Mhall46184@aol.com
Waterboard Texas?
When the crowds in the mall are just a bit too much, the wise shopper knows that for a little solitude you simply pop over to the book store. After all, most folks own more pairs of shoes than they do books, and avoid book stores as they would the more malodorous sorts of reptiles. Parents fearfully yank children away from book store windows – “Don’t go in there, son; you might start thinking or something. Let’s go to Xtreem Outlet Junction Factory Outfitters and get us some tee-shirts with pictures of guitar-playing vampires on ‘em.”
Democracy, sadly, is much the same way – if you want to be alone, just go vote.
On Election Day very few of us flouted the memory of King George III and all tyrants everywhere by marking a ballot. My assigned poll was not at a church or synagogue of my choice, and certainly not convenient; the Attorney General of the State of Texas apparently feels that exploring the countryside will keep y’r ‘umble scrivener out of trouble. Perhaps real Texans don’t vote close to home; they make great journeys. Or maybe the attorney general just doesn’t like me.
As I made my lonely way to the polls I fancied I heard in the distance the ghostly voice of Colonel Rogers calling out “I’ll see you at sundown.”
But at my assigned vote-arena there were no A.C.O.R.N.istas in berets and leather coats and sunglasses wielding baseball bats, and no comrades yelping at loyal Americans, so voting was a pleasant if somewhat isolated experience. Dust blew silently across the empty parking lot, and lonely election signs fluttered forlornly in the desolate wind.
But where were The People?
O where were the descendants of those sturdy patriots who braved the winter at Valley Forge? Where were the scions of the thousands of men who at Gettysburg established forever the noble idea that all Americans shall be free? Where were the inheritors of all the men and women who first plowed this land, who cleared the forests, who fought diseases, who with work and sweat and blood and faith established this Shining City on a Hill?
Possibly at home nodding agreement to Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck on the made-in-China radio.
The most annoying and least informative radio ad this election season featured a very small and inarticulate rent-a-mob chanting something that sounded like “Waterboard Texas! Phluf-Phluf-Phloo!” Really. And after an individual said something about Texas needing more water, the occupy-a-mob again bayed “Waterboard Texas! Phluf-Phluf-Phloo! Waterboard Texas! Phluf-Phluf-Phloo!”
Upon examining the ballot I opined that the aforegarbled “Phloo” was probably an allusion to Proposition (or “prop,” as we political sophisticates like to say) 2 on the ballot, which did indeed refer to water, but which was unclear as to purpose of the allusion. Would voting for this amendment causeth the gentle rain to falleth from the empty skyeth? Since the wording was unhelpful, and the radio ad was both unhelpful and annoying, I voted against the amendment.
What genius thought that four or five Occupy-rejects mumbling a chant would constitute (as it were) a rational argument for a constitutional amendment?
In the event, Proposition (proposition – doesn’t sound quite nice, does it?) 2 won by a few percentage points, suggesting that two or three other folks in Texas also voted.
Given that certain elements in our bureaucracies have on occasion disallowed the ballots of our young men and women serving overseas, our domestic failure to vote is not simply a failure to observe an abstract principle. A failure to vote lets down the young people protecting our right to vote. Serving in the military often means loneliness, separation from the soldier’s loved ones; voting should never be a matter of isolation.
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