Civic Duty

Recently, my family found out about a little moral dilemma I have been struggeling with (weather or not to vote) and I nearly got taken off the Christmas party list. Public choice economics has been making off the charts-heartbreaking-yet... rational argumets for a while now about the actual effects of an individual voter. This is not to say that my perspective is anything based in actual presidance but rather that there are some convincing arguments for not voting or more importantly not caring about voting.
Anyway my aunt sent me a rather agressive message about how it is my civic duty to vote and it got me thinking. What is Civic Duty? and if there is Civic Duty and it is important, why is it legal to not vote? The whole idea seems like it lacks scientific method, like it is the rhetoric of a campaign ... huh... Many people come down with vigar on the side of (what could be considered) voting fashism, while others, based upon the fact that supposeively many american don't vote, don't give a flying fudgesickle about politics. I wish I could find more of those Americans, every punk I have a conversation about this with wants to shove voting down my throat like a beer bong.

I wrote the following messge back to my aunt in responce to her message.

Dear Aunt,

You tone in the message makes me feel like you might be academically interested in my side of the conversation.

(this was sarcasm, her message came off strong winded, like a rock-the-vote)

Aunty, I have been trying to detach myself from party loyalty for the last couple of months. It has recently come to my attention that my party affiliation has been making me professionally and emotionally bias. I'm branded. It's like watching the 49ers play and I am supposed to be a honest critique on both. (I love the 49ers damn you ESPN East coast bias!) Normally I would be ok with being branded, but it's just not honest and that irks me. At this point in my life it is important for me to be honest and critical as I analyze the details of policy implications or at least what people think the implications are. The premise of this approach is that politics and intellectual debate has largely been running in circles over the past 5 to 6 decades. Both sides swear they are correct. and in all reality the actual issues have tended to shift sides as it becomes advantageous for a party to gain the vote. Republicans used to be the party of lincoln. Democrats used to be the party of the south. This has led me to believe that parties are phony, people are different than parties, and 98% of it is a big show to get voters. I want to understand the source of prosperity/wealth/health/happiness/candy in our society and what economic parameters actually make people better off. Some questions to ask that lead to this line of thinking are "how did the west get rich?" "How does knowledge work in our society?" "why do some people respond to emotion while others respond to reason or tradition?" "what type of world do I want my children to live in?"

Frankly I have been struggling the most with these questions, and more specifically where I come down on these two questions:
do you support policies with a short-term benefit and a long term cost.
or policies with a long term benefit and a short term cost.

Without question, I would answer the second best describes me. but when it gets down to the nitty gritty and gets applied to policy, it is a really tough question to answer.

The analogy I have been using lately is: do I give a bum money on the side of the road? why or why not?
I don't know the answer to that question.

Thank you for your concern about me voting. And you have to know that any information about grandpa warms my heart. Please trust that I am trying to be as honest to myself in my decision to vote or not. 

Cheers,

Lincoln McLain