We few, we happy few (voters, that is)

Here’s the one truth about this day that no one can dispute:  We voters are the Great American Minority.

That’s right.  No matter how far apart we are on the issues, on the future of the country, on Barack Obama vs. Sarah Palin, we share one abiding faith.

The ballot box matters.  Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our society, the principle upon which all else stands.

Is the election system perfect?  No.  We are rattled by the weird new electronic machines, and dismayed by the tsunami of anonymous cash.

We hold our noses at the negative TV ads and the often idiotic tone of the campaign.

Do elections always produce the “best” results?  Of course not. A lot of people with very interesting ideas are marginalized, or excluded completely.

This is a human, and therefore profoundly flawed, system.

I know some people who won’t vote because the process isn’t perfect.  I know plenty of others who are profoundly apathetic, cozy in their armchair nihilism.

Or they’re too busy with their games and their distractions.  If history holds true, fewer than half of us who have the right to vote will do our duty.

Fie on them, I say.  If you want utopias, you picked the wrong planet, and you were unappily born into the wrong species.

Sadly, there are others in this economic time who are too hard-pressed, too distracted by the struggles of survival to pay much attention to the election.

Fair enough.  Join us next time, friends, when times, hopefully, will be better.

Today, though, I celebrate those who can and will go to the polls, and I do so with a bastardization of the bard:

“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers and sisters

For those to-day that cast their votes with me

Shall be my brother and sister; be they ne’er so vile,

This day shall gentle their condition:

And those in America now a-bed or watching TV

or griping that all politicians are undeserving bums

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

And hold their patriotism cheap whiles any speaks

That voted with us upon this 2010 Midterm.”

Tags: election10