I'm sitting here at my computer, alone for the weekend, enjoying some trivial celeb gossip and catching up on email. Or I was anyway. While scrolling through the mindless and wonderfully entertaining smut online I came across a heading begging Americans not to follow in Canadian footsteps regarding their upcoming election. Why? Because in our federal election this week we Canadians didn't show up to vote. "Canadians shunned the polls during their national election with the lowest turnout on record... some 59.1% of voters went to the polls on Tuesday." (yahoo news)
I read the article and started to cry - actual tears formed and I rested my head in my hands. I'm struggling to find the right words here... I just can't understand why people didn't care enough to participate. It makes me so upset and frustrated, because I care so much and I pray for something, or someone, to come along that will inspire the rest of the country to get involved in the process. 59.1%? It's insulting to all the people who campaign, who work the polling stations, who stuff envelopes, who engage in intelligent and sometimes combative conversations during these times, to not at least make the effort to cast one vote for a say in our collective future. How can you not do that much? How can you not care what happens? For your children, for your parents who may be reaching an age where they rely on the government to survive, or for goodness sake, for YOURSELF!! Don't you care about the economy, about the states of education and healthcare, about equality and human rights, about keeping industry in Canada, about protecting our fragile environment? Seriously, do NONE of these things matter?
I am so offended by the disrespect shown to the women and other minority groups who came before us - people who fought, with dire consequences, to have the right to vote. They cared so much about having a say that they were beaten, imprisoned, and ostracized, and it is a slap in their faces that we didn't even show up (literally and figuratively). They fought to give us the right to vote, and now it is our responsibility to use that right. It breaks my heart that pride of civic duty and pride of impacting our nation's future aren't strong enough incentives to get people involved. We have turned into a country of people who are not accountable anymore. Somewhere along the road to bettering ourselves the lessons about responsibility and community action fell by the wayside. We all want something for nothing these days, and we believe we're entitled to it all without necessarily earning it. Well, guess what? The reason we can take our abundant human rights for granted today is because our predecessors voted and fought to provide them for us!! We are so blessed and we owe it to ourselves and to those before us to respect these rights we have. We have a moral obligation to care!
The world doesn't change by people complaining, it changes by participation and action. And 60.9% of this country chose to sit home and watch Dancing with the Stars instead of voting. We should all be ashamed.
