This is the first time I feel compelled to chime in as Editor-in-Chief.  

This post is obviously not a "call to action by CloudAve" - it's a personal call by my fellow Editor, Ben.  That said, I perfectly agree with his opinion, and have already "done the right thing", since California allows voting by mail.

So yes, Ben and I agree, but I tend to think we should stick to our mission of talking about the intersection of Technology and Business, without explicitely venturing into politics.

Oh, well, it happened - and at least it gives me the opportunity to make this point: we're independent thinkers here, whatever you read will always reflect the thinking of the individual author, not some coordinated, "offficial CloudAve view".  You've seen examples of this, we may even get into debates from time to time with each other.  

We think this is part of the diversity we try to present - and if we ever post something you disagree with, please consider this an Open Invitation to submit a guest post.

Thanks for reading CloudAve.

From another non-US citizen, not living in the US....

The beauty of a democratic election is that the following is axiomatic:
All results are 'the right thing'.  

Given the US electoral system it would be tautological to claim any result is 'wrong'.

My family escaped Zimbabwe after Mugabe's election then re-election, so I'm very happy to be free from a social structure where attempts are made make people feel inferior/insecure if they do not 'do the right thing' :)

Thanks for reminding me of how good it feels to be living free from  the influence of 'there is one right thought' advocates!

Cheers
Mark


PS Ben,
Real estate is _very_ cheap in Zimbabwe right now, much cheaper even than in California!  Possibly(?) not as cheap as in the Congo.
Of course you'll have to accommodate a group of people on election day who, in Ben's words 'feel duty bound to tell you...' how the people in the neighboring suburbs feel you should vote.  This action isn't taken over the internet, so things can get ugly if you disagree openly.  Nonetheless Ben you'll feel right at home with the philosophy ;)

@Zoli - I deserved that ;-) You're right it was probably less than ideal to espouse my vision here (although in my defence I never actually said who I was supporting ;-) )

@Hedge - I'm too a by-product of a flight from totalitarianism - I guess in my defence I wasn't telling anyone they had to do something, just suggesting that it might be a good idea.

Right - duly told off I'll leave politics (at least on this forum) for now

I'd submit that "the world" was not very pro-Reagan in 1980 and 1984. Had the US done what was right in eyes of the world we might still be engaged in the cold war today...but thanks for the input. :-)

@JasonC, Do you realize "Cold War" is an US 
construct to satify the inner urges of many 
people who wanted an enemy? Plus, do you 
seriously think it was Regan who brought Soviets 
down? They brought themselves down and US played 
no role except keeping up the hype machine going 
and making sure that the inner urges of some of 
their citizens (read right wing) is satified with 
tough posturing.

No, there quite clearly was an enemy, one that provided money and direct military support for socialist movements around the globe. One that used Détente as a tactic toward achieving military superiority over the US. One that was at the peak of its power in the late 1970's and then went into a severe tailspin, not accidentally but due to external pressures (plus of course the fact that socialism simply doesn't work). Most of that external pressure was put on them by Reagan and the policies of his administration.

To say that the US played no role is to ignore history. At this point enough documentation from that era has been declassified that we know even the leadership of the USSR was clear that Reagan and his policies were causing much of their pain.