So if I don't vote for your political party in an election, that's because your platform didn't appeal to me. And that's not my fault. It isn't my job to make you have a platform that will appeal to me.
So if none of the political parties have platforms which appeal to me, and I don't vote for any of them, why is that my fault?
If I don't vote for you, you have not captured my imagination, my vision, and/or my trust.
If nobody captures my imagination, my vision, and/or my trust, that's a condemnation of your political vision. It still isn't my job to make you have a platform that will appeal to me.
If more than 50% of the electorate doesn't vote, that's a gigantic condemnation of the entire political process. It means that more than half of the electorate has decided that none of the options are good enough.
Trying to shame me into voting won't work.
Trying to claim that it disrespects our sainted veterans who fought and died for my right to vote won't work. I would venture to say that the majority of those veterans who fought and died for that right would be horrified to learn that I was being demanded to vote for someone I didn't want to.
I think those veterans who fought and died etc etc did so in order that I could stand up and say: none of these options are good enough.
Why is that not participation?
In the old days, the USSR would hold an election, and the General Secretary routinely won in excess of 95% of the vote. Of course, this was mostly because he ran unopposed, but never mind -- his people had the vote.
Why if I have the "option" of three or more people I don't want to vote for, suddenly that's democracy?
