[7.14] Phobia (II)
He’s not deliberately sending her to meet the scary monster who lives in the library. He’s not that evil, right? Happy Halloween…
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I don’t know how appropriate it is to ask this question, but you folks are by far the largest group of people I can communicate directly to (and about 50 percent are from the US), so I was curious:
The US presidential election is next Tuesday, who would you vote for?
This is an anonymous poll and I’ll keep the results confidential unless enough interest is expressed in seeing it… I want this site to stay a welcoming place for everyone regardless of political affiliation.
7.14 transcript
Kiro: Yawn
Kiro: i know we’re being sneaky and all, but 3 am really is my worst time.
Daisy: Here’s the deal. Kiro, you are not to be seen or heard by anyone at camp.
A: If we’re not back by the agreed time, Daisy isn’t going to wait for us.
Kiro; I didn’t ask earlier, but why am I getting the library books?
Kiro: In fact, I didn’t even know there was a library.
Daisy: Oh. Well, A has a phobia of going in the librar.
Kiro: Not an intellectual, or did something scary happen there?
A: That’s none of your business.
It would be interesting to see the results of that poll after the election, to see how the votes of your readers compare to the votes of the nation as a whole.
I would guess there’d be a considerably higher percentage of Biden voters, maybe as much as 30 percentage points higher, compared to the final vote counts in the election itself.
It would also be interesting to see specifically the percentages for non-US readers, and how they compare to both the poll results for US readers, and the election as a whole. I’m often fascinated to hear what foreigners think about our national politics, but it’s usually not easy to find those kinds of opinions or analyses, for obvious reasons.
As for keeping this a welcoming place for everyone, that’s a great goal to have, and I don’t think merely discussing politics generally will do anything to undermine that. Politics as a whole doesn’t come up often on this site, and specific issues come up even less often, so it’s usually a non-issue.
Even when that’s not the case, though, what’s really the most important is that everyone’s opinion is treated with respect, and the conversation doesn’t go in an unhealthy or hurtful direction.
I don’t live in the US. And even for my own country’s elections I find it hard to make reasonably informed choices. I don’t know how to run a country, oftentimes I can’t even figure out if the ones currently in charge have done a good or a bad job over their term in power.
I don’t like elections… because I also realize democracy is important. I think it is important that the citizens have the power to decide who is and who isn’t in charge – but maybe just the latter of the two, really. I might prefer if leaders came into power some other way and public elections were reduced to a vote of trust/distrust for current leadership to stay in place. Not sure that would work out well on the whole though, even if it would make the whole thing a bit more comfortable for me personally.
I have to agree that most people aren’t nearly informed enough to make a reasonable choice in an election… but I think that’s a combination of poor education, and media based around sensationalism rather than factual reporting. And that leads to people voting based on fear-mongering, rather than by rational choice.
I imagine it’s less bad outside the US for the most part (I mean, both general elections I’ve been eligible to vote in, have been between a corporate stooge and a racist reality TV star) but I’m sure it depends.
I think your voting link is broken.
A heard that there were such things as bookworms, and is afraid that they may attack him, too. ^^
I noticed A’s hair is sticking up in second last panel.
I’m a minor! No need to vote!… Yet, anyway.
I.T.B., your post reminded me that in my senior year of high school, in my Government class, we were required to be registered to vote by the next election or we would be dropped a letter grade.
I graduated at 16 years old, so I wasn’t allowed to register to vote, and by then I was so burnt out on school that I never bothered to bring this up to the teacher.
the Link redirects to “Page not found” I’m not sure it’s supposed to do that. I would be interested in the results as well. For someone from europe, I spent way to much time reading about the US elections. I guess it is strange enough to be interesting, important enough to not feel like a procrastinator when I read things about it and far enough away, that it doesn’t affect me directly, so it’s way easier not to take it to seriously.
I think the poll isn’t working for some. I’ve noticed that voter turnout for this one is a bit lower than previous polls, hehe.
A bit of opposite perspective here- whenever I read about elections in other developed countries I’m always amazed at how tame things appear. I wish people here wouldn’t make such a big deal about the theatrics, and just read about the candidates policies and vote.
Also, at this point, neither candidate is “good”.
This is supposed to be America, and we shouldn’t have to pick a lesser of two evils. Neither candidate should be evil at all!
Right now I feel I have no choice but to pick the democratic candidate, despite him (both?) being a decrepit pervert for the sake of continuing to be alive because of insurance.
I am currently on medications that cost, in a month, significantly more than my monthly income. If I want to continue being allowed to be alive (allowed to be alive, what the hell kind of concept is that?) I have no choice but to pick democrat, despite them not being optimal.
I have come to the conclusion that democracy isn’t real.
Freedom isn’t real.
The republic isn’t real.
Just like at the place that I work, breaks aren’t real.
Also, a (I believe) Andy Ritchie joke, a pegasus is a horse with wings. A unicorn ISN’T REAL.
Eh, I am disillusioned with our system of government, which regardless seems to work against the working class. I have two bachelor’s degrees (Psychology, Business administration, and an associate’s in Public Administration), and am still working class, with very little hope of improving my lot in life.
Improving your lot in life through hard work and perseverance isn’t real either. At least not in modern day United States.
I hate that “… isn’t real!” has become my catchphrase lately.
I might just be bitter because I have been called in to work on every single one of my days off, and somehow am considered poor and yet paid more in taxes than our president. How the fudge is that remotely fair?
