November 05, 2008
Hail to the Chief
First off, I'd like to render my sympathies to my friends who wanted to see a McCain/Palin win. I can't say I'm giddy about an Obama win, but I find it preferable to the alternatives.
Really, any scenario where we balance out 8 years of Bush and 6 years of a Republican congress and their erosion of individual freedoms and civil liberties is a welcome change. Beyond that, I guess we'll see.
November 03, 2008
Election 2008
Go vote tomorrow. If you're an American citizen and registered to vote, I expect you to get out and go do just that. I would like to take this time to thank all of the servicemen and women who have preserved our right to do just that, and all of the men and women participating in the process of running the polls and enabling voting in a civilized fashion.
Today I read this piece in the New Yorker about the evolution of the American vote and also the evolution of the concept of voting in America. To me, this really solidified a couple of thoughts in my mind... foremost of those being that voting remains a public trust. Not only is it the right of a citizen to vote, but it is his duty to his fellow countrymen, to his country itself and to those citizens who came before. In essence, the governance of the United States has been placed in trust by those who came before and those who will come after into the hands of the common electorate.
This is not to say that I'm some wide-eyed populist or naive advocate of mandatory voting or trusting the unwashed masses with the day-to-day running of the country, but I daresay that if more people took seriously the business of voting and the trust to which they had been vouchsafed at birth, the common electorate would probably do a far better job than they currently do. You'll note that I say "by birth", because if you've never interacted with a naturalized citizen who came into the country an immigrant, you're missing out. If you want to feel a renewed intensity and sense of obligation to your country, interact with a newly-naturalized citizen. But I digress...
The point that I'm trying to make is that tomorrow, go out and vote. If you live in a state like Iowa, you can register at the polls and then vote, so even that's not an excuse to my local friends and associates. Vote even if you don't want to, don't feel up to it or are inconvenienced by it. Because, dammit, your country requires it of you.