Election Day 2010, Part 2: The Reactions of Many

People sure do get upset about politics and voting.

One of my acquaintances got upset that Pennsylvania was (if I'm remembering this correctly) a red state, except for a few counties that were blue, noting that his particular part of Pennsylvania was almost as stupid as the rest of the state. And I realized that for many people, there's an automatic conclusion that someone's politics, if those politics disagree with yours, must be stupid. Sometimes those politics are stupid, but not always; they're just different. Contrary to what many Republicans may think, for example, I am not out to get them every time I vote for a non-Republican candidate (which is often, but not always); I'm just voting for the person whom I think will do the better job.

So, on to the next point: People don't need me to remind them to vote. Either they've already decided to vote, or not. Spamming FaceBook and Twitter with messages and reminders to "Vote vote vote!" just spam my update feed; everyone seem to post that they voted. It's worse than the World Series spam I got from Phillies fans. 

Well, maybe not worse.

Yes, actually worse, because more people were spazzing about voting than about the Phillies, about whom no one cares. (Baseball is just a game, whereas actual things are affected by politics.) However, that still doesn't mean I care whether or not you voted.

Yesterday on FaceBook, I posted that I hadn't voted yesterday. It's true; I didn't. I did vote, just not yesterday. (Huzzah, absentee ballot!) I must not have been the only person who posted something along those lines because; one acquaintance asked if we were supposed to be proud of those folks for not voting. Well, quite frankly, why do you care if that particular person voted or not? I don't really care if my friends voted. If you did, and you want to discuss the results, that's fine, but I don't really care to tie myself in knots if you didn't vote. I'm not any more or less proud of my friends who voted than those who didn't.

It's annoying when folks feel compelled to pressure everyone else to vote, then tell me they voted. Good for you. What's for lunch?