Where's
the Beef?!
By Kevin
Squyres
Magis staff writer
Ah, it’s
a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Billy-Jo is mowing his
yard, Suzy-Ann is riding her new tricycle, and the neighbor’s
dog just had six new pups. Ah, wonderful times we’re
going through these days. In fact, I doubt they could get
much better what with the mass media fabricating news, drug
dealers thriving, violence being at a quaint little high,
and, Oh! we mustn’t forget the fact our country is again
divided into states, *cough* factions, on issues such as prostitution,
use of marijuana, and gay marriage.
Oh how the days go by! Why, I remember back in the day when
the biggest turmoil the nation faced was the Great Depression.
I miss those times.
If America weren’t filled with social automatons, we
might actually have some of these issues cleared up. The majority
of America, however, has become so complacent with its rights
that it is flushing its opportunity down a proverbial golden
toilet. The US Census Bureau says that 92 million citizens
did not vote during the 2000 Elections. That is more than
enough to have changed the outcome of the presidential election.
Perhaps we wouldn’t be at war with the world had those
voters utilized the cherished right the Founding Fathers cradled
so much; perhaps not. Que cera cera.
We, by our vote, select the men and women who write our laws
and govern. That single vote has been responsible for the
most important and lasting decisions. For example, in the
founding of our country, one vote decided whether we would
adopt English rather than German as our official language.
So where’s the political efficacy folks?!
Let’s take a trip to a whole other hemisphere. Let’s
look at Algeria. Amnesty International reports that the human
rights situation in Algeria is terrible. Thousands of men,
women, and children have been killed, many massacred in their
own homes, both by security forces and the government-backed
militias or by extremist Islamic groups. Thousands more have
been arrested and imprisoned, many without charges or trials.
Hundreds have been sentenced to prison after unfair trials.
Torture by the security forces is widespread, both at secret
detention centers and in prison. The security forces continue
to "disappear" people, and the fate of thousands
of the disappeared remains unknown.
And you call yourselves a victim!
The part that sickens me the most is not that we have the
right, but that we fail to use it despite our full knowledge
of its power.
English playwright Tom Stoppard once said, “It's not
the voting that's democracy; it's the counting.” We
as Americans are allowed the right to vote as a way of fairly
representing ourselves and protecting our individual interests.
Complacency denies us this representation. Abraham Lincoln
said, “The ballot is stronger than the bullet.”
If that doesn’t get the point across, I don’t
know what does. |
