I don't except at Chula for making a big deal out of reality tv drama in the white house. :D

I'm not sure I agree that if you don't vote you don't have the right to complain, but I do follow that line of thinking.

I relate it to this. Say there's a meal that everybody except you helped cook. Somebody cut carrots. Somebody else peeled potatoes. Another person grilled the meat. You did nothing. During the meal, you don't get an opinion on whether the food is good or not. You can say whatever you want but your ass contributed nothing and you get what you get. Now if you just sat there and didn't say a word then all is good.

Bad analogy? I don't know. I'm high.

^church.

Let's be honest. If not voting means you can't complain, it's because of a lack of civic participation. Voting is by far the least meaningful or effective form of civic participation, taking almost no effort and amounting to a drop in a sea of ignorance. If all you do is take one single day out of four or two years to vote, then you still can't complain, because you are not actually a real civic participant. So far as I can tell it's possible that DJ is the only one on this site who has a right to complain if we're saying that you can't complain if you're not civically engaged.

This I would have to strongly disagree with. You're saying that if you don't actively take part in politics/community that you have no right to bitch? It may be only once every few years but if you get up off your arse and vote, and the one you voted for doesn't get in, I think that gives you every right to complain. Not everyone has the time or inclination to get involved in the way the likes of DJ does but that should not disqualify them from being able to bitch about the way things are.

I actually completely agree with this. "You can't change the world in one day, it takes an entire lifetime."

Complaining is really nothing more than complaining. Performing a duty actually accomplishes something tangible. We're just having fun engaging in arguments. And so long as that is all we're doing then we're just as useless as any other Joe Sixpack. At best we're a drop in the ocean that is the evolving consciousness of our country. At least until we/you/I go out and do something actually useful.

But of course the idea that someone shouldn't be able to complain about something that affects them is just democratic brainwashing by the government to get us to vote and/or believe that our vote actually is meaningful. Just ****ing bitch if you want to, basically.

You're not at a protest. You're sitting on your ass.

Quit protesting people who sit on their asses.