There is very little demanded of us in the United States. There is no mandatory public service, and most obligations, even paying taxes and serving on a jury, are full of loopholes and wiggle room. We complain of the things we are expected to do, and we are free to do as little or as much as we want. Freedom to choose and accountability for our actions are the constant ever-changing companions to a working democracy.
Accountability for the greater good, actions beyond the benefit of our immediate loved ones, is very much our own decision. Only 40% of us vote during midterm elections. The number of young people coming of voting age and still not registering to vote is astounding. I work with young adults who have never taken the time to register or who have registered and never voted. After our most recent elections, I asked for a show of hands who voted and the results were mixed. I go through the usual talk on the importance of voting in a country based on rights and freedoms, but I know they are only modeling the behavior they experience in the greater society. If there is no understanding how their vote connects to everyday expectations, if they somehow graduate from high school and still not understand civic responsibility, what then do they use as a model?
Our low voting numbers are a reminder of the lack of accountability in America. There is so little effort put into protecting and expecting the act of voting, it has become more of a symbolic act than understanding the real connections. Why vote when your job can still disappear from a decision by a corporate headquarters a thousand miles away? Why vote when you can spend your whole life working hard and smart, only to be wiped out by an unexpected medical event or gunned down by a bum with a gun? We have American soldiers protecting citizens in other countries trying to vote while we have elected officials working to gerrymander and restrict Americans voting here.
The good news is that all such decisions and potential outcomes are structural, and they can be linked to the actions of our elected officials. If our representatives are set loose without continued accountability by the voters themselves, then bad outcomes are guaranteed to happen. Voting is the protective tool of democracy. President Harry Truman famously said, “the buck stops here.” When it comes to voting, the buck stops with us. A vote this week is a vote for freedom from corporate excess, freedom from social media complacency, freedom to live in communities without the worry of indiscriminate violence, freedom from conspiracy theories, and freedom from religious zealotry. Accountability begins with us. It begins with voting for proper representation. It begins with modeling the behavior for young Americans and the world to see. Let our vote this week be one of accountability, because the voting numbers tell us we can do better.
Daniel Parker is an author, educator, and public servant. He may be reached at 13scribes@gmail.com
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Tallahassee Reports: Reaching out to the dregs of Leon County
Don’t be scared homey. I will say or do whatever I please whenever I please. Because America.
I am actually a lifelong democrat. I just got off the thought plantation. I don’t think I’m the only one. I’m just waiting for ya’ll to Zoloft into the communist party.
Me thinks thou dost protest too much.
Nice unimaginative effort to stifle the truth while acting as an apologist for communists, criminals and traitors
The left creeps up on the weak because they are either too vulnerable ,too immature, too narcissistic, too envious, or too gullible to question the party line. It’s the same way pedophile priests groom vulnerable kids by showing them attention and giving them gifts. The left groomed you.
If the globalist left wins and you get your socialist utopia. Hows that glorious cultural revolution going to work out for you?
If you want to conform, you want to comply, you want to censor,free speech, you want to bury your head in a virtual reality, you want to submit and sing the praises of the state. Go ahead and tie your own rope. Remember a spoonful of cool aid helps the poison go down.
Get a chip in your head. Let the state keep a running score on your social acceptability. Create your own legacy of conformity and compliance. Become transhuman and join the hive. Clearly you’re programmed for it.
Earth to Toby: There is a reply button on this site that will allow you respond in thread. It only works two levels deep, but even still. It does not speak well toward any remaining argument you may have tried to make when you seem unaware of this fact. On the other hand, I must admit, if this is POEs law in action, I gotta hand it to you man. This is a true tour de force. Nicely played!
> It’s the same way pedophile priests groom vulnerable kids by showing them attention and giving them gifts.
What gifts, exactly, ‘the left’ give me? What attention, exactly? Also, it may be considered inappropriate in some quarters to compare people with differing political views to pedophiles. Maybe not in your quarters, but in lots of other places. Just so you know.
> If the globalist left wins and you get your socialist utopia.
This is not a sentence.
> Hows that glorious cultural revolution going to work out for you?
Comparing the platform of Democratic nomiees to that of Mao Zedong portrays a great ignorance of said platform, or the Cultural Revolution, or likely, both.
As for the rest, please, please keep it up. But you shouldn’t keep your thoughts restrained to such a small digital venue. It is too important that people see the base that comprises the Republican party of today. Go out, and speak your mind freely while you still can!
The democrats are big on turning out the vote. They want felons to vote, they want to collect absentee ballots at nursing homes, they want illegal aliens to vote, they want 16 year olds to vote, they want to bring out the dead .
I’m more concerned about voter fraud than I am that the voices of pedophiles, rapists, armed robbers, extortionists, uttered, public assistance and voter fraudsters be heard.
When I went to early vote I saw out of state license plates in the parking lot and I literally heard this conversation from the.”voters” behind me.
“Who got the ID’s?”
“I do. I got them in my purse. I got one for each of you”
The difference between democrats and republicans is that republicans expect everyone to abide by the law. Democrats think the law applies to everyone but them.
> I’m more concerned about voter fraud than I am that the voices of pedophiles, rapists, armed robbers, extortionists, uttered, public assistance and voter fraudsters be heard.
So, do you have any evidence besides your retarded anecdote about voter fraud? Because *I* was also in line to vote, and every car with out of town plates on it was covered in infowars stickers, and I *literally* heard this:
“How many times you vote straight line republican today?”
“About 83. I lost count?”
“Me too!”
Then they did a QAnon secret handshake!
Oh, and by the way, the Republican Governor of Georgia is actively trying to disenfranchise black voters because (black people) reasons.
> Democrats think the law applies to everyone but them.
This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever read and I’ve read a lot of Snidely Whiplashes comments! I wonder, can you tell me where Democrats have tried to pass legislation that excludes them from consequence? Just curious.
” A vote this week is a vote for freedom from corporate excess, freedom from social media complacency, freedom to live in communities without the worry of indiscriminate violence, freedom from conspiracy theories, and freedom from religious zealotry. ”
Voting for govt is not the solution for any of this. How about people be accountable for their own behavior before worrying about politicians? Lead by example.
LMAO!!
TYFR!
Freedom from the tyranny that is the left.
Thank you for reading.
What I love about this comment is how stupid it is. What I hate about this comment is how emblematic it is from the MAGA echo chamber crowd, a group of people who seem to comprise an every growing share of pipe bomb mailers, and idiots that shoot up yoga studios or synagogues.
But just for kicks, I wonder, when, Franklyn Thompson, have you been subjected to ‘tyranny’ from ‘the left’? I mean, can you provide any specific examples, or just hyperbolic nonsense?