Buttholes and us

I think we have a ton of shootings because we have a shit ton of guns and they're really easy to get. Not because we're too liberal.

I'm gonna say some shit a lot of people here might, or probably will disagree with.

I've heard several people over the years tell me that crazy shit happens in the U.S. (like school shootings, crazy people melting on airplanes, etc) because America is too liberal and perhaps has too much freedom. The suggestion being that it's too much for some people to handle and so crazy shit happens.

On voting:

Pretty much every country I've been in during an election runs them the same. Here it's mandatory. People travel to go back to where they're registered to vote. Don't vote, it costs you $20 - 30 fine. Once you hit a certain age it's optional, figuring that it may be more difficult for older people to get to their poling place. Voting is on Sunday. That's it. No mail in. No drop boxes. No people who drop off ballots for ten other people. No paper here, electronic there. No 6 weeks long voting period. One day during set daytime hours. Sunday. Day of rest so none of this Tuesday, I gotta take time off work if I'm gonna vote stuff. They don't give you a million ways to vote, but they make it as easy as possible for everybody to vote. You show up at the local poling place on Sunday. There are military guys there with rifles. They look as bored as a security guard watching over an empty parking lot on the graveyard shift but are there to assure that no funny stuff happens. Nobody campaigning. Nobody trying to intimidate voters. Etc. Nobody freaks about that or suggests they're living in a police state - it's just the norm. I've never witnessed or seen a news report about soldiers having to take action at a poling place. They don't do shit and they don't interact with anyone. You go in and show the person at a desk your national ID. They mark down that you're their and give you your ballot. You go over to a standing table, fill out your ballot, hand it in, and someone else marks it down that you've submitted your ballot. All the ballots are there at the beginning of voting and remain there until voting ends so it's impossible to say that while they're out in the public out of official hands a bunch of shit can happen. There's a lot less ways for anyone to declare fraud because the whole process is regulated by impartial voting officials the entire time - which is about 10 hours. Nobody freaks out over having to show their national ID or even needing to have a national ID because everyone has one and thinks it makes sense that in a system with mandatory voting it's the best/only way to verify who voted and who didn't, and to verify that you're the actual person on your ID and nobody votes more than once.

Far as I know, voting goes off without any problems. They count the votes, they declare a winner, you don't hear people talking about or making excuses that dead people or illegals voting. You don't hear about votes on bamboo paper from China. In the last election the losing candidate lost by a really slim margin and because she lost she no longer had potential Presidential protection from perhaps going to jail for a bunch of shit she's being tried for. Probably inspired by Trump, she tried to claim fraud as a last ditch effort to guarantee no jail potential, but like Trump she couldn't produce any evidence. There was no movement of her supporters who backed her accusations. Nobody paid attention to her last ditch effort, she couldn't produce evidence, end of story.

Hate to say it, but shit runs more smooth and democratic here than it does in first world America. Maybe I've been gone too long and it's changed some of my positions, but maybe shit wouldn't be so crazy as far as elections and there wouldn't be all this opportunity for authoritarians to manufacture doubt about stolen elections if America maybe tried to do things the way they're done elsewhere and simplify voting instead of making it so complicated. 'course that's a lot easier to do when voting is a more a more centralized process run nationally instead of every single municipality having it's own laws as to how to vote.

So the rules are stricter, the options on how to vote limited to one, and yet everyone is able to vote. There is no voter suppression at all. There are no claims of massive voter fraud and if there are any problems they're very few and far between. The US doesn't really have many fraud problems either, but the rules are such that they make it incredibly easy for people to claim fraud. Apparently that's all it takes to cast major doubts on the process and democracy itself.

Last thing. I'm fully aware that this only applies to my personal experiences. I'm well aware that there are plenty of third world countries with all kinds of shady voting. Fucking Nicaragua looks terrible right now and there's always the stories of people winning by 99%. But those are more in autocratic countries than democracies. So what's the US's excuse?

Just some thoughts. And I'd love to have my mind changed if anyone things I've gone too right wing on all of this. Just tellin' it like I see it, in some cases see it from afar.