me that a right-wing mailperson would have no problem dumping my ballot so I dropped it off to be sure. So did all the right-wingers on my walk, none of them voted in person.
I have no reason to believe that voting by mail isn't safe enough when considering the large number of voters. I read all the articles that subs would post about voting fraud and a lot of it comes down to (the stuff with any merit at all) people not understanding things like how information systems work, bugs in code, and so on, that aren't critical. A city's IT budget isn't the same as Google's.
I've said before that I don't like the fact that Democrats have to rely on mail-in voting because so many poor people don't have bank accounts or proper ID, and therefore can't vote otherwise. How about a concerted effort to help poor people get proper ID, and so on, which will help them in far more direct ways than being able to vote? That also helps with jobs and other benefits. But, things can always be worse, so if the only way to keep unhinged right-wingers out of office is to have poor people mail in their ballots, then so be it.
Sound's like you are comfortable filling out that ballot and handing it off. Right on. Keep it up. My Mom and Dad don't have a problem with it either. No worries. Now, if we can just make voting day a national holiday, I can pay my employees not to work that day and not vote.