We’re getting closer to the 2017 Norwegian parliamentary election. If you haven’t already voted in advance, make sure you get your ass to a polling place on Monday. You can find everything you need to know about the election on the official Valg 2017 (Norwegian version) site.

The most important thing you need to know is where your polling place is located, and that you don’t need the polling card you got in your mailbox a while back. All you need to bring is a valid picture ID. So if you’ve somehow managed to misplace the polling card, you can still vote! Why the voting officials are still spending millions on sending people something they don’t actually need must be the very definition of a dysfunctional bureaucracy.

Even if you can’t find a party that speaks to you¹, there’s not reason to stay at home on election day. Go to a polling place and leave a blank vote. In Norwegian elections, blank votes are invalid and discarded, but they are counted towards the total number of votes. This means that your protest vote makes a difference, because the election statistics will show how many people gave a blank vote.

If you still decide not to vote, at least have the decency to shut the fuck up about everything political that happens in the future – if you abstain from voting, you also yield your right to complain. If you can’t quite get your head around that, please consult this helpful chart by Cyanide & Happiness.

Just Vote

Me, I’ve already voted. Over the years, I’ve become gradually more leftist. When I turned 18, I voted for the Labour Party, which was the ruling party at the time. The reason was simply that my life was great, and I didn’t see any reason to change anything. Then, as the years went by, I started to realize that even if my life was great, there was a lot of people whose lives wasn’t that spectacular. I also realized that there are political parties that would do whatever it takes to fuck those people over even more.

This year, I’ve gone full hippie, throwing my vote at the Green Party. My reasoning is that an environmentally sustainable approach to every political decision is essential. Pollution is a problem, regardless of global warming being a thing or not. Actually, you can take the entire global warming discussion out of the equation, and pollution is still a major issue. People die because there is too much crap in the air, the soil, and the water.

The modern man also has a weird thing for harvesting non-renewable resources. But that’s a non-sustainable way of thinking. In particular, this is the case for resources that are used for energy production: Oil, gas, and coal. Today we have the technology, the science, the tools, and the know-how to replace the use of non-renewable resources as a source of energy. We have the means to harvest water, wind, and the power of the sun for this. And yet, there are those who are obsessed with the black gold.

We need to break out of that old-fashioned way of thinking. And that’s why my vote is green this year.

Am I trying to convince you to also give a green vote this year? Absolutely not. If you want to vote for a party that will give rich people tax cuts they don’t need, a party that desire to suck up every last liter of oil in ground, or a party that want to catapult every boat refugee that wash up on our coast back into the ocean, then by all means, do that.

Just make sure you vote. Or shut up forever.