Hurricane Sandy

Hey. My house in New York State is undamaged, but we are without heat or electricity, and odds are that this will be true for about 10 or more days, at least according to the utility company. So yesterday, in an adventure that could be the basis of a dark comedy, I managed to move my mom and me to a hotel upstate. Note to others -- if you ever have to move to a hotel on short notice, make sure you inquire first if the room is actually habitable. I made the reservations 24 hours ahead of time, but it was all for nought, as the heater in it put out more dust than heat.

Note also that having a GPS as a navigator is great, so long as not too many roads are closed due to downed trees, power lines, and so on. And also note to avoid driving in urban areas when all public transport is shut down. And also, always fill up your gas tank BEFORE the hurricane (if you watch the news, you'll know why.

Anyway, I'm stuck in a room, probably for the next two weeks with my infirmed mom. If I were a religious person, I'd now make a request that you pray for my sanity.

 

Sorry to hear about your problems. Was your house unsafe or something? I do see that you said your house was undamaged but I was just wondering why you had to leave. Hopefully your sanity will survive mostly unscathed. I also live in New York State and luckily, this time our power didn't go out.

If you remember that really bad/cold blizzard we had a few years ago, we had our power/heat go out in that for 3 to 5 days. We stayed at home and when I was sleeping I had a vellux blanket and a sheet on my bed. I was very comfortable sleeping that way, I was toasty and warm in bed.

 

I could have endured myself, but my mom is ill.

Last year was far worse but my mom wasn't as bad, though I suspect that it was one contributing factor to my mom's current health.

 

Sorry to hear about your mother. I hope she gets better.

I hope everyone else negatively affected by Sandy is okay as well.

 

My brother who lives about a half hour away called us a couple of days ago to tell us he just got his power back, and he invited my mom to stay with him. Then he called about 10 minutes later -- a transformer exploded, and he lost power again.

 

We finally have power today (neighbor called to let us know). Turns out the people we asked to get our mail, along with almost all of the rest of our neighbors, also had left town to escape the cold. I actually get to vote tomorrow! (If I had lived in NJ, it wouldn't have been an issue, since they opened up internet voting for those relocated by the storm).

Anyway, no party politics here -- everyone should vote, if your candidate(s) win, it'll make you feel like you made a difference. And if not, you can bitch and complain for the next few years with a clean conscience.

 

Great to hear you have power again.

I feel kind of the same way about voting except that if you don't vote, you have no right to complain.

 

I know what you mean. But this is a pet peeve of mine, so I will nitpick. Technically, a right is something that is protected by enforced laws. Speech is a right, since you have legal recourse against censorship and voting is not a requirement for that. What voting does do, though, is encourage current and prospective elected officials to actually pay attention to those complaints. Complain all you want. But if you want to make more of a difference, you need to vote.

 

I thought about voting, but I decided against it. I live in Texas. All the Electoral votes are set in stone here. My vote effectively means nothing.

But I understand I now have no real right to bitch either way.

 

Sure you do. because that makes it definitively someone else's fault.

 

As for the hurricane, I live in one of the areas that the hurricane passed through, but since I don't live near any oceans or rivers, and since a freak windstorm two years back already took out all of the unhealthy trees and loose branches in my area so I didn't get the kind of problems the OP did. That sounds like it was unpleasant.

 

A decision not to vote puts you at fault for anything that happens -- at least if you vote, you could take responsibility for anything that goes right, but if you don't vote, you are responsible for everything that goes wrong.

It's like driving a car. You see danger ahead, you could decide to step on the breaks or turn the wheel. But If you decide instead to not do anything, it doesn't relieve you for the responsibility of the result.

In a democracy, we are all drivers. Voting is being a responsible driver.

 

Running with the car analogy: It really depends on the reason they aren't voting. We're all drivers of the same vehicle. If someone is uninformed enough about his or her candidates to not have a preference, they are like a blindfolded backseat driver- they aren't helping things. What if he or she votes for the candidate running on the "let's nuke the antarctic ice sheet today!" platform? In a perfect world, I'd like to see everyone informed about all of their candidates / ballot measures, but I'll settle for the uninformed not voting on those points.

 

I'm just talking about the lame excuse that if you don't vote you aren't responsible for what happens.