Wow- I really feel for your situation. It really makes one wonder, how the richest country in the world can be so stingy when it comes to its own peoples’ lives.
I had a medical condition several years ago that would have put me into lifelong debt if not for the ACA which allowed me to remain on family insurance at the time. I was still in college, and likely I would have changed my career path to something more lucrative and soul-sucking, simply to deal with that situation. Perhaps I would be working 60hrs/week instead of 40, and would never have considered starting a comic. And politicians keep talking about repealing the ACA because “socialism”. Then again I guess that’s exactly what they want – to keep us working till we drop!
Both sides acknowledge our healthcare system is broken, yet the only reason nothing is being done is because both parties would rather see people die than agree on anything. Because heaven forbid, someone on the other side of the aisle might have a point!
I am cautiously hopeful that the current system won’t last much longer, as demographic changes render it obsolete. I imagine the Democratic and Republican Parties could break apart, with the moderates from both sides forming a new centrist party, while progressives and conservatives form their own parties to the left and right.
Unfortunately the “incumbent parties” (as I like to call them) have made it very difficult for any other parties to build any momentum. Unfortunately this is very intentional. The amount of reforms that will need to be made to make any useful change here is daunting.
(I have made a study of this for many years, but I won’t talk people’s ears off in this forum because it’s not what it’s for, but if anyone wants to email me I can provide an introduction. My email address is easy to find 🙂 )
When your election is reduced to a choice between two individuals – or two political parties – yeah, that is a very limited democracy. Where I live we have about 7 political parties, they usually form two coalitions but the power balance within those can be shifted by the election result and the body that actually puts things into law is made up from all the parties, with three hundred and something seats directly allotted by the election result. Thus the election has a much more granular input on who is in charge.
The above – that our choice is not between two individuals – and that our country is smaller and less significant on a global scale, is probably a large part of what it makes it more tame. Also, our country seems to keep working reasonably well regardless of the outcome of the election.
“Allowed to be alive” is such a foreign concept that it is hard to accept it is even happening on the same planet. Our healthcare and social security system generally does catch you not only if you’re struck by bad luck, but even if you’re being stupid. We’re trying to make it so that it doesn’t take care of you if you’re just being a selfish prick, but that has proven to be hard to balance with taking care of those with actual problems without too much complications.
So far in life, my government has given me more money in support for various reasons than I have given it in taxes. I’m a net negative in their book-keeping. This will change over in a few years, as I now have an income, pay taxes, and don’t use the support (as heavily, currently on part time sick leave, so not quite zero right now). I hope and think that before I retire I will have put enough money into the system that by the time I pass away I do not end as a net negative. At any rate, I will have provided some value to society, in helping some of our engineers to be better educated than they would have been without me. Oh well.
And that’s how discussing politics can dovetail into me questioning my self-worth. Fascinating! 😀
Ah politics in the comment section. What a lovely and … frankly exhausting thing to see. This year has been full of it though, so I am not surprised to see another, especially before the election. And in more neutral terms for the punt than I would normally expect, to which I offer some thanks.
Pertaining directly to the results of the poll here, I would expect it to be lopsided in favor Biden/Harris, and rather unrepresentative of the actual results. I judge that based on what I’ve observed in various creatives to be generally of a more leftwing bend than libertarian or conservative. Perhaps that’s not accurate though, since the poll is assessing the readership.
As for the results of the real election… there is a lot of speculation, nothing concrete, nothing that can easily be made sense of. I consume a lot of this information daily, and you can listen to Tim Pool go from one moment saying the polls favor A and then the pools favor B, etc until election day depending entirely on what the news is reporting in a given day. I’m unwilling to throw my own hat of speculation into the ring. I would very much like to get my hat back.
Also, minor thing, there is a bug in the webpage. I hit [Page Down] and the comment section shifted left (while the text selector was blinking int he comment window). That was unusual.
Voted in your poll and it refreshed the page so I assume it got counted. I worry about my friends living in the US, there is so much divisiveness getting created rn that one thing will be sure. Despite my hope that I am wrong, I think it’s going to be an eventful election. Re the polls, last time they were wrong by a pretty big margin and while the pollsters have improved on their techniques, I will be hesitant of trusting them right now. I wish everyone the best and the Americans an uneventful election.
All signs point towards major riots across the nation after the elections, regardless of who wins. The US is descending into chaos, and violence is just a normal part of our political process now. We are entering a state of perpetual crisis, where there is always going to be mass violence somewhere in the nation over some perceived slight, and nobody is willing to do anything to stop it, not even the authorities.
This is the way the US is now, and it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets any better. Assuming it EVER gets any better.
I second all of this. Whatever the results, I hope it stays peaceful.
I’d also love to see a “rational centrists” party form, but how could it ever happen when the public has no source for impartial information? (Truly. None seems to exist.) When the only thing on the menu is the latest red or blue strawman caricature and twisted-half-facts rumor, that’s all anyone’s going to be eating. Would-be centrists face angry mobs on both sides, without one of their own to back them up.
@Delta-v: Bookworms! Well, maybe just one. http://www.samandfuzzy.com/1098
3 am? How is the sun out at 3 am in autumn? I could see it being daylight in the summer in Alaska, but daylight gets more scarce towards the colder seasons.
This is really late, but I just want to say “thanks” for specifically being impartial. There are far too many content creators out there, webcomics included, that spread propaganda or outright insult their audience for thinking differently than them. You’re intentionally not doing that, so you have my respect.