There is a time for spreading your praises of a candidate--and there is a time for quiet reflection. There is a time for loudly rejoicing in your candidate's victory--and there is a time for silently wishing the opposing candidate well as she/he prepares for struggles, both well-known and impossible to foresee.
Those of you who read this blog know my political beliefs. I am outspoken (to a fault) and there is very little that has me 'sitting on the fence.' While the night leading up to an election might be the ideal time to make one last push for one's chosen candidate, I only have one thing on my civic-minded brain, and that is my hope that you will be voting tomorrow.
Lazy. Ignorant. Apathetic.
Those are just a few of the many adjectives that enter my head when someone tells me that they do not vote--especially if they are able to do so. I cannot help but notice that these people usually seem proud while they're saying it. Taking pride in not voting absolutely mystifies me. It's like someone saying that they just got a great deal--only $38,000--for a Kia Rio. Being proud of refusing to vote is like driving forty miles out of ones way for gas--just to save a penny per gallon. Denying the responsibility to participate in democracy is like paying $250,000 for mobile home dating back to 1975--because it has a fantastic deck.
The United States is not like Australia or most of South America. Your citizenship in this country does not require you to vote for those who govern this land. Some might argue that compulsory voting is a good thing. But in my opinion, Americans--a vast majority who are very wealthy by the World's standards--should not feel coerced to vote: you should feel naturally compelled to do so.
Sure, no one is going to come to your door on Wednesday and haul you away to prison for not voting. But by not voting, you're doing the following:
--Spitting repeatedly on the Constitution of the United States.
--Pissing on those small, white monuments in Veterans Cemeteries.
--Enabling neighbors, co-workers, friends and family to find your opinions about as
relevant as those of a white-out pen.
I should probably mention that when you're not voting, you are symbolically looking into the faces of Susan B. Anthony and Eleanor Roosevelt and telling them that they wasted their lives. You're telling the African-American who had to pass a designed-to-fail poll test--that the exam was justifiable. You are giving the impression that you think that over one million soldiers died simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. But they didn't die due to a logistical, circumstantial error. They died because they were fighting for your rights--and voting is one of those rights.
So, if you're one of the unbelievably massive segments of the population who doesn't vote, do yourself (and the rest of us) a favor and don't brag about that. For as soon as you do, you're not looking cool and rebellious; you're simply putting a face on ignorance, arrogance and laziness.