That said, the world is complicated and it's impossible for anyone to be perfectly informed about every issue, and every candidate, if only because of the "signal to noise ratio" that always accompanies elections. Furthermore, it's a lot of work to be informed. Plus not all sources of information are equally reliable, and it's difficult for many of us to distinguish the relative truth, relevance, and importance to our own lives of every issue. So it's sometimes impossible to even realize if we are truly well-informed, or are being persuaded by people who may or may not have our own interests at heart.

But that's how EVERYTHING is in life. Hell, I love my mom and dad, but not everything THEY told me turned out to be true. I trusted my teachers in school, but they've been wrong as well. But there's no way to know that if you are a kid and don't know how to think critically (because, after all, that's the most important thing that you ought to be taught). Con-men are effective because they are skilled at gaining trust. They tell you, sometimes what you want to hear, but more often what you already believe, twisted to suit their purposes. If you already believe part of the message, you are more willing to accept the rest of it.

Despite all of that, with practice, and multiple sources, you can often disentangle the facts from the message. You have to trust someone, but as someone once said, 'trust but verify'. It's not a prefect system but it's about as good as you are going to get.

 

What about me? Am I responsible for any possible problems with our elected officials because I did not vote? I live in Texas, and it was longer ago than I was born that one of the Texas electoral votes went for another party. (And it was controversial then too.)

So effectively, I may be driving, but turning the wheel or hitting the brakes has exactly zero effect.

 

That's a totally different issue (the electoral college system) that I won't get into as it could get too political. I don't disagree with you that if you live in some areas, your vote doesn't count as much than it would if you lived elsewhere. But not everything at the voting booth come down to the electoral college.

But forget about the electoral college for now. Let's say that there's a so-called reputable poll saying that 68% of people are going to vote one way. If you are against whatever that is, then you may think that voting is useless because you will lose anyway. On the other hand, if you are for whatever the poll favors, then... guess what? Your vote STILL doesn't have much of an effect because everyone else (you think) is going to vote, so there's no benefit to vote either way.

The problem is, if everyone was that brilliant and realized how little their vote matters on anything but issues that are split down the middle, then only mathematically challenged and uninformed people would vote. So you are essentially surrendering control of your democracy. It's that kind of faulty reasoning which keeps far too many people from taking part in our democracy. And it's also partly why polls can often be flawed.

Your vote DOES count. Certainly, your vote counts more when the issues are more contentious. But even when the sides are slanted towards one side or the other, although the value of your vote is diminished, all you can really talk about are probabilities. There's no absolutes until the votes are counted.

 

My vote counts. Agreed. But a protest vote is still only a protest vote. I contemplated a write-in for Micky-Mouse just to be a jerk, but the sad truth is that such votes count for less than nothing. The officials that are elected or narrowly missed being elected are less willing to acknowledge protest votes as they are to acknowledge actual protests. I have never involved myself in a protest, and I am truthfully afraid to do so. I have seen the mere mention that a singular protester may be deranged cause the local law enforcement to use what I consider drastic and dangerous means to subdue all the protesters.

In this world, corruption knows no bounds and lunatics are not as often the ones peacefully protesting things they disapprove of.

I am not pointing any fingers nor making any accusations. I am simply disillusioned with the voting system in this Nation.

If it helps you to understand my prospective, neglecting to vote *WAS* my vote. It was a protest of the voting system. And need not be discussed any further since it would no doubt draw us into a conversation that Gaslamp Games wants off their forum. Feel free to PM me and we can discuss it in detail.

 

You should have voted for a third-party candidate like Jill Stein or Vermin Love Supreme if unpopular parties get enough of the vote they could get mentioned on the news for it and in turn gain more recognition and over the course of decades eventually build up enough momentum to displace one of the major parties

 

We should avoid mentioning names of those competing for votes. I know it sucks, and I have an annoying tendency to irritate poor Daynab by treading on the boundaries of what is reasonable on a forum where Politics is strictly forbidden to speak of due to the many and vastly different opinions. I will however violate the rules by mentioning a name I have done before and say that I considered a write-in vote for Ron Paul.

If you want to discuss this further, just put a like on this post and I will invite you to the discussion Halderson and I are having about this. (Discussions, AKA Private Messages, are separate from the forums and we can discuss whatever we wish. Daynab and the others at Gaslamp Games are quite kind and respect our privacy to rant and rave in PMs as much as we desire.)

The only other options are other forums, E-Mail, and to cease the discussion. But I for one welcome your opinion. I will be watching for a like or a reply saying you do not want to like, but do want to continue the discussion.