Importance of Voting

Next week in Illinois is the Primary Election. Often voters avoid the primaries because it requires them to choose candidates in their own party to run against each other, the winner to run against the opposing candidate’s party. It is slate selection time. It is also the time we attempt to discern who is more ‘for’ our beliefs and interests. Not an easy task in this day of information overload from media outlets.

Primaries are the building blocks of the next regular election. It is good if we pay attention now so that the eventual election is a meaningful one.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said:

            “Voting is the foundation stone for political action.”

How true. If the issue is one for our basic agenda of government and society, it usually gains access during an election. Only the vote allows the issue to be dealt with one way or another. Not voting denies the issue access to the gateway.

Yet political fussy business clouds many issues. Humorist and actor Will Rogers (1879 – 1935) said:

            “The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected.”

To make that quote come alive, think Ted Cruz, US Senator from Texas! How very odd that someone like Ted Cruz shares the limelight with truly serious issues that we all need to care about. He is a diversion. He offers no serious solutions. Just self attention and wasted time.

Ted Cruz is a symbol, too, of what troubles the Republican Party has made for itself. Milt Shook, a long-time political analyst and observant progressive writer, gives us this quote:

“Republican Rule has transformed this young, vibrant nation from a nation that once believed it could do anything, into a nation that believes it’s broke and can’t afford to do anything.”

Leadership calls us to do the impossible, to attempt the big project, to succeed where no one has succeeded before. The Walk On The Moon challenge should have proven to Americans that we can do the impossible! Winning World War II should have done the same thing. Facing up to our prejudices and passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is another example of doing the right thing against all odds.

Working to solve the health crisis of uninsured citizens is another impossible task that we are tackling this very day. The work is not done. It has just begun. What a great start is now working its magic!

Telling the American People they can’t do something should be tantamount to challenging them to do just the opposite.  Why then have we seemingly believed the Republican rant that America is broke and cannot fix the economy until…whatever ideological salve is administered by them?

Let’s face a very large, basic fact: republicans have made a career out of saying government ought not be trusted and should not enter matters best settled by private citizens. Their answer to every issue is ‘keep government out of it’.

I think this is a prescription to do absolutely nothing about anything. And that’s the biggest folly of all.

Government fought our wars – the good, bad and ugly ones! Government created one currency for the nation. Government provides improving education accessible to the masses. Government delivered Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the Space Program.

In short, government does what the private sector is not willing to do. Now that government has done that, privateers now want in when the risks are known and controlled by government policy. That’s a no-brainer.  Free markets indeed!

Chris Hayes is a young political writer and commentator who offers us this intriguing thought:

            “Here’s a cardinal rule in American politics, one that we ignore all the time:

Do not elect people to run a government who demonstrate a fundamental contempt for what that government does.”

Perhaps we have lost sight of this cardinal rule?  Has the pendulum swung far enough to the right? Is it finally time for it to swing the other way? Along the arc of its travel, perhaps the pendulum will find a resting place within the broad middle? While there maybe we can finally solve some of the problems the republicans have found insurmountable?

March 15, 2014