BY RICHARD L. FRICKER
Considering I have been on hiatus with another project during this election cycle I thought I would add this thought as the polls open.
First, voting is a duty whether you like the candidate options or not. It’s too precious to sit on the sidelines in a snit just because you didn’t get your candidate on the ballot.
The process is flawed in places and there are those such as Florida Gov. Scott trying to drive a truck though those flaws. The only way to defeat the Scott’s of the world is to vote.
As to voting itself: After all the speeches, brickbats and millions, voting comes down to me [as in you] and my choice.
My choice was made four years ago when the Republican leadership and the Koch Brothers-funded Tea Party made it clear their efforts would not be directed toward the good of the American people, rather their efforts would be directed to making the duly elected administration fail.
These political and moneyed tyrants let it be known they were more interested in power than governance. This cannot be allowed in a democratic republic; we cannot allow treasonous actions just because people have money or generate hatred based on race to ruin our government.
We cannot allow the will of the people to usurped by those who have no regard for the rule of one man [person] one vote.
Unfortunately there are those who have been led into this wasteland by misinformation, in some cases by allowing themselves to be willingly misinformed. There are those who would see their sons and daughters killed in wars of political expediency, the young, old and infirm die for lack of care, the poor trampled by robber barons masquerading as banks and the young imprisoned for crimes that barely reach the level of crime rather than be thought of as a “liberal.”
Unfortunately for these ill-informed these are not liberal values. These are the very values they believe they espouse when they claim religion, patriotism or “true” conservative as their battle standard.
When an electorate decides it is better to trample on the rights of others than to be thought of as a particular political label, that is not democracy; it is, in fact, a tyranny.
I find it my duty to fight tyranny. I voted in the reddest state in the union. I voted knowing my vote for president would count for naught. I voted because I can, it is my right and it is my duty.
I voted and if the conservatives, Kochs, tea baggers, evangelicals and whoever don’t like it – they can kiss my Irish Catholic, Navy Vietnam veteran, senior citizen, Democrat ballot.
– Richard L. Fricker lives in Tulsa, OK and is a regular contributor to The Oklahoma Observer. His latest book, The Last Day of the War, is available at https://www.createspace.com/3804081 or at www.richardfricker.com.
