John Schneider had made it through several columns without provoking the need for this kind of response. Sure, they ranged from the uninspired to the irrelevant, but none showed the kind of faulty and, worse for John, unrepresentative reasoning as his latest work. Some qualms:
1. You have roughly 700 words to make a point in this space (718 to be exact today). The crux of your argument, as I see it, is not that some people shouldn't vote because they're uninformed, or that the candidates aren't good enough to merit a vote. It appears you're taking it one gigantic step forward by positing that one shouldn't vote because democracy itself is too flawed a system. If this is the case, why waste the first 180 words of your column with repetitive "I don't mean"s that don't effectively separate you from the above constituencies. In my view, your column doesn't even start until the fifth paragraph, by which point you may have already lost your reader.
Also, when using anaphora, please do so consistently. Shifting between "I don't mean" and "I do not mean" weakens the stylistic motif.
2. It is clear that this is an issue about which you are my passionate, and possibly, one that you've been waiting a long time to write about in a timely fashion. The passion comes across, but so does its unfortunate friend, incoherence. The problem with being passionate is often that too many arguments come forward before any of them are effectively justified. I get the sense that while writing this, you couldn't keep up with your thoughts and had a hard time stuffing all the myriad reasons why one should not vote in 718 words, therein aggravating Mistake #1.
3. Do not caricature what I am "probably thinking" before citing democracy's "false binary of two caricatures" one sentence later. And before you say you didn't caricature what I was probably thinking, "it is still the best process on Earth" is clearly poking fun at the other side.
4. You question the legitimacy of democracy largely because of this "false binary." As you probably know, I am not a political scientist, but isn't this more a condemnation of American democracy than democracy as a whole? I don't think all democracies are two-party systems that create the kind of polarization and caricatures you rail against. Again, it's probably too difficult to make a case against democracy in 718 words, but at least make the distinction for now.
5. You fail to offer not only a good alternative to democracy, but any alternative at all. Sure, you're probably thinking, but I've only got 718 words. Not enough to lay out any of my promising theories, you know, the best ones on Earth.
My biggest issue with this failure hearkens back to your first column.
It's obviously easier and more acceptable to say what you don't like than it is to say what you do, but it's awfully limiting.... After all, if you hate Fall Out Boy then you can enjoy an air of comfortable condescension to everyone who does, but it doesn't necessarily mean that what's on your iPod is any better.
Setting aside the grammar issue in that second sentence (wait, I can be condescending to people who also hate Fall Out Boy?), this column patently fails to fulfill the commitment you make in this--your covenant with your readers. The column is a reaction to the reasons other people vote. It posits that democracy is a flawed system without providing in-depth evidence that it is (no, Hitler and W aren't in-depth), and it doesn't let us in on "what's on your iPod" that's any better.
I only had two problems with that first column: it's protracted opening, and the fact that I didn't think it represented the way you argue. Thanks for proving me right.
6. For every vote cast, God kills a kitten.
There are an incalculable number of reasons why you should not end with this joke. Chief among them:
a. It's not funny.
b. You don't believe in God.
c. The people who think it's funny also find Dane Cook funny, and you mocked them earlier.
d. The premise is implausible: I don't think there are enough kittens to be killed each November.
e. The people who think it's funny aren't of voting age because they're 16.
f. It undermines the entire seriousness of your argument, which you painstakingly lay out in the first four paragraphs with your "these are all the things I don't mean." You want this to be your most potent column, and you end with that?
7. Don't worry. There is one positive: Your column runs right next to a "VOTE" ad from Barack Obama, creating a humorous juxtaposition with your headline. Take what you can get.
