As with a lot of what I write this started off in my head at 3:34am trying not to stub my toe on the bed frame. I was thinking of the reasons why someone shouldn’t vote, you know the devils advocate, that sneaky little demon that muddies the waters.
So when I sat down to tell all of you to just stay home I stumbled across an old youtube video of some jerk doing just that, and he pissed me off, how dare you tell people that it isn’t their civic and moral obligation, wait, isn’t that what I…
Except it wasn’t, not really. His argument was that your one voice doesn’t matter, so why bother. Mine was never that. Mine was don’t bother if you’re just punching holes without caring which holes. Two different kinds of not-voting, and only one of them is actually about not voting at all.
So I said to, no, not myself, but to my dog, and he in his wisdom just looked at my with his big eyes and said nothing.
Ha, you thought I was going to say woof. Gotcha.
So here is where our real duty is, we have a responsibility to participate in the process of our government, it’s an obligation, but we must be informed of the issues to do so effectively. We must broaden our horizons and actually be interested in something more than what a bobbing head on FOX or CNN tells us to think. It’s not hard, all it takes is to widen our field of view a bit.
I grew up in a Republican, not spelled RINO, household and if my Father was Republican then I must be a Republican. And for years that is how I voted. And for years I voted wrong. Not because it was Republican, but because I voted for the tribe without understanding the tribe or the other tribes. And to be fair. This paragraph could just as easily be the same with Democrat switched for Republican, wouldn’t matter.
So we have two type of voting, responsible and irresponsible.
Responsible voting: You look at the races you actually understand, form your own imperfect judgment, and mark those boxes.
Irresponsible “voting”: You check every box under one party because that’s the team, or because the hat looks good, or because “that’s what we do in this family.”
If it is mine to give, I give you permission to leave the boxes unchecked. If you don’t know who those judges are, why are you checking a box, if you don’t know how that measure will impact the community, why are you checking the box.
I also give you permission to maybe learn about that measure, a little more than what the voter pamphlet says, The pros and cons, both are slanted. Your neighbors, friends, may have an opinion.
Goodness gracious, think of what this world would be like if we actually knew what those boxes represented before we checked them.
So, it is your responsibility. Yes it matters, yes that one vote is only one, but the number 1,000 consists of one thousand ones.
And what matters most is that you understand what that box you just checked represents. That is the challenge, that is your duty
