Anarchists Should Vote

I thought I posted a comment the other day to this post about why I thought not voting was one of the most irresponsible things anyone could do, but now it appears to be gone. It's possible I just never posted it - it happens to me a lot - my computer will crash, or I'll just forget to actually hit the 'Publish' button, etc.

I'm not talking about cases where you live in a red state or blue state or some other situation where your vote won't matter - I'm talking about, given the choice, your vote could help sway the election in one direction or another, and you decide not to vote because you're a self-described anarchist and therefore you're not supposed to vote - or some asinine shit like that.

And I could be swayed that there are better uses of your time. All I'm saying is that I don't want to read anything suggesting that voting is stupid and/or evil just because 'anarchism says not to vote'.

To that, I say:
1) Think for yourself for a change, and
2) No matter how you like to describe yourself - anarchist, Republican, whatever - if you want to claim to care about people - about relieving people from some of their suffering, then you should employ any/all valid/moral tactics you can to achieve that goal.

That's it. No Gods, No Masters. Think for yourself, and use your judgment to determine the best course of action - even if that action is voting.

...regarding my comment on this blog post - my follow-up comment was deleted, so I guess that means the original comment was deleted. Very quaint. And fascist. From a self-described anarchist? Please. George Bush is a self-described believer in freedom.

I did want to reference what my original, and now deleted, comment mentioned - that I agreed with Noam Chomsky and Cara Jennings that participation in the system can be meaningful and very important. So, if you don't care about people, don't vote.