Do you understand now why I didn't vote in the last election? It wasn't apathy; it was rage and contempt for the institution. Voting idealistically has gotten us less than zero as a generation.

Dude, I voted for the Socialist and Green Parties last election. The two-party system is not an excuse for throwing away what tiny democratic voice we have.

I realize you're probably purposely trying to be disrespectful, but in case it's by accident, I'll point out that prefacing your comment with "dude", when you're talking to someone you don't know, is what many men do when they're trying to belittle another man who's a verbal opponent. It's sort of like using the informal "you" to adult strangers in languages that have a polite and informal form of personal pronouns.

Second, I'm glad you feel your vote is productive. I personally feel like our system is fundamentally flawed and irreparably skewed toward the two-party system, and see little point in voting for a third-party. You can disagree with me, and I may be wrong here (in which case I'll change my position), but please, let's try to keep the conversation civil. We might even share fundamental motivations here.

And someone has gone through and systematically downvoted all my recent comments. Was that your response to my request for civility?