Well,
here it is the week before we get the opportunity to exercise our right to
choose who the next leader of the free world will be. Please notice that I
didn’t say, ."exercise our God-given right." I don’t believe
that voting is a God given right in this country. I suppose we could argue
that God allowed us to find this country and has guided our progress
through good and bad times. I choose to believe that the right to vote was
won rather
than given to us.
I happen to love history and consider it to
be a hobby of mine. It makes no difference to me what kind of history,
just whatever strikes my fancy at the time. I seem to spend a lot to time
reading about English naval warfare at the beginning of the 1800’s. As you
know the captain of a naval vessel was considered to be the judge, jury
and often executioner of his crew. If you were found guilty of any number
of offenses, you could be put to death without any appeal or
whatever.
In England, you were subject to over 200
capital offenses in which you could be put to death. If you think our
judicial system is harsh, try reading up on this period and see what could
happen to you for what we would consider to be minor offenses. As I’m
reading about these things, it dawns on me that the everyday English
citizen of that day had no right to vote since they were ruled by the
monarchy. In the newly formed United States we were starting off with
these rights. Now, to be sure they had to be improved upon during the
coming years to allow for women and minorities to vote, but we certainly
started off in the right direction. This so called ‘right to vote’ is
indeed a precious thing to be cherished by all of us that are free to use
it. If you ever go to any military cemetery, I challenge you to look at
those rows upon rows of markers and think about what these men and women
gave in order for us to have the our ‘rights’. Wars are certainly not
pleasant things and by nature cause death and destruction.
People’s lives change drastically as a
result of war. Loved ones come home maimed, devastated or dead. I would
venture to say there isn’t a one of us that hasn’t had someone we know or
love, suffer the effects of some war at one time or another. This
next week, we have the duty and responsibility to use one of those rights
that have been given to us by the sacrifice of Americans. We should bow
our heads and be ashamed of ourselves if we allow apathy get in the way of
our vote. Too often, I hear people say that they feel that their vote
doesn’t count. They are certainly right about that, if they don’t vote,
then it doesn’t count. Ask yourself this question. "What if those men
and women who fought in those wars had chosen to walk away rather than be
killed or injured for life?" Would we enjoy the status that we have
as a nation if our soldiers, sailors and airmen had said. "I don’t
think I want to go into combat today, I ‘d rather say home and watch
TV."? Certainly no one wants to go into some battle with the
intention of being injured or dying. What if you were one of those men or
women and you knew you were going to die for something that many
people have a total disregard? How can we keep our nation secure without a
standing military force to insure that our way of life is maintained? The
answer is, we can’t.
There are countless countries throughout
history that have been conquered because they had a weak military
presence. No, freedom isn’t cheap and it certainly isn’t free. Our right
to vote was paid for with the lives of many, many people during the past
200 or so years. Don’t let these lives be sacrificed in vain, use your
right to vote. As always, get in touch with me at www.pearyperry.com.
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