Today is election day. If you have yet to vote here in Texas, I certainly hope you will. Yes, it’s “just” a primary election. But *all* elections are important. And the reality of primaries are that, with turnout *far* less than in general elections, your own influence is arguably far greater.
I wrote this a few years back about elections. It’s worth considering again today.
We’ve gotten far more involved in politics than I ever imagined we’d be, during these past few years. I’ve met many many candidates and/or public officials in Dallas County and beyond. It takes a lot of energy, emotion, and will to put yourself out there and run for *any* public office…I mean *any.*
It is challenging to your family life. There are hours and hours of work, going to meetings that don’t seem to matter sometimes.
But it is our process. And, as Churchill said, it’s still better than all the alternatives.
For a nation of laws…for the ability to cast my vote…I am thankful.
(During this year, my goal is to find something new to be thankful for every single day, and to add that thanksgiving as a blog entry, under the title “My Daily Gratitude.” I started this kick back around Thanksgiving, and it’s already resulted in a favorite new song of mine. The goal of this ongoing spiritual exercise is to see if doing such a thing might inspire even more gratitude within me, and to foster general awareness of life on a deeper level.)
I agree with all the things you say — to a point. And there was a time when I voted regularly.I told people it was their duty to vote, and I really believed that. When I was teaching, I even excused people from class so they could vote — even when I knew that they would vote differently than I did.Maybe, when he was alive, Churchill was right. But I can't help believing now that, if our system is better than the others, we're screwed. Because today it's all about name calling and finger pointing and giving lip service to important issues only when the politicians need our votes.Instead of proposing solutions to problems, politicians prefer to assign blame for problems. I guess that's easier than doing the hard work they were elected to do.