facebook redux...

Here is two of a larger a series of posts from Facebook tonight:

first:

i got a lot of calls telling me to go vote today.

did i do it?

nope.

do i care?

nope.

oh well.

the second:

I abstain from this entire election!

While I'm sure this isn't a new phenomenon, I don't think in the past people walked down the halls, corridors and streets yelling, "Hey, America, I don't give a fuck!" But now, with facebook, people do do so. Why? Because they think it's cool, or because they think only their friends will see it or care. Or maybe it's because the echo chamber has just gotten so loud the need to remove oneself from it overwhelms the need to change it.

Either way, it saddens me. I haven't been able to vote for YEARS because I never get my absentee ballot in time. I move around too much and my address changes and I normally get mine sometime a month or two after with several "forward" labels affixed. I register, but never get it in time. It's depressing. But, I do what I can, when I can, to help those candidates I see fit, and donate what I can afford. I'm not saying this to garner respect or sympathy, but just to show that it's rather simple to make a small difference...and voting is (for most) the simplest way to make a difference and the ONLY way to be heard.

I take it personally...very personally. I have a list of friends buried in Arlington. I have an entire room full of West Point graduates we commemorate every year at Founder's Day and THOUSANDS more I'll never know have died in the service of this Country. Why? Because for one reason or another they believe that putting their lives on the line so that others don't have to (Orwell's quote comes to mind that, "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."). It saddens me to think that so many, so smugly and naively...one might even say selfishly, abdicate that privilege, right and duty.

No, it doesn't sadden me. It angers me. It's the worst form of social loafing ever. To anyone who didn't vote today without a valid excuse, I tell you you've lost not only your right to complain, but your right to an opinion.

When things go wrong, as they will, don't feel upset...feel responsible.