Da Goddess

Amen!

Ok, Da Goddess' post is inspiring me to come out of the hole that I have been hiding in at work to add in my 2 bits.

Voting...

It is such an amazing thing to be able to choose. Everything is affected by these choices too, from the costs of your everyday items (think tariffs on materials and imported toys) to the ability to vote on laws that are going to affect you directly. I cannot think of any other form of government that gives so much power to the people. Sadly, of all the right that America has for us as citizens, voting seems to be the most abused.

Many people are too damn lazy to get up and vote. Others refuse to utilize their brains and find a candidate that suits them. Yet more people give up and say that their votes will not make a difference. If nothing else, the debacle that was the Gore/Bush contest proved that every vote had an impact.

The most annoying things that I have heard from people fall under the second category; lack of intelligent choice. One young Airman that I was deployed with told me that she was going to vote for whomever her parents told her to vote for. She told me that she wasn't going to pay attention to anything political; she was just doing what her father told her to do. Another person that I used to work with told me that he absolutely HATED Bob Dole, despised everything about the man...but that he was still voting for him in the Presidential election because he was going to vote his party line.

At least these two were voting. Now the hard part is to get them to realize the responsibility that goes along with the privilege. Intelligent choice is the cornerstone of a Democratic government. The system stops working when people stop caring and thinking about their candidates.

Personally, I do not care who you vote for. If you could find a purple skinned, tutu wearing, spaced out monkey that fit your political ideals, by all means, vote for them! All I ask is that you DO vote...and that you do so with some thought behind it.

Posted by TSgt at August 2, 2004 09:59 PM