Voting 101 or How to Vote like a Pro

Everyone knows that voting in local and national elections is both a duty and a privilege. But how, one may ask, should I approach the elections to ensure the best result? How do I decide for whom to cast my vote? Party line? County line? Hair line? Water line? Here at The Flying News, we are ready to tell you exactly how to vote.

Start by asking yourself the age-old question: What’s in it for me? While we’ve all heard rhetoric like John F. Kennedy’s, we know the saying should more properly go , “Ask not what you can do for your country, but what your country can do for you.” After all, if you’re not getting anything out of it, why bother going to the voting booth at all? You might as well leave the country, and go live in Canada, or Mexico, or, better yet, Australia.¹

Next, look over the list of candidates who are running in the elections. Try to gauge their positions and personalities, to see which would serve you best. Now, the goal here is not to find one who agrees with any deeply-held principles or beliefs (if you even have any), but to find the one who will tax you least, give you money and save you trouble by providing all the programs and only the programs that would benefit you personally, at the expense of the government and other citizens, and who will take your side in any dispute you may bring against your neighbours, employer, etc.

Also, look for someone who has a strong television personality, who looks good on camera, who speaks in sound-bites that mean nothing but include words everyone agrees with like “Freedom”, “Democracy”, “America”, and “The Economy”. This is very important, because the rest of the world will judge your country by how good your leader looks on T.V., not on the merits of his ideas or even how realistic his promises. Further, look for one who can make his opponents look bad, really bad. This is the sign of a true leader.

Now is the time to consider your deeply-held principles and beliefs. Do you value honesty? Integrity? Do you look up to people who work not for personal gain but for true and timeless principles? Do you believe in fairness and just law? Consider these and other virtues for exactly one minute, then throw them out the window. These are personal views, and have nothing to do with politics. Therefore, do not trouble yourself with issues of moral content. They would most likely lead you to vote for someone who would give you less money, not more; who would work for the common good rather than to preserve your well-paid job and lax lifestyle; and who may even try to change society for the better, exhorting people like you to selfless service rather than providing for your every whim. If you have any such values, you should think about who might hold those same values, then vote for the other guy, the one who has “money” written all over his face; the one who stands for bread and entertainment, for only the changes that make you fat and happy; for freedom to do what you want, when you want, how you want.

At this point you are probably asking, “Now wait — didn’t Aristotle write in chapter 13 of Ethics Book 1 that the true student of politics ought to study virtue above all things, to study the human soul, in order to make his fellow citizens good and obedient to the laws?”² And we would answer, “Good question, you imbecile. Don’t you know that Aristotle is dead, and he never made it in politics anyway?” So again I say, do not trouble yourself with issues of moral content.

After carefully deciding which candidate will best serve your own self-interests, talk to your friends, relatives, neighbours, and co-workers, and tell them that your man is the man for the job. Tell them every other candidate is a fascist and a communist, that they are all liars and yours is the “lesser evil” who will finally make some changes in this doomed excuse for a country. Tell them their ideals are worthless, that all the other candidates will make us a laughing-stock to other nations, and that the rest of the world is backing up your candidate. And if they don’t vote like you, then they are clearly idiots and probably fascists and communists themselves. And if any of them dare to appeal to higher values or timeless principles, tell them you’ve already thought of that but it’s hopeless to try to change people’s behaviour, and besides, who are THEY to tell YOU how to vote or what to do?

On election day, go to the polls and cast your vote. We won’t tell you to vote “early and often”, but make sure you post your vote on social media sites with a rant about how stupid everyone would be to vote for anyone else. Don’t waste time talking about “issues” and what the candidates “stand for.” Just tell them how dumb those other guys are.

Now go out and vote – for Freedom, Democracy, America, and The Economy.

***If you still haven’t decided how to vote, please call us at 1-800-FLYING-NEWS, tell us the names of your candidates, and we will tell you which ones to vote for. We may charge a small fee³ for this service.***

Photo: “Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1990-0813-027, Erfurt, Bauerndemonstration, Verzweiflung” by Ralph Hirschberger, Ralph. This image was provided to Wikimedia Commons by the German Federal Archive (Deutsches Bundesarchiv) as part of a cooperation project. The German Federal Archive guarantees an authentic representation only using the originals (negative and/or positive), resp. the digitalization of the originals as provided by the Digital Image Archive. Licensed under CC-BY-SA-3.0-de, available at Wikimedia Commons.

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