Saturday, March 31, 2012

Can I buy your vote for $100?

Location: Daytona Beach, FL, USA


You heard right: I want to give you $100 to buy your vote, with no strings attached. You vote for the candidate I tell you to, and I give you a crisp, new $100 bill so you can marvel at Benjamin Franklin's portrait.

Why would I do such a thing?

You've heard, perhaps even uttered the phrase, "I wouldn't do that even if I was paid to." Or perhaps it was, "There's no amount of money you could pay me to do that."

Voting is something which millions of our countrymen have sacrificed everything to allow us to do. There's no voting tax, there's not really much of a qualification to be able to do it, you just have to have the desire to do it. A lot of people, myself included, have been so incensed at what are laughingly referred to as our "choices", and that we are not allowed to vote "None of the Above", that we often simply don't vote as protest. Unfortunately, that doesn't work any better because it only strengthens the voice of those who aren't really smart enough to vote.

In any form of motivation, there is the stick and the carrot; that is, the punishment for not doing right, and the reward for doing right. One without the other often doesn't work, but when both are used, you usually get results. For instance, we personally don't have to make much of a sacrifice to vote; the only stick is that we get no voice at all. What's needed is a carrot, and that's where the $100 comes in. If I give you some money to go vote, you'll go do it, right?




But then there are people whom I have described as, "He/She wouldn't do his/her job even if he/she was paid to do it." Funny, because of the irony that the person IS being paid to do it and still won't. If I give you $100 to vote, will you go out and do it? If not, then what is the price at which you WILL go vote?

Maybe you think your vote isn't for sale, but what's even more ironic is that people sell their votes all the time for far less than $100. A simple pat on the back from a particular candidate is often enough to do it. Even a PERCEIVED pat on the back - which is to say that the candidate did NOT single you out, he simply mentioned some group you're a part of and praised them and got you to think he cares about you that way.

But there are people who sell their vote even cheaper; in fact, who PAY to cast their vote. I'm talking about the people who blindly vote the party line. "It's the Republican/Democrat candidate, and I'm one of them, so I will vote for them and not consider the other person for any reason." A person like that has paid dearly, whether it's by suffering from party values which rob him of his retirement or his paycheck, or whether it's supporting ideas which are against his core values and therefore forfeits his soul, that person has paid to vote for someone he wouldn't believe in if they were a member of the "other" party.

So you see my real question: what would it take to get you to vote for what you actually want, and not for what someone else tells you that you have to settle for? If there was a candidate who supported everything you personally believed in, who was NOT part of the political party which has conned you into thinking you're one of them and they will take care of you, what would it take for you to vote for him/her?

I hear a lot of people say they want change and fairness and equality, and then they go and vote for a Republican or a Democrat, neither of which has their interests in mind, and both of which have a long track record of lying to get elected. What would it take to get you to snap out of your trance and vote for someone else? Someone who actually would do what you wanted him to do? Someone who would cater to YOUR needs? Someone who was honest and open and worthy of the position you're electing him to?

Is there any price anyone could pay to get you to vote for that person?

Because there are a LOT of people who have paid with their lives so that you WOULD DO JUST THAT.

There IS a person like that, who IS running for President. He can't do it alone. He can't do it without you. He needs you to stand up for yourself and support him so that he can support you, so that he can safeguard your lifetime of work and your retirement and your well-being and restore the rights which the two ajor political parties have trampled in favor of the over-wealthy special interests. Unless you stand up for your rights, you won't have them.

That's important to me. So important that I want to give you $100 if you help get him elected. For $100, you can't possibly feel like your vote was wasted (even though voting for anyone else is a sure way to waste it), and just think what it will be like, knowing that you made history and got a decent man into the White House for the first time in a long time, one who will do everything he can to set the country right again.

Can I pay you to love your country?

Simply go here and sign up because I want to give you $100 if you help me get Buddy Roemer elected. (The nature of this payment will take the form of a stronger economy and a better income for you when Buddy gets elected and puts into action his plan to kick the corruption out of Congress.)

I thank you, and your country thanks you.

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