“What have you done for your country?”
What have you done for your country? Well, I encourage you to go and do something for your country soon if you haven’t done it already. What do I hope you do for your country? Register to vote! Serve your country by participating in its government. And after the whole election fiasco in 2000 in Florida, where it came to less than 1,000 votes separating George W. Bush and Al Gore, we learned that every vote really does count. We also learned that our voting equipment is horribly outdated, but that’s another story. Still, our nation is based on the idea of voting and representation. Otherwise, we’d be no better than the system we had fought to escape from in the American Revolution. That’s why I encourage you to go register to vote. Make your choices heard and tell America who you want to be sworn in as President come January 20, 2005. Tell them who you want to represent you in Congress. Tell them who you want your senator to be. Because in all honesty, if you didn’t even bother to help select the people who will be representing you in the government, you don’t have much room to complain if they cut a program that was beneficial to you, or if they raise taxes to some extremely high level. Me, I voted in 2000, and I fully intend to vote again this year. In 2000, with the exception of our congressman, who ran unopposed, everyone that I voted for was ultimately unsuccessful in their bid for office. I was waiting for the “Don’t blame me, I voted for Al Gore” bumper stickers to come out, but unfortunately they never did. Still, it doesn’t take much effort to register to vote, and has long-reaching consequences. And in 2004, with this being the first election to take place after September 11, 2001, and with our troops out risking their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq as part of the so-called “War on Terror”, it’s especially important to make your voice heard in helping determine what direction we want this war to take. So take a few minutes… register to vote, and then exercise your right to vote come November 2.
Date posted: August 27, 2004
Notes: Photos of George W. Bush and John Kerry came from their respective 2004 presidential campaigns' Web sites.