I wasn't planning on voting yesterday. Besides the fact that you are far more likely to die on the way to the polls than to cast a vote that affects the outcome in any race, I really hate the idea of seeming like I'm lending legitimacy to the system. In the words of the great H.L. Mencken, elections are like a futures market in stolen property. So it seems that voting is useless at best and downright immoral at its worst. Pretty cut and dry for a guy like me who accepts these premises. No reason to vote.
But then I found out that we in Indiana would have the opportunity to vote against the retention of Indiana Supreme Court Justice Steven H. David. This bait proved irresistible.
In his affirmation of the lower court ruling in the case of Barnes v. The State of Indiana, David opined, "We hold that there is no right to reasonably resist unlawful entry by police officers." I had to agree with my grandfather when he lamented, "Indiana is a police state now".
Fortunately, since then, the legislature has made it clear that Hoosiers do have the right to resist the unlawful entry of anybody. Even cops.
Unfortunately, the people of Indiana voted to retain Justice David. I doubt most of the people who checked "YES" knew anything about him. This is likely also true of a number of people who checked "NO". Aren't we blessed that so many people exercise their patriotic duty to show up uninformed at the polls and vote for people they aren't familiar with?
I did enjoy my evening of flipping back and forth between listening to the election results on WBAT and watching the results on NBC while sipping a glass of bourbon. I found it amusing that several races were able to be called before any of the voting machines here in Grant County had even been checked. It ruins the illusion that your vote matters when people are giving acceptance speeches before your vote has been counted.
It makes me smile.
