Duty

Tomorrow is Election Day and the kids have off from school for some reason or other.  This morning, as we waited for the bus, I told them they were going to have to come with me to vote and then to the office for the day.  Jackson asked me, "Why do you have to vote?"  with the emphasis on HAVE, the same we he says, "do I HAVE to eat my brussel sprouts?"
I told him it is my duty as a citizen.
Caitlyn giggled because I said "duty," which her nine year old, potty-obsessed brain interpreted as a reference to poop.
The conversation was largely derailed, but I made sure to make the point that voting is a privilege and a responsibility.  Which is something I say to my kids, even when I don't actually feel it in my heart.
In my heart, I think the game is rigged.  In my heart, I think the best we can do is pick the least repugnant of two or three corrupt glad-handers who are mostly some version of Boss Hogg from the Dukes of Hazzard.  Often, I have a little bit of trouble distinguishing my duty to vote from the kind of doodee Caitlyn was giggling about.  But that is not an excuse to cop out and just not go.
Our voter turn outs in this country are absolutely terrible, around 50 percent in a good year, with a presidential election.  On "off" years, it's much worse, largely because people understand our political system so poorly that they don't know that there are so many more important things to worry about than who occupies the Oval Office.
Do we pay attention to the people, who have lived under a totalitarian regime, who get to vote for the first time?
Do we watch them risk their lives and their security to do it?
Do we think it's because their candidates are better? (mostly they're not, and often they're much worse).
As low as my opinion of most of our political types actually is, I cannot justify apathy.  It's not fair to all the people who live under the boots of oppression.  This may seem purely humanist, and maybe it is, but I think I owe it to the human race to vote and engage to some extent in this experiment called democracy.
In my smaller sphere of work within the church, I have used this example with regard to people who disengage from the life of the church because they're angry or because they disagree with some policy or other.  If you don't stay, if you don't engage, if you don't participate, how is anything ever going to improve.  Sure, things aren't perfect, but if you don't do your part in the community, you cannot and should not complain.
Unfortunately, this is the approach many people take to church and to politics, they would rather stay disengaged, for fear that the system will let them down.
Which is, of course, a self fulfilling prophecy.
One of the reasons our system is as broken as it is right now is the fact that people vote out of fear of what might occur if someone of the opposite ideology gets elected.  They don't vote on individual merits, but on party platforms, they don't vote on actual integrity, but on slick politicking.
Another reason our system is broken right now, and this is the bigger reason, is that people don't participate, and I'm not just talking about voting, I'm talking about actually becoming an informed voter.  Which is difficult in some ways, but in other ways it's as easy as at least reading a somewhat neutral comparison of the candidates positions and promises (not that they'll have much to do with the reality of their behavior in office).
If you don't know what somebody says they'll do, you can't very well hold them accountable to do it, can you?  If you don't understand what's even possible within the sphere of influence you're giving someone, how are you ever going to have realistic expectations?
You can't trust advertising, and sometimes it's hard to separate the journalists from the advertisers to be sure, and that's work as well, but it's work you need to do, because you're a grown up, and because you're a citizen.
I don't imagine that the election tomorrow is going to change anything, but I'm going to vote, then, at least, I'll have a right to complain about the gubmint.