[WS:] "Choice" is the central concept in the Anglo-Saxon culture, and the central pillar of legitimacy in the neoliberal social order, but in other cultures it is a negligible aspect of life dominated largely by fate. Since I did not grow up in America, my concept of choice is closer to the latter than to the former. To be more precise, I view it as a minor annoyance of having to pick up one of several brands of the same kind of schlock, where having just one would do and save me the trouble of having to make a decision.
You are correct that elections are not about choice. They are about 'voting' that is voicing affirmation. No, not the candidates, but the process and the community defined by it. They are are like religious rituals, saying prayers or communion, swallowing a piece of stale waffle and a sip of bad wine. Their only purpose is to express and affirm the person's membership in the religious community, and beyond that it is pretty much inconsequential. Elections also serve the function performed by professional wrestling games - vivid re-enactment of conventional morality plays in which the spectators can get adrenaline rush by empathizing with the characters enacted by the wrestlers. Again, this is a participatory ritual expressing and affirming the person affinity to a community sharing the same value system.
My problem with your,Shane's and others' views on the subject of elections is that they seem to take this game too seriously and criticize the wrestlers for faking blows instead of inflicting real ones. C'mon guys, be real. It is only a show after which the actors change their costumes and depart. If you do not want this kind of entertainment, or if - like myself - you do not like the adrenaline rush it produces - stop paying any attention to it, just as I do. I pay no attention to campaigns, media reports on the non-events of what each of the characters said, and all the assorted mud slinging - just as I do not frequent professional wrestling (or football) games. I prefer to relax and read a good book instead.
Alas, I also understand that unlike professional wresting games, which are over when the adrenaline rush they produce subsides, elections have some lingering effects afterwards. The main such effect is having to listen to a certain type of rhetoric for the next four years, which can be as annoying as having to watch a really bad play. But there are also other, more substantive after-facts - such as the availability of Medicare, on which I am counting, or same sex marriages which do not affect me personally but they mean quite a bit to some people I know. And these after-facts provide a sufficient reason for me to get out on November 4, take a short walk to the local elementary school, and stamp the card with the name of a Democrat printed on it. It is not that I cared much for the show they put on - I paid almost no attention to it - but because doing so has no cost whatsoever to me, but the chances of receiving some minor tangible benefits from doing so are quite real. So stamping that card is really a no-brainer.
-- Wojtek
"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."