If you have the time to go out to a club on a weekend, you have the time to vote.
If you have the time to parse the intricacies of your NFL fantasy football league, you have the time to vote.
If you have the time to drink a freshly poured craft beer, you have the time to vote.
If you have the time to play six hours of games on your Xbox One, you have the time to vote AND volunteer.
Voting is both a right and a privilege.
It is a right because those who came before you fought and died to continually expand the franchise. African Americans in the South couldn’t vote before 1964. Women couldn’t vote before 1920. Universal suffrage was gained by long, incremental struggle. It was not handed on a silver platter, fully formed out of the Founders’ heads like Athena from Zeus.
Voting is a privilege because it is a privilege to be a citizen of the world’s last remaining superpower. It is a privilege because as a mere citizen you have the power to decide your fate. If you eschew voting, to paraphrase Plato, you hand that power over to your inferiors, or at the very least to people who don’t see the world in the same way you do.
If you don’t have time to vote, it means you don’t have time to be a citizen. There are millions around the world who would scrape and claw to earn the sobriquet “United States citizen”. Perhaps you could give up your place on the boat to one of them.
If you don’t have time to vote, it means that you are completely disconnected from anything not impacting you at the most personal level. Of course, by not voting, you are guaranteeing that things with which you may not agree will impact you, very closely and very personally.
Do you want to ensure that women have safe and legal access to abortion? By not voting you are ensuring that abortion rights will be increasingly restricted and, perhaps, eventually done away with.
Do you want to redress the income disparity between the very rich and the rest of the commonwealth? By not voting you are ensuring power to a party whose main purpose is to enrich the rich, and burden the rest of the populace with the costs of those tax breaks and giveaways.
Do you want to make sure that every citizen, regardless of race, gender, religion, or sexual identity is treated as an honored member of the nation? Then by not voting you are handing power to a party which has been seized by the most reactionary elements of the country, who see anyone different from them as a threat to their existence.
Voting is more important than the Giants-Cowboys game. Voting is more important than the Chelsea-Manchester United match. Voting is more important than any pastime or entertainment in which you can engage.
Voting is the signifier that you care about something other than yourself. Voting is the signifier that you are a member of a broader society. Voting is the signifier that you take part in your own governance, rather than allowing history to wash over you. Voting is the signifier that you are an actor, not a victim.
Not everyone has the time to make get out the vote calls. Not everyone has the money to donate to political campaigns. But everyone has the time to vote. Everyone has the ability to mail in a voting ballot. Everyone has the time to, for one day, get home late and make a choice.
Vote. Because it’ll piss off a Republican, and because somebody else will.
The Obama Diary 
LL, thanks a trabillion for this. I have just wasted the last 90 minutes, plus added time and half-time, of my life watching United being CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP against West Brom.
I friggin’ hate football.
I watched the last 25 minutes at home during lunch. When WBA went ahead again I felt a slight twinge for you.
Only slight?
And to top it all, I agonized over replacing my captain Di Maria with Aguero in my Fantasy team, but I stuck with him.
Points –
Di Maria: 10
Aguero: 38
I hate life.
Sentiment has no place in fantasy football.
Lesson learnt.
Luckily, United’s next match is easy.
The wonderful thing is that Jose doesn’t have to play mindgames with LvG. He’s doing it all to himself.
I’m sure Sir Alex is sipping wine and saying over and over again “Apres moi le deluge”. In Scots brogue.
Grr.
Strictly: “Efter me th’ deluge.”
Thank you BFF!
LL, great piece.
If one claims to love our system of government and cares about how well it functions, then, active citizenry participation is essential…..short of that, is abdication of one’s Civic Duties.
Those who don’t Vote, can’t shape the outcome and can’t make our Democracy work for all.
Congrats Chips on your Gold ⭐
🙂 Thank you Nena!
What’s all this? Honesty, from a GOP? Glory be…
FLOTUS will be campaigning for Bruce Braley in Iowa Tuesday and in Minnesota for Sen. Franken and Gov. Dayton. And in Colorado Thursday to campaign for Sen. Udall.
Crumbling, Tumbling……down…….
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/sunday-show-ratings-october-12_b242682
The numbers for October 12:
Network Program Total Viewers A25-54
CBS
“Face the Nation” 3.53M 904,000
ABC
“This Week” 2.81M 809,000
NBC “Meet the Press” 2.48M 619,000
FOX “Fox News Sunday” 1.15M 447,000
UNIV “Al Punto” 1.05M 501,000
NBC’s “Meet the Press” was down the most: -19% in viewers and down -30% in the demo vs. the same Sunday last year which was the midst of the government shutdown.
😆 🙄 😆
Thank yoooooou Nena!!!
Weep on! It will not change his fate. I felt he was taken on to be the fall guy when failure is complete. So deserving, he is, too!
Wonder will Fox take him now, MightyP? 🙂
Maybe they should cut MTP to 30 minutes like Bob Schieffer’s show and opt for just interviews with no punditry sitting around a table.
Way better COS, so long as it’s not the Toad doing the interviews!
