With the voting season coming soon, and the fact I have nothing better to do being a constant, the question of wither or not voting should be compulsory, free choice, or just to ******** it completely and let the strongest lead us all until someone stronger comes along, comes to mind. Of course, each comes with its own pros and cons, but then there never is a totally perfect way of doing
things. But what matters is that we look at each of them, picking our sides, then starting a revolution…err…movement towards supporting your side. I'll show you the side you might want to join; I'll let it up to you on how to show your support.

First up on the block is our current way of voting for our leaders: completely free for us to choose to vote or not. Now, while it seems to have worked well over the years, past 200 and so years, when you look back on the whole thing, this system has produced some pretty bad results. Never mind our recent years, but think Regan, Carter, and the other presidents that didn't do s**t or wrecked things…all of them came to be because the people voted for them.

"Well, yeah," you say, "that's how it works. It's just a popularity contest, after all." I could agree with you on that point, but the only reason we vote for our said candidate is because they are aligned with our choice party. Face it: if you belong to your party and you're going to vote, you're going to vote party, even if you disagree with that candidate.

"True," you speak up again, "but, if I really disagree with the person, then I just won't vote." Ah, there, there is the problem with free choice voting. The fact you can decline your right to vote makes the whole system unbalanced, as certain groups of people tend to vote more then others.
While I'm not about to go out and research who votes more, I just want you look to the past eight years and tell me which groups tend to vote more.

Now, while this doesn't seem to be a major problem, you forgetting one thing: your own thoughts. See, while I can't totally say it's wrong not to vote if you don't care about who wins or not, or if you truly don't like any of the candidates, I will say it is wrong for somebody not to vote if they believe that one of the candidates is a good choice. Not only are you denying yourself your own freedoms, but any complaints coming out of your mouth for an opposing administration makes you a hypocrite. See, people who voted have the right to complain, after all, they didn't vote for the guy. But you, Mister and Misses Votenot, shame on you. For all you know, you could've tilled the vote, but you had to be lazy.

This also brings up the issue of the voting age. At the beginning of high school, I could have sure damned well told you that I didn't want Bush, as did most of the people I went to high school with (it also had a little something to do with the rumors of a draft, but for the most part, we
really didn't want the man). Now, right there, that could have been a lot of votes for Kerry. In fact, Kerry would've won if high school students were allowed to vote. You may not agree with me, but a lot of them have pretty strong opinions, and at times, seem more capable of choosing a president more rationally then any other citizen, which, may I remind you, students are also citizens.

So, after bashing the hell out of our current system, what one good thing could I say about? Well, I suppose it does allow a little more freedom then the other two systems would, but, as you might soon see, that might not matter.

Compulsory voting in the land of the free…sounds like an oxymoron, right? Well, maybe, maybe not. See, I can break down the types of voters down into three groups: the people who vote anyway, the people who have a person in mind to vote for but just don't find the time or are lazy, or the group who just really doesn't care. These voters should have a different view of compulsory voting, but doesn't mean they should hate having to vote.

For the first group, it doesn't really matter if they are forced to vote or not. They would vote even if they didn't have to, so being forced to doesn't really change anything for them. There really isn't anything here to elaborate on, so on to the next group.

The next group is comprised of the people who either want to vote but can't because of time constraints or won't vote because they're lazy. The time constraints can be anything from work to school to anything really. This can easily be solved with making voting a national holiday, like
Christmas. Of course, the nation shouldn't stop just because it's a national holiday, but the employer should expect tardiness if they don't close. But what if you're already stuck at work or something like that? Well, we have door-to-door carolers, why not door-to-door poll workers? I could see that catching on. Same principal applies to the lazy, or the bedridden. Just send a poll worker to their house and have them vote on the spot.

Now we have the group that doesn't care. This is sort of like the first group in that it shouldn't really matter if you vote. You see, they don't care to begin with, so for them the most it'll be is a trite little annoyance to actually move their arm and hit one of the little boxes with a name next to it. Done, in a little under five seconds, and then back to the uncaring.

"Wait," you yell, "I don't believe in voting!" What the hell is wrong with you? You believe in mountains, don't you? If don't vote because you believe it doesn't work, then you're perfect for the corporate world. Your superior is the richest guy there, even if he doesn't know what he's
doing. You may never see him your entire life, but he's pulling the strings. Your kind starts running the nation, that's how we'll end up. You'll just start listening to somebody because, while what they say may make no sense, it's just easier to comply then to complain. Our nation would just become one giant job…and nobody likes their job unless their on top. So vote, and be glad to know you might have a hand on electing a guy who make might sense of things.

So, really, compulsory voting doesn't restrict much in the way of freedoms. It's not like people are telling you must vote for this one guy, but rather we're telling you have to vote for somebody, preferably the person you want.

The last type of voting isn't so much voting as it is a social Darwinist dream. Sort of. Letting whoever is in power stay in power might work in some places, but how did that one person get into power? Revolution, that's how, the loss of life. If we in America let the strong become
president by means of revolution, then the strong has to stay in power by staying strong, that's is, making sure their army will be strong enough to repel counterrevolutions. And with our nation filled with many ambitious people, that's going to cause a lot of death.

Yet, in America, we see power more as money then anything, so perhaps it would be run by the richest guy…that is, Bill Gates. Bad idea here, too, because, the rich become rich though corporations and all they know is how to make money for themselves. They'll run the nation as a giant corporation focused on making money while you make minimum wage or less. Or worse, no jobs because they're all overseas. With no jobs, we'll get pissed, lead a revolution, kill people, and because it was a civil revolution, that is, a revolution led against people in our own county, I
have the feeling that paranoia and the constant fear that somebody will lead a forceful change will be ever present, leading us back to the first model.

So, voting is a good idea to keep around, unless somehow we get along without leaders or we become a sort of hive mind. The odds of that, of course, aren't very high. I'm going to say leadership though strength alone isn't going to happen anytime soon.

In the long about way of saying it, it would seem compulsory voting is a good idea, or at the very least, it's a logical idea. I suppose people wouldn't like their freedoms shoved down their throats, but, really, don't some people need to?