Sunday, October 11, 2020

Ignorant voting.

A great entry on the Dumbest Blog Ever, which is actually a really smart blog.

348: Vote. (But Do Your Homework First)

As I noted in my comments there, I really don't like the "you have to vote" campaigns that are so common every two years.

No, you don't.

Now, don't get me wrong. I urge people to make informed voting decisions.

Informed.

Voting un-informed is worse, much worse, than not voting at all.

Over the years I've been simply amazed by the rationale, or confessions of no rationale, I'll hear about voting. One friend of mine is completely up front about voting in a dedicated fashion while also completely up front about not being interested, at all, in politics. This person never researches the ballot as they're disinterested in politics. They vote anyhow.

I've also heard the oddest reasons to vote for a candidate. One I used to hear all the time from somebody I knew extremely well is that "he's a lawyer". I'm a lawyer, and they figured that this would impress me somehow.

The full extent of their logic was that being a lawyer means you are smart, and therefore it was a safe vote as the candidate was smart.

Well, being a lawyer doesn't mean you are smart at all, particularly in modern times. Lots of lawyers are smart, but not all of them.

To add to it, plenty of people you don't want in office are lawyers. A colleague of mine had a member of his law school class murder his father after he'd been admitted to the Florida bar. John Wesley Hardin was a lawyer. Roland Freisler was a lawyer. Michael Cohen is a lawyer. You get my point.

One that I'll occasionally here is "he's a Catholic". I guess I hear that as I'm a Catholic. If you were a Baptist, you'd probably here "he's a Baptist". Simply being a member of a church doesn't mean much in and of itself.

John F. Kennedy was a Catholic. . . a really bad skirt chasing Catholic who was a terrible President. If you are Al Smith, being a Catholic means something. If you are JFK. . .apparently not so much.

Anyhow, look the candidates up and see what they really stand for. It's not that hard anymore.

No comments:

Lex Anteinternet?

This blog has been around since 2009. In the very first post, we asked the question: "What the heck is this blog about?"

Our answer to the question was: "The intent of this blog is to try to explore and learn a few things about the practice of law prior to the current era. That is, prior to the internet, prior to easy roads, and the like. How did it work, how regional was it, how did lawyers perceive their roles, and how were they perceived?"

We also noted: "Part of the reason for this, quite frankly, has something to do with minor research for a very slow moving book."

All of this is still true, but the focus of the blog has changed somewhat. It now focuses on the era from 1890 to 1920 in general, rather than on the law and lawyers specifically, although that may be far from obvious. It's also become the location where we comment on anything we feel moved to comment on.

We hope you'll feel moved to comment as well. While we moderate every comment, so as to weed out Spam, we greatly appreciate the comments where they are offered, and hope to see more.

Thank you for stopping in!