THIS!!!
😎
❤ the tweet, Chips 😉
🙂 Thank you again Nena!!!!!
This cracks me up 🙂
😆 Judging by the ratings, that is almost literally true!!
I know and he responded with this yesterday morning before that handful of viewers tuned into that Gawd awful show!
How insightful of Bruce…..
🙂 🙂 🙂
I’m going to tweet Bruce and ask him for the winning Lottery numbers 🙂
There ya go!
Please share once you win.
Just think they paid David Gregory 4 million dollars to go off quietly into the night. He is somewhere sipping on a drink with an umbrella in it basking in the sun not giving a second thought to how he screwed NBC big time and they paid him for it. It’s a heckuva way to make a living if you can get it.
The same will happen to Chuckie. It’s just a matter of time…… 😡
A Calamity of Errors, comes to mind. I seriously cannot get Chuck Todd’s exalted standing with them – yes, he’s a GOP shill, which is what they seem to want, but he’s as thick as a brick, a laughing stock with anyone who knows his track record, and anyone who isn’t familiar with his shilling is so bored by him, they tune out. What gives?!
I think they have a hard time accepting that they make mistakes in choosing these people like Gregory and Todd. Look how long Gregory’s numbers were in the tank before they canned him. They do the same thing over and over again with a different person in the chair and they think that we won’t notice that nothing has really changed. They take their audience for granted but we won’t tune into an hour of President Obama bashing. It’s just not in our interests and they cannot see this. It’s pure insanity. Todd thinks he’s all that and then some because NBC has swelled his head into thinking he’s the best journalist on the face of the earth. He’s a first class no nothing jerk. His reality is right around the corner and he soon will be the one disqualified!!!
LOL!
Good let them all sink as low as they can goooooo!!
Eventually they will get the message and change their format of these shows. No one wants to watch a bunch of men who are not the authority on any topic sit around a table telling the rest of us how we should feel about the policies of this Administration.
Yes! Thanks, Nena for the info.
“Voting is more important than the Chelsea-Manchester United match.”
Hmm……. not sure.
This is important:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/20/1337909/-Submit-a-Comment-About-Hobby-Lobby
Still very very close. Why DSCC pulled out is mind boggling.
They did boost her ground game money. Right now, making sure folks get to the polls is what is more than needed. TV ads are pretty much over saturated by now.
The DSCC didn’t pull out.
But it’s not a democrat and has zero ties to obama so never mind 😳
That’s a dig!
Oh, isn’t CVK so very funny? He has less of a life than me! (but he gets paid a ton more, I’ll wager)
Sweet Jesus, that is a beautiful picture.
This for our very own….LL
Oh my. I think this is a show I need to watch.
BTW, speaking of awesome librarians:
too cool……I love the puppets. LL do you use puppet during story time with the kiddies?
In 2008, I almost rolled over trying not to collide with them things.
Thanks LL. Too many people fail to realize how much voting/not voting affects their lives, especially now. Just from a personal perspective, I believe that I have always automatically voted in every kind of election because my parents always voted in every kind of election. It was just something that you did, like go to school and know the words to the national anthem. And I think it’s important for those who didn’t have parents that always voted to be role models for their families and future generations by always voting, no matter what.
I have nothing nice to say…..so, I will just post the link and sit this one out……MN Dist 6th…..Bachmann, No legislative accomplishment to write home about. Oh well.
Nena, I am speechless but glad that Bachmann lives in a country where you can be as wacko as a wackobird and still be treated decently.
I am pretty sure that the threat is based on words she utters loosely.
This guy is just a prick….at times…..pardon me.
NY has just about every ethnicity, as diverse as they come and he has Nothing to say?
Nena, this made me laugh.
Cuomo is playing it safe. All he is thinking is 2016. He is not going to say anything about anything that can be used against him.
I’m with you Nena. That was a dumb response. At the very least he should say that we should trust the experts to do their jobs, remind people there’s no “outbreak” in the US and not to play into fears. He’s the Governor of New York, for crying out loud! IDIOT! Ugh!
He wanted Kids from 3/4 Central America to be sent home.
Now Karma came calling and Now, a resignation 😉
Karma was fast on this one!
Karma is a b####.
Grimes can still win this…..KY is begging to throw the Turtle out….C’mon Ms Grimes, get it done.
I just wish she hadn’t turned off the AA voters down there. She needed the white women vote but I’m afraid she has sacrificed one for the other. We will see. It’s amazing that she is this close and hopefully she will pull it out.
“Not everyone has the time to make get out the vote calls. Not everyone has the money to donate to political campaigns. But everyone has the time to vote. Everyone has the ability to mail in a voting ballot. Everyone has the time to, for one day, get home late and make a choice.”
LL this is a fantastic essay.
Amen to that!
Bravo LL!
Lawd Have Mercy….smh!!!
PresidentObama boards Air Force One for Washington.
@jeffmason1
Nerdy’s new post:
http://theobamadiary.com/2014/10/20/jobs-%E2%9C%94-economy-growing-%E2%9C%94-thank-you-president-obama/