Election Day
Please, my dear friend, whoever you are, please vote if you’re able to. Know who to contact if you’re denied the chance to vote, or if you encounter problems. I know you’re seeing this all over your f-list, probably, but like the Selkie says, if my voice will make one single solitary person who wasn’t going to vote before do it, I’ll gladly add to the chorus.
If you’re not white, or not male, or not rich, do you understand that people suffered horribly in jail, on the streets, and even died to get you the right to vote? People were murdered for campaigning FOR the right to vote. They stood fast and got the right, usually at a tremendous cost.
Because no matter how much you don’t think it counts, it does. You might think the whole system is corrupt and one vote still doesn’t matter because of the damn electoral college.
Please, please vote anyway. It’s the first step, the prerequisite, toward making the system not-so-corrupt. Voting is the first step toward making every vote matter.
My vote was cast a couple weeks ago–I’ve done mail-in ballots ever since I was registered, lo these many years ago. I voted proudly, and so did the Teen and the Muffin. Neither of them voted before they knew me, the Teen because he was under 18 and the Muffin because he just didn’t think it mattered.
I insisted they both get their registrations, the Muffin because I won’t be married to a man who doesn’t vote and the Teen because–well, get ‘em while they’re young and they’ll have good habits forever. We celebrated when he got his voter registration card. We celebrated and made much of him when he cast his first Presidential ballot, about a day after the Muffin and I both voted.
The Princess has asked me who I’m voting for. We discussed it as I was filling out my ballot. “I wish I could vote,” she said, a trifle forlornly.
I did tell her there was a time when she wouldn’t have been able to even if she was old enough, because she’s a girl.
She outright scoffed. “Well, that’s stupid. Everybody needs a vote.”
People died so that my daughter and I aren’t disenfranchised simply because we have ovaries. There are still countries where we wouldn’t be real legal human beings, just property–because we have innies instead of outies below the belt. There are so many ways we human beings oppress and harm each other, denying each other the right even to exist because of genitalia. Or skin color. Or belief in invisible sky-fairies that differ from someone else’s invisible sky-fairies. Or political beliefs. Or any other hundred things.
The right to vote is an integral part in short-circuiting that human failing. It is a step we have taken away from burning witches, keeping slaves, slaughtering each other in the name of an invisible something. (Well, we’re still slaughtering each other–but getting the right to vote is part of the process that holds out hope that we won’t be slaughtering each other forever. Hey, even while I’m cranky I can be an optimist.)
Use that right. Use it whenever you can. Use it loudly. Talk about it. Get involved in getting out the vote. The more you and I are involved in this process, the more we make our voices heard, the harder it is for entrenched interests and the powers of suppression, corruption, and outright evil to worm their way into the body politic. You and I–WE THE PEOPLE, and that means us–are the what the Founding Fathers envisioned as a defense against tyranny. (Even if the Founding Fathers were men of their time and didn’t think it necessary to enfranchise women or people with different skin colors. Hey, nobody’s perfect and they were working with what they had.) We are truer to their vision when we are actively voting, actively talking over the issues, and making informed choices rather than the blind choices of fear that Bush & Co. (and other axes of banal evil) would prefer we kept making.
This means you and me, and your sister and brother, your friends at work and that guy at the coffee stand. This means everyone you see in the cars around you on your morning commute. It means the people you see when you go to the grocery store or the gas station. It means your kids and mine, your grandparents and mine. We are the people, and if we don’t take responsibility for this train it will run right over us. It’s important. My God, it is so important.
So get on out there and vote if you can. If you’re standing in line or filling out your ballot, if you’ve already mailed it in, if you’re at the polling place and waiting and getting kind of annoyed at the lines and impatient…just remember I’m with you. No matter who you’re voting for, I’m standing with you.[1] (No, I’m not peeking. I’m expressing support. Jeez.) I’m so glad you have the right to vote.
Please, please exercise it. Get out there and do it if you can.
It’s pretty much our only hope.
[1] Though really, if you’re voting for McFail, you’re probably not reading my blog. Still, the principle holds.
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November 4th, 2008 at 11:32 am
I was asked by a coworker this morning why I was still wearing my “I Vote, I Count” sticker. When I told him that I was wearing it to show my pride in being an American and having the option to vote (because in some places I, as a woman, wouldn’t) he laughed. And then said “Its not like your vote really counts anyway”.
And that is why I vote. To show people like him that if enough of us get involved our voices will be heard, we will drown out the rhetoric of futility, and maybe, just maybe, we can make this country a better place.
November 4th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
I’ve always been politically involved, starting in high school (during the Vietnam War) when I campaigned for Bobby Kennedy. Always weighed the issues and candidates and did my part to see to it that they got my support and vote because I firmly believe in the sentiment “If you don’t vote, don’t bitch.”
My kids were dragged along in these odysseys from the time they could walk, holding campaign signs on corners, crowding into the voting booth with me and proudly sporting their “I Voted” stickers on election day. I like to think I raised responsible citizens because all three of them make it a point to vote in every election, regardless of how small. I always get choked up when I cast that ballet, thinking with pride that, though I may grumble about the corruption of government and politicians, I’m thankful to live in a country where my voice can be heard without reprisal for my opinions.
So VOTE TODAY!!
November 4th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
My daughter and I voted this morning. This was her first election and I’m proud of the questions she asked and the serious consideration she gave to the Questions and Propositions on the Arizona ballot.
***[1] Though really, if you’re voting for McFail, you’re probably not reading my blog. Still, the principle holds.***
I don’t usually choose the authors I read based on their politics. (Fantasy Authors at least). If you right an homage to Senator Obama, though, I’ll skip that.
November 8th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
I wasn’t able to read this post until after the election, but I nevertheless found it a wonderful explanation of the responsibility to vote, and of course the need to fulfill that responsibility.