Tuesday, August 05, 2014

Vote.

Few people on this planet take their freedom for granted more than the citizens of the United States.

As Americans, we are fortunate to live in a country where even our "poor" live better than a huge percentage of the rest of this world.

As a product of the welfare state... a high school drop out and college graduate... someone who's experienced homelessness up close and personal... someone who's missed meals, gone unemployed, and lived a rough life, only to work my way up to owning a business, a house... two kids in college... the American Dream, voting is the most direct voice I have.  It's why, for example, I feel so strongly that advisory votes are an excellent way to express an opinion that is unmistakable.

I spent 6 years on the East German border and drove through then-communist East Germany many times... including communist East Berlin.

I've seen countries and people where freedom was an arcane subject only dreamed about... occasionally attempted and occasionally died for.

Over 150,000 voters in Clark County are liable to sit out the primary, leaving it to those of us who actually give a damn to do the heavy lifting of exercising a franchise that thousands of others have died to give us... the right to vote.

I get that the system is corrupt: that we are one of the few if not the only country with open elections that doesn't require proof of citizenship or even identification, as far as that goes, to be able to vote.

I hear the cries of racism because we require less identification to vote than is needed to cash a welfare check.

I get that because of these reasons and many others, the act of voting has been cheapened to, in the minds of many, the level of unimportant at best and worthless at worst.

But it remains among my most cherished of rights.  And I, personally, will be damned if I will piss on the graves of the ten's of thousands who died to give me this right by simply blowing it off and ignoring it.

The democrats are pitching a fit here locally because David Madore was elected commissioner.  But they don't have much to say when a detail guy like me points out that about 30,000 or so typically democrat voters  refused to vote for Marc Boldt, in part, because he insisted on having an "R" after his name, and because the hate for the CRC/Loot Rail scam crosses all demographics, including party lines.

I, for one, continue to believe that outcome to have been particularly fortunate.  Not everyone sees it that way... but then, not everyone sees freedom the way I do, either.

So, if you can vote, you should.  You should, however, only vote in races where you know about the candidates and the issues; where your knowledge hopefully, but all to infrequently, extends beyond the 100 words in the voter pamphlet... where your selection requires more than the shallow, typically worthless label of a party affiliation which may or may not be true.

And if you hate the choices you believe *I* represent?

Swell.  Submit a ballot to counter them.

But you must make a selection and hand-carry it to a ballot box.

The sacrifice of our history demands it.

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