America has one of the least impressive voter turnouts for one of the oldest democracies. This is in a time where we have political pundits with a wide range of views stating they have the support of America. Commonly we see stars like Jimmy Kimmel, and other media moguls walking about on the street asking questions on candidate positions as well as basic American Government. Alarmingly there seems to be a lack in knowledge which has been deemed general, and even though a deficit in knowledge has been acknowledged most Americans choose to remain uninformed or inefficacious. So I want to highlight a few reasons we SHOULD vote no matter if it seems impossible. DISCLAIMER: I am not here to tell you who to vote for. There seems to be a lot of that in media.
In situations like these there will always be a lesser evil in which to choose from, and there seems to be a big use of that word 'evil' nowadays. So I suppose the biggest factor in this election is going to come down to closing the deficit of knowledge. Whether you find yourself liking Donald Trump, Hilary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, or a third party candidate, the best thing you can do is A) determine your beliefs, and B) look at each candidate to see which you agree with the most. Now this is an over simplification of the process, but the premise is the same. So for those who sit there and say they aren’t going to vote, think of the ramifications of your decision.
I am a huge proponent of the phrase, “you have no right to complain about something unless you try to do something about it”. All of these candidates have differences in Social spending, fiscal, and foreign policy, most of which are quite drastic. If you find yourself not knowing any of the definitions of these or the platform points itself, that is a sign of a knowledge deficit. The ramifications of these basic policy decision from the largest to most minute detail can not only affect the quality of our lives, but also if the blood of our countrymen are shed [Soldiers].
In order to motivate you [the reader] to vote I think the basic reason of why we vote is the best explanation. For instance, what is a vote? A vote is an expression of your opinion/association about who you deem fit to sit in that big White House on Pennsylvania Avenue. Now for those of you who didn’t notice, there are some words previously mentioned in the sentence before that most of us take for granted. The first word is opinion. There are 196 countries in the world, and of those 196 countries there are 20 in which are full democracies. For those of you who are curious, the definitions are set by the democracy index. Definitions are put forth and set to a number scale by organizations such as freedom house. Anyways, percentage wise that’s 12 percent of the world’s countries, and 8.9 percent [roughly] of the worlds populous that experience the same privileges and rights that I have as a US citizen. Next you have the countries that fall under the classification of partly free. Countries like these range from Italy on the top of the upper echelon to Israel in the middle and at the bottom echelon we have Sierra Leone. Now about Italy. There have been more regime changes and constitutions since the second world war than we have had total presidents since the inception of the United States. It is also a member of the PIGS countries (Portugal, Italy,Greece, Spain). These countries have little economic prosperity as of late due to quite a bit of factors. Stable leadership and government I cannot say would directly solve the problems they currently experience which range from refugees to austerity, but I am sure that stable governance could help; Which is definitely something US citizens by and large take for granted. In some of these other countries, such as Sierra Leone, where in 2008 scores of violence took place due to people trying to express their opinions through voting. Which brings me to my next topic, opinions.
In the US, we are used to saying and hearing our/other’s opinions. There is a section within the bill of rights, (first ten amendments of the constitution) That guarantee us as citizens certain rights and protections from the government. These are called civil liberties. The First Amendment has been in the news quite a bit as of recent. Most of us know It as the amendment that allows saying whatever we want as long as it doesn’t incite violence, or break the orderly rule of law. However, there are a few other protections it guarantees us. I was taught an acronym in Professor Robert Bass’ POS 2041 class at UCF to help me remember all of them. SPARP! (Speech, press, religion, association, petition or redress of grievances from the government.) It may be a nonsensical word, but it is hard to forget. Now bear with me I am about to get to my point.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
The section above is the first amendment verbatim. In 45 words, you have been afforded and guaranteed rights that roughly 8.9 percent of the world’s people experience regularly. At times some of the rights in the constitution were in jeopardy. Men and recently Women have given up their lives for the continual application of words and ideas on a page. The deer hides that hold these words were not perfect at the start, but it is the ambiguity, application, and spirit of democracy that rest on those pages, that allows for revision as well as the continuity of our democracy as we know it today. Due to those ideas, woman can vote, there is no such thing as chattel slavery within our borders, we need not fear for our lives for expressing an opinion, and I am quite certain that because of this I need not fear a change in these fundamental rights from today to tomorrow. As stated before, the blood of your countrymen has been shed to ensure the survival these rights, and to spread the seeds of democracy to the corners of the globe.
Please vote. People have died and will die for your right to do so. It is our right to do so; however, it is also a privilege that some people in this world do not have. So, do not forget the sacrifice of those who have gone before you, and please exercise that right to allow for its continuance, and the Prosperity of the United States of America.
