My Right To Vote

This morning I ventured out on a couple of errands which included a stop at the polls. As is usually the case I was pleased that there was no line and the whole process took less than the time it takes to make a pot of morning coffee. Actually in all the years of my voting I've never had any problem excersizing my constitutional priveledge save one instance when I had moved and not updated my registration.

Perhaps it's too easy. I'm guessing the things I didn't have to do are what is important. I didn't have to fight an angry mob to get inside. I paid no poll tax. I didn't have to prove I owned property or show a "party" card, nor did I have to prove my gender. No one asked me if I was Catholic, Protestant or Atheist. I wasn't required to swear allegiance to a corrupt government, or even a non-corrupt one for that matter. They didn't ask me if I was gay or straight, black or white. I got exactly one whole vote, not the total tally of 3/5 vote per slave given to slave owners. Nobody asked if I were "pro-choice" or "pro-life" , wether or not I was employed, or if I had an education or not. And above all, I had no fear of being attacked or put on somebody's "hit" list when I left.

Overall we have a pretty good deal here. But our freedoms are precious...and fragile...There are some who would limit our constitutional freedoms in the name of all sorts of causes, some worthy, but many not. No matter the reason, our Constitution and it's Amendments including the Bill of Rights are all we really have to protect us. With it comes a responsibility to educate ourselves as to its contents and its origin. There is a movement afoot to diminish and ignore the ideas of founders like Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison and Thomas Paine. Purveyors of selfish causes wish to remove the words and ideas of these great men from our children's textbooks and replace them with fairy tales. Even in these times of bankrupt budgets state lawmakers, pandering to fear, waste millions of taxpayer dollars enacting laws that they know from the outset are unconstitutional and will be struck down. There is an ongoing movement to diminish the meaning of separation of church and state, in spite of the overwhelming evidence that under our uniquely secular government, religions of all denominations have flourished like never before anyplace on earth.

I urge you to be vigilant. Our country's original documents and a plethora of accompanying original source material, as well as historical research and biographies written by respected authors is all hiding in plain sight in libraries and more and more on the web.

And please excersize your right to vote.