Time for Voters to Take Responsibility

BY JASON WALKER, Columnist

I have a question for you…

What will you do if your candidate loses?

Actually, I’ve got several questions.

What will happen to all the excitement and interest in politics this “unprecedented” presidential race has supposedly generated after the election is over?

The public is fickle. It was in Rome; it was in England; it is today. Like those dynasties, we will eventually fall, and our lack of interest in our government may be the basis.

To avoid this fate, don’t the respective parties have a responsibility to help keep interest up even if they lose? Isn’t that what all the ads, celebrities, ministers and politicians are always saying? How much your vote means and how important it is to be a part of the political process. If that is true than no matter who wins isn’t it your responsibility to support the system even if you think the wrong candidate was elected? If you truly believe in the system it’s your duty to support whoever represents you.

So where has the support been the last few years? No, I’m not saying you should blindly follow your government and not acknowledge mistakes. But you should help be a part of guiding our country to a better outcome, not stall the process by constantly pointing fingers. That is what has happened.

You can blame Bush all you want, but everyone plays a part. It’s easy to be supportive when everything is going smoothly, but it is when times are the most turbulent that your representatives need your support and guidance the most. Unfortunately, during those times, they have been criticized the most and abandoned. Rarely is focus centered on the problem and not on the elected officials. This is a country full of fair-weather friends.

Who is to blame?

Politicians are cannibals. Each party expends so much effort pointing out the flaws of the other. Each candidate works so hard to discount his or her opponent. It should be expected that the public would adopt the same mind-set. Then politicians wonder why they are held under a microscope and why it is so hard to believe them when, after vigorously trashing their opponent for the last couple of years, they are “sincerely” endorsing the same person in a speech at the national convention. You can’t have it both ways. Negativity breeds negativity, and we have been on this path for so long that it may be impossible for a candidate to get elected using a different approach.

The public is not without blame either. It does not benefit the county when your interest only exists when your candidate is involved.

Presidential candidates are like teams in the Super Bowl. Your team probably isn’t playing, but for one reason or another there is one team you would rather see win. You want to see a hated rival defeated. You have money on the game. Maybe you just get caught up in the vibe at the party.

This isn’t a game. This is the presidency and it deserves to be treated with more importance. The average person can tell you more about any random athlete or actor than they can about the man who gets their vote.

Is the fate of the country better left to those who have a genuine interest in the process and not to the masses that only show interest every four years? No. The process only works if everyone can be a part of it. But there should be criteria beyond reaching a certain age and not being convicted of a serious crime to participate.

Maybe the candidates don’t need to endure more scrutiny, the people voting should. It’s more difficult to pick a cell phone and calling plan, more time consuming to join a social networking site and more costly to vote on a reality show than to vote for the leader of our country.

How valuable do you consider your right to vote? Value is determined based on what has to be endured, sacrificed or paid. There was a time when people were willing to sacrifice their lives for the privilege to vote, and it was priceless to them. Now that right is of little value to a majority of the public.

No wonder the rest of the world hates us. They see Americans taking for granted the rights they receive from birth, like an heiress squandering her family’s wealth while people work 60-hour weeks to feed their families. Most people never know how good they really have it.

There is a chance to parlay this momentum into a real interest in the political process. A chance to show those still watching after November 4 how their votes can affect their lives and get people interested in their local and state governments. A chance to motivate people by showing them the results of their contributions. The question now is, where do your loyalties lie? With your interest or with the process?