On this Election Day (6 November 2018) in these Untied States of America, wherein the media are overwhelmed with exhortations to every citizen, whether alive, dead, or undecided (the latter two representing a great boon to the partisans of this cause, that one, or t’other one, so long as they can jigger the computer to get their votes included in the tally) to go out and
VOTE! VOTE!! VOTE!!!
(said exhortations typically lacking any component of urging said citizens to reflect on for whom or what they are voting, with topics such as “golden showers, for or against” typically presented as being sufficient criteria for selection – except, of course, when they aren’t …)
[ahem] On this Election Day in these Untied States of America, it perhaps bears repeating what Ambrose Bierce’s century-old assessment of the whole business was (Your Friendly Neighborhood Amoeba sees little cause to dispute this assessment):
MAN, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada.
When the world was young and Man was new,
And everything was pleasant,
Distinctions Nature never drew
‘Mongst king and priest and peasant.
We’re not that way at present,
Save here in this Republic, where
We have that old regime,
For all are kings, however bare
Their backs, howe’er extreme
Their hunger. And, indeed, each has a voice
To accept the tyrant of his party’s choice.A citizen who would not vote,
And, therefore, was detested,
Was one day with a tarry coat
(With feathers backed and breasted)
By patriots invested.
“It is your duty,” cried the crowd,
“Your ballot true to cast
For the man ‘o your choice.” He humbly bowed,
And explained his wicked past:
“That’s what I very gladly would have done,
Dear patriots, but he has never run.”
– ‘Apperton Duke’