I'm going to vote this year, why does it scare me so?

halcyon

Since I've left, I've:

graduated from college
gotten a body piercing
sworn
lied
read my horoscope
gotten hypnotized
smoked cigarettes (a few, just to do it)
smoked pot
looked at p0rn
looked at freaky p0rn
masturbated
gone to church
gone to church on Christmas
celebrated Christmas
ENJOYED celebrating Christmas
AND Easter
carved a pumpkin
stood up for the national anthem
sung the national anthem
sung happy birthday
sung Catholic Masses in choir
become an organ donor
got drunk
got drunk on my birthday
committed adultery
committed adultery on my birthday
oral, anal, lots of other positions

what else ... ? I haven't murdered, don't intend to. Haven't given blood yet, nor fondled a woman. Plan to get a tattoo. Otherwise, I think I've done enough to make an entire circuit of elder bodies faint. AND, what's more, I don't feel guilty!
(not even for the adultery, but you'd have to know my husband to understand.)

So now I'm going to vote this year for the first time ever (I feel kinda passionate and personally obligated to), but it scares me, like somehow THIS is the thing that's going to get me struck down dead.

Why???

Is it simply my fear of getting called up for jury duty? But I think it's something deeper, more ingrained. Like voting for someone who later screws up the country puts the responsibility into MY hands. The whole bloodguilt thing.

Help me get over this.

SixofNine

Sometimes when I'm nervous, I masturbate. Hope that helps.

Mrs. Fiorini

Steve Hassan talks in his books about phobias cults put in their members' minds about various different issues. Maybe there's one lurking there somewhere for you. My feeling is that we are doing our duty as citizens when we vote. Some countries (Australia, I believe) even make it compulsory. Perhaps you would agree that democracy, despite it's flaws, is the best form of government out there right now. It certainly beats dictatorships. Democracies can only work with an active citizenry that votes. As far as your responsibility for making the best choice, the fact that you take your vote seriously is a good indicator of how you'll vote. It means that you will stay informed and carefully weigh your choice based on factual information. No country can ask more of its voters than that. If you don't vote, are you any more or less responsible for who was elected? For instance, if you have never voted before, you didn't vote for either Al Gore or John Kerry in the last two presidential elections. Does that mean you are any more or less responsible for the way George W. Bush ran the country? Even if you had voted for Bush, are you somehow responsible for decisions he made that no one could have predicted? In my opinion, not voting is a vote, because a certain responsibility rests with the citizens whether they exercise it or not. By the way, I've been voting for years and have yet to be called for jury duty.

Gopher

Halcyon,

I was called for jury duty while still in my 20's, an active JW, and not yet registered to vote. I think they can get your name from other lists, such as driver registration records.

Anyhow, I found it liberating to have a say in who gets to run the city, state or country. I hope that after you do it, that you'll say it felt liberating to you as well.

As for the bloodguilt thing, that's taking it too far. When voting, your job is to make an estimation of who you think is best qualified to serve in a particular office. If they don't hold up to the outline they gave to voters (like you and me) after they get in, if they change course and become a Stalin or a Mussolini, that's on them and not on you. If they start to trend that way, you can certainly do your duty as a citizen and speak out against that trend, write letters to the editor -- protest in any way you see fit. Then you can show you're not in harmony with the man or woman who changed after you voted for them.

There, did I talk you down?

asilentone

6of9, TMI!

MadGiant

You are scare because you are planning to vote for McCain and your conscience is telling you otherwise.

Vote for Obama and you will see that everything will be all right.

Take care,

Ismael