Last week, no less than eleven people on my facebook shared this “confession” from Mike Rowe, with positive comments.
I can’t believe people think this deserves anything other that derision.
He’s more “Hollywood” than the people he denigrates. It takes real political courage to potentially alienate half your viewers, it takes none to opt-out with the tired “I won’t say, other than our politics sucks”-cop-out. It is pure pandering to use ill-thought-out platitudes like “voting is a right, not a (civic) duty” and “most people are too stupid or uninformed to vote” in a manner crafted so that **all** sides can retweet, repost, and feel self-righteous about it.
Pathetic.
If you take his philosophy to its natural and logical conclusion, we as a country should reinstitute literacy tests and poll taxes to disenfranchise minorities and other such undemocratic measures. After all, what better way to ensure a enlightened democracy than to allow only those with the requisite amount of education and capital to make the “right” decision? Plato agrees, fuck this thing called democracy.
Here is the truth: The United States has been an experiment in whether a democratic republic can ensure liberty. Yes, even if that means risking its failure under a Trump presidency because more people voted for him. Taking that risk is courage; abdicating it, like Mike Rowe, is cowardice.
Ignore the cowards, if you have the right, even if you believe Hitlery will destroy America and needs to be stopped (heck, because you believe she will destroy America), go vote on November 8 this election. That’s an act of political courage and another test of this two hundred and thirty year experiment.
As far as celebrities talking about voting, it’s not partisan. It’s just a way for celebrities to get their face on television.
Yes, I found it amusing that he, a celebrity, denigrates his peers and reserves the most spite for those who don’t bother to even tell you who to vote for. The easy out would have been to crap on them for wanting to publicize themselves. The fact he uses this particular line of argument is very revealing to the sort of personal politics he espouses.
To which, I have only to say, if he’s so disgusted with his party’s candidate, that’s on him, not me. I don’t belong to that party and I exercised my NPP to vote in the other primary. I’m quite happy with who I am going to vote for and feel no need to accompany him with a protest vote for a pot-smoking whackadoodle from New Mexico. I am confident enough in the outcome (and my faith in democracy in general) not to have the need to metaphorically hit people on the head with his beat up (and beat off too) copy of Atlas Shrugged just because things might not go my way.
Lol