I was in Austin Bergstrom Airport, last Thursday, while my wife was making a phone call. I was in one of those stand-up bars, sipping a Garrison Brothers Bourbon, and idly watching the TV. I suddenly and unintentionally tuned into a conversation right next to me, behind me. I didn’t turn to look but I heard the end of a discussion about voting in November:
“…just feel like I have to turn out and speak up.“
“Well, I don’t. What good does it do? I’m shouting into the void. I don’t care what anybody says, my vote does not count. Yours doesn’t count. I have better things to do with my November day. And we can’t vote by mail so, I’m out.“
MY reaction was instantaneous and wholly involuntary: I came as close as I ever have come or ever will, I hope, to just blindly turning and swinging on a total stranger.
I know and knew on the spot where it came from. It was my deeply rooted and ancient response to “I don’t matter” and its idiot step-brother, “Let George do it.” I don’t count, so I don’t need to expend energy. It’s Not My Job. What difference does it make? It’s all rigged. I don’t do Politics…
Yes, you fucking do, whether you will ever realize it or not.
Two things: Last night, Judye and I watched this shambling, triple-cheese burrito of a movie, “Swing Vote”, starring and produced by Kevin Costner. Because he was in charge, the cast was stuffed with respected actors and pals of his, including a poignant and soft-pedal excellent turn by the late Dennis Hopper, and a surprisingly touching and only marginally “Frasier”-ish performance by Kelsey Grammer, playing two competing presidential candidates grappling toward following the dictates of their souls, versus the manipulative stage play that is a close, hotly-contested election. The short thumbnail is that Costner plays a slacker dumb-ass in a trailer park in Texico, New Mexico, whose single vote will decide the presidential election. And the two campaigns come down to…a week of wooing ONE American voter, who clearly couldn’t give less of a shit about it.
Crazy, huh? Far-fetched. Could never happen.
BULLSHIT.
As this hot mess of a farce moved into its final act, it suddenly found its heart. I’m not giving any of it away but, the Slacker guy, constantly hounded by his amazing 11-year-old daughter, who is FAR more informed and aware of the consequences than her idiot dad, finally calls for a debate between the two candidates. In his opening statement, he acknowledges his short-comings as a father and as an American and says this, “If America has a true enemy tonight…I guess it’s me.”
It could never happen that ONE vote could decide a presidential election?
Again, BULLSHIT. It happens every time we elect someone. It happens every time we each walk into a voting booth or drop a mail-in ballot or vote in absentia. EVERY time, literally, that we Vote.
Schrodinger’s Cat is a basic logic problem. It says that a cat is in a box and we wonder if the cat is alive or dead. But we cannot know for CERTAIN until we open the box. Therefore, according to Doctor Erwin Schrodinger, the cat is both dead and alive, simultaneously. Now, for the Regular Joe, the answer is, “How ’bout we just open the fuggen box and see?“
Too simple for a logician or philosopher, Billy Bob. It’s the question that is the goal; the exercising of the mind’s finer tentacles. The cat is both dead and alive. Neither you, I, nor anyone can say either for a certainty…
Which brings us to the title of this post.
Your ballot is Schrodinger’s Cat. In effect, it’s now Schrodinger’s Ballot. You cannot say for SURE that your ballot was NOT the one that decided the election. Nor can you say it was. You will think this is just another thought exercise, a meaningless mental bauble with which to amuse ourselves but I am going to say otherwise.
YOUR ballot WILL decide the November 4th presidential election. I say it will and YOU cannot prove otherwise. It is only in telling yourself that the idea of Schrodinger’s Ballot is full of shit that you give yourself an out and by taking that out, you leave open the very real question of “What IF my ballot DOES decide who grabs the brass ring, next?” What if it did? What if you just skipped voting and read the results and hated who won? Could happen…and it is impossible for you to say that it wasn’t you who caused it.
Take this as a set of mental jumping jacks if you like but this idea has the backing of every qualified scientist on Earth. The ONLY way we know anything is by empirical data and that requires a LOT of research and the results are OFTEN various degrees of surprising, up to and including shocking. The best thing you can do – just in case this is NOT simply a logic problem – is to go cast that vote and take no chances. You say your vote doesn’t count? You don’t know that FOR SURE. You are casting Schrodinger’s Ballot and the ONLY way to have any hand in determining its fate is to go cast it. Cover your bases. And even above and beyond the philosophical questions like this, what we KNOW changes history and colors whatever we do moving forward, past your vote, is the weight of the masses of votes that are cast.
In November, the continued existence of America is riding on YOUR vote, on MY vote, on the votes of every sane and decent person we know. If Nov4 goes the wrong way, this nation will break apart and become somewhere between three or four separate nations because we CANNOT live with the millions of pervs and traitors in our midst. For this heinous episode in our history to be crushed, we require a landslide of historic proportions, a clear and unambiguous Statement that we are through with division and regression and those who would remake America as a police state.
YOUR. VOTE. WILL. DECIDE. THIS. ELECTION.
Erwin Schrodinger says so.
The Pour Fool 