History, both ancient and new, is sticky and wet with blood spilt in our inbred quest for freedom. The pursuit has been complicated and the goal line blurred by our equally strong trait of gullibility, enabling despotic rhetoric to herd us into subservience. When it becomes unbearable, we revolt, and because everyone loves a good cliché, we let history repeat itself.
Our national adventure in democracy and equality, (which didn’t begin in earnest until the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920), is, in essence, a ‘majority rules’ system. It’s been complicated, of course, by a weird Electoral College concept, gerrymandering and any number of clandestine and overt voter registration scams and creative, (dishonest), ballot counting. But, for the most part, 18-year-old and older Americans have an important piece of that fought for freedom, yet we don’t seem to care enough to use it. No midterm election have ever turned out 50% of eligible voters. No Presidential election has ever topped 65%. Sure, the candidates often suck and the initiatives are too often nearly impossible to decipher, but the only course to better representation and the way to put an end to the stagnation that has become our new normal, is to vote. Learn what’s at stake, (it’s easier with the InterNet), and vote for things, not against them as most campaign ads implore. Don’t let elected officials tread water. They mostly care about being elected and if you let them know, relentlessly, what you expect from them for your vote, they are more likely to do…something.
We are rapidly losing what always was best about America, fairness and innovation and excellence and hope. We, the people, need to exercise our freedom before we fritter it away.
That’s why!