Kathleen Parker laments in the Washington Post that most of us are too ignorant to vote. It seems that the Intercollegiate Studies Institute found that 2,500 Americans could not correctly answer even half of a 33-question test on basic civics.
I wonder how old Kathleen Parker is. Has she herself ever voted? This month I’m old enough to take early retirement, but I’ve known about my ignorance in voting ever since I first entered a voting booth in my early 20’s. I’ve always just assumed everyone else is just as ignorant as me. Of course, I’ve moved around a lot, which means I don’t always have the advantage of getting to know those in my communities well enough to recognize them on a ballot. But come to think of it, a large percentage of Americans move around a lot too.
Anyway, when I vote — and I assume this is when you vote too — you get inside the booth and you see a whole list of names you have no idea what they are there for, or you don’t know anything about those particular people. All you know is you want to vote for the president or for a few particular names.
So in my first voting experience I laughed my emerging voting philosophy into existence by making a whole lot of uninformed choices and flippantly announcing to myself, “the will of the people!”
As I got a little older and the lessons of history began to sink into my consciousness more deeply, I began to realize what a tremendous heritage we have as a country — a gift we should never underestimate — to value the transfer of power from one regime to another, at all levels of society, by the simple act of voting. Throughout history we always hear of how kings and others have had to kill or exile those who were leaders in the former regimes out of fear of rebellion and revolution. But we have agreed to reject violence and accept voting as the final say in the transfer of power.
This is really an amazing heritage we have been given, and it should not be wasted. I remember reading in Readers Digest many years ago, a piece by a former Russian spy who worked in the
Not really? Yes, really! Everyday people select office holders at every level of government.
Sure, many of us do not always know who we are voting for. If we stay in the same place long enough we have a chance to get to know more about the local politics. But even if we don’t, the alternative to voting is a return to a barbaric system of violence.
Voting is supposed to be informed choice. But even if it is often a lottery, it’s better than the violent alternative.
