Penny Thoughts: America’s Blessing Is the Vote

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. – Plato

Five days from today, Americans will have the opportunity to go and exercise the greatest blessing which our Founders provided for “we, the people”. It is a privilege! It is not required! Again, it is an opportunity!

It is rooted in the concept of freedom, and it reinforces the practice of our liberty!

It is America’s free and sovereign voluntary participation in its government.

It is the privilege of voting!

Plato’s observation states the consequences of not voting, as “participating in politics”. Generally, Americans believe that their opponents in this instance are “inferior” for whatever emotive reasons they can muster. And in our contemporary political atmosphere, it will have been those who have become inoculated to any form of objectivity by a completely morally bankrupt Mainstream Media (MSM) who will determine the outcome of this election, and hence the future of America.

It is as if the MSM has become our “soma”, which was the drug used by the authoritarians in Aldous Huxley’s 1932 dystopian novel Brave New World. According to the text, “Soma” was designed to provide “all the advantages of Christianity and alcohol; none of their defects.”

Perhaps by design, the Founders made no specific mention of the “right to vote” in either the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, which was ratified in January 1791. The only references to voting were essentially procedural and had to do with the Legislative Branch of our government.

Our “right to vote” is not mentioned until the 12, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20, 25, and 26 amendments were ratified. As a brief review of those amendments includes the following.

 Amendment 12 – Choosing the President, Vice-President. Ratified 6/15/1804.
 Amendment 14 – Citizenship Rights. Ratified 7/9/1868.
 Amendment 15 – Race No Bar to Voting. Ratified 2/3/1870.
 Amendment 17 – Senators Elected by Popular Vote. Ratified 4/8/1913.
 Amendment 19 – Women’s Right to Vote. Ratified 8/18/1920.
 Amendment 23 – Presidential Vote for District of Columbia. Ratified 3/29/1961.
 Amendment 25 – Presidential Disability and Succession. Ratified 2/10/1967.
 Amendment 26 – Voting Age Set to 18 Years. Ratified 7/1/1971.

The animosity which has been engendered by the MSM throughout this entire election season is due to the simple fact that many Americans are just too lazy to check more than one source of information. This is true of both leftists and conservatives. If we listen to only one side of the argument, we remain in our bubble of an echo chamber and can never make a reasoned decision.

Thus, if one believes that the socialist agenda pressed by the “progressives” and emblematic of the Democrat Platform 2020, then that is how to vote. If one believes in the liberty which the Founders had intended to establish, then that is how to vote.

It is the blessing and the promise of America as a concept and as a nation.

This is what makes us so different from any other forms of governing.

This has what has been blended, with all of our cultural faults and transgressions, to create the only nation which millions seek to join year after year.

But it ONLY works if each of us does our individual parts as American citizens to reaffirm the blessing of America and VOTE!

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of The West Alabama Watchman.