The Right To Vote -- The Responsibility To Be Informed

A well-educated electorate, being necessary to the security of a free State...

Friday last, I noted a number of hand-made signs in front of businesses and along the main streets of the little Michigan town of Dundee. The signs said, "Register to Vote." One sign, in front of a McDonalds pointed inside. At the main intersection downtown I noticed a card table set up in front of the pizza parlor, with literature on it, and several fresh faced young people waving said literature at the handful of passers-by.

While I did not have time to stop and ask, I feel certain that these young people were registering voters for Obama.

The right to vote is a cornerstone of any Democracy, or Representative Republic as it were. But what of the responsibility that accompanies that right -- the responsibility of the electorate to become informed on the candidates and the issues, and to cast their ballots based on that knowledge gained?

As most of you are aware, early voting began in the state of Ohio last week, as well as in several other states. A new law, that survived court challenge, allows voters to register and vote the same day, without any need to provide a valid identification as to their citizenship or identity. Some might argue, and many did, that such a system is ripe for voter fraud.

Accordingly, as has been documented on the pages of this site, community organizers in cities across Ohio have been rounding up homeless people, transporting them to registration places, providing them with an address of their nearest homeless shelter, facilitating their voting, and finally, aiding them in their selection of candidates.

I fully expect that Ohio, which narrowly cast their votes for President Bush in 2004 will dramatically shift to Sen Obama in 2008, with an incomprehensible increase in inner city voters. In fact, I think I can safely predict that by election's end, the cities of Ohio will show demographic population gains hitherto unrealized.

And the vast majority of American citizens will neither learn of, nor care about this apparent fraud being perpetrated by community organizers from such dubious organizations as ACORN.

I have recently had a series of conversations with a co-worker, who pointed out to me that all elections are decided by the middle. There are, he tells me, radicals Democrats on one side that will always vote for a Democrat and radical Republicans on the other side who will always vote for a Republican, but it is the center that elects the president.

As a centrist, he is voting for Obama

He railed, recently against the Wall Street Bailout as nothing more than Corporate Welfare. The greedy predatory lenders took advantage of the poor, making millions of dollars and walking away from the little guys who got screwed.

I asked him if he had ever heard of Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelick or Barney Frank. (I didn't bother with Jimmy Johnson because I knew the answer would divert his attention toward football) No! He had never heard of any of them.

I asked him if he had ever heard of the Community Reinvestment Act of 1999. Of course, he had not. I found no point in informing him of the facts, because he has in the past told me that my facts are always far right, and that I have ALWAYS supported the President's line of bull.

He has told me, in the past, that he really is not interested in politics, and admits that he really does not know much about the issues. He admits that he does not watch the news, nor read newspapers or news magazines.

Although he is a centrist and not a partisan like myself, he has never voted for a Republican in his life. He does not know the name of his state representative, nor his representative in Washington. I know he voted for both of them, since they are both Democrats.

To paraphrase another American writer from a long time ago: "A well-educated electorate, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and read Books, shall not be infringed."

In the information age, when books, newspapers, computers, video and film are available at your fingertips and at a moment's notice, ignorance is unforgivable.