Vote! Vote! Vote!
Vote!
See that little pic? (taken last year) That’s what voting is about. Little hand-written signs taped to school doors. Old folks manning the voter rolls. Maybe a bake sale outside. Voting is the most grass-roots thing we can do to make our voices heard.
So no matter if your candidate is hand-chosen by the state’s corrupt Democratic machine to assume the mantle of state senator after your millionaire former senator decided to throw his money toward the governorship or a guy picked by the tiny unorganized and unmotivated Republican party mainly because his Dad was a Republican governor and this guy has the same name as his dad so maybe the people will think they are one and the same – heck it sort of worked in 2000 – you should still vote.
No matter how completely batshit crazy and vapid your candidates seem, you should still vote.
If you’re a Right Wing Nutjob or a Liberal Moonbat or hopefully someone in between, you should still vote.
I vote because I want my voice to be heard. I vote because my ancestors fought for that right, and many of my “sisters” around the world don’t.
Vote. Vote. Vote.
Our system is a representative republic formed around the Constitution. The Constitution is a historically great document for two very important reasons – “We the People” and that it can be amended and improved.
“We the People.” These are perhaps the most powerful words in American history. We, the people, the citizenry, are sovereign. The buck stops with us. We have the ability to choose our representatives, who in turn decide upon the laws, policies, and actions of the government of the United States. At the end of the term, each of the persons representing us has to answer to us – they have to convince us that they have performed their task to the best of their ability; then the decision falls to us. Choices have consequences, and there is no greater consequence than who we choose to represent our interests before the rest of the United States.
When it started, the Constitution had no amendments, no guarantee of rights. However, through the political process of our republic, we have the ability to add to the document that sits as the basis of our society, the ability to improve upon a document that is in itself great. The Founding Fathers knew that the fledgling country they had just hatched from the Egg of revolution would face new challenges, and designed the Constitution to be flexible enough to meet those challenges, but firm enough to stand up in the face of adversity.
Each November, We the People have the opportunity, the responsibility, to participate in the republic that the Founders created. As Benjamin Franklin noted, “we’ve spawned a new race here, rougher, simpler, more violent, more enterprising, less refined. We’re a new nationality.” We are Americans.
You are wearing a red, white, and blue t-shirt, and a little baseball cap with stars on it, aren’t you? AREN’T YOU?!!
(And yeah, the worst part about living in NY is not all the NY political ads, it’s all the fucking NEW JERSEY political ads!!)