Day # 158 - Voting

Election day is tomorrow. Of course, with early voting and absentee voting (more on that later) it’s lost its magic. There is no election day any more, just the last day to vote before they count, or miscount, the ballots and decide who will have the privilege of robbing us for the next 2 to 4 years.

I have voted in every election since I was 18. I recognized the importance and the value of this right. My parents left communist Cuba a couple of years before I was born. I grew up listening to the stories, listening to my father and my uncles “discussing” the situation (to Cubans, discussing consists of yelling and waving your arms around in movements that seem wild and involuntary – yet somehow make sense.) I recognized early on that what happened to Cuba could happen to America. In fact, I believe it is. We’re larger, so the process is happening more slowly.

This is the first election cycle I have experienced without being versed on all the details of the candidates, the issues, the amendments and so forth. I could do what most people do and vote along party lines, but let’s be honest: there is essentially no difference between Democrats and Republicans any more. They’re all a bunch of neo-socialists trying to reach deeper into our pockets and into our lives. If you live in Broward County, you have seen the cameras. Just about every intersection is under surveillance. We are taxed left and right and the bastards in the city halls, the county halls and state capitals across this once-great country can’t wait to get their greedy little hooves on even more. I don’t need to read news to know this.

I also don’t need to read news to know that nothing will change unless changed by the people. Knowing that, even in my current condition, I am still more informed than the vast majority of the people, this is terrifying. People voted for “change” and my God, did we get it. All the promises and all the empty words are falling to the ground and shattering. We voted for rhetoric and speech-delivery skills rather than substance (I am not saying I wanted McCain – that weasel would have been as bad as the current weasel.) We voted for someone who promised he would fix our problems for us, rather than putting on our big-boy pants and looking after ourselves. The result: now we can’t look after ourselves because there are no jobs, no opportunity. The only thing that has truly changed is that there is no hope.

Early Voting: for so long, people have used time as an excuse not to vote. They didn’t want to stand in line for hours to affect an election that would affect them for the rest of their lives. Idiots. If you have ever not voted because of “time,” you are a complete moron and deserve to live in the socialist utopia the unholy trinity in Washington is trying to build for us. Learn the issues and vote. Even if you make a choice I don’t agree with, at least you made a choice and stood for something. At least you did your part. Early voting and absentee voting make it impossible to use the time excuse. If you don’t vote, but you plop your butt down in front of the TV or aimlessly surf the web, you are cheating yourself and your children. You are putting your future in the hands of others. You are declaring yourself a slave to the whims of others.

Whether you are the child of immigrants like me, or an immigrant (legal, the rest of you go home!) or if you’re family has been here since Plymouth Rock, you have not only the right to vote, but a duty to vote. America is the greatest country that there has ever been. It’s up to us to make sure it doesn’t become the greatest country there used to be.

Do it. Think about it, and do it.

- Adolfo

http://ayearwithoutnews.blogspot.com
http://www.cakewhimsybyabdaliz.com
http://www.honeybeepartyrental.com
http://www.facebook.com/adolfojimenez1
http://www.twitter.com/adolfojimenez