THE DEVALUATION OF OUR RIGHT TO VOTE…
(by making it just a matter of convenience rather than a civic obligation and responsibility)

There was a time when Election Day, especially for national offices such as President, was a special day across the nation, and treated more or less like a national holiday. That is, everything stopped…businesses for the most part closed, letting their employees off to go to the polls, and everyone went to the polls, even if it ment spending much of the day waiting in line to cast their votes.

There was no such thing as early voting, voting by mail, etc. We were all indoctrinated with the idea that …voting…was a civic duty and obligation, much like jury duty. We, the people, weren’t just exercising a “right” but were performing our responsibilities as citizens. The only absentee votes allowed were from our fellow citizens serving in the military, overseas.

Not so today. Our right to vote has been devalued in all sorts of ways by making it just a matter of convenience rather than one of civic obligation and responsibility. Voting has been transformed into something requiring every conceivable means to make it “convenient” for us to do so, much like being able to go through a drive-through line at a fast food joint, so we don’t have to make an effort and get out of our cars to order a burger, chicken wings, or fries.

In short…voting… has been made less and less meaningful for us, to the point where the process is now treated as just one of those nuisances we have to put up with every now and then…just so we can still call ourselves a “democratic” society, and that we can still say… America the beautiful… ain’t it grand!

CENTURION