Doubt I need to remind anybody that today is November 4th – Election Day.  At this time, let us consider nothing else – not work, not family, not even blogs – until we have voted.

 

Americans in the not-too-distant past have fought and died for our right to vote.  It’s our collective civic duty to pull that lever today, in one direction or the other.  We can opine all year round, but for most of us this is the one moment where we get our chance to actively make that opinion count.

 

I’m not going to muddy this message with my personal views – the only personal view I have today that counts for anything is the one I expressed above (and the one that I officially registered half an hour ago.)  I personally have a whole lot of respect for both candidates, but today I had to choose one, and so do you.

 

If you forfeit your right to vote, you forfeit your right to complain, for the next four years at the very least.  Bottom line.  Not voting isn’t a statement – nobody is keeping track of the abstentions, or their reasons why.  Thinking that anybody notices the ones who are off sulking in the corner is the height of pointless immaturity.  Come over and join the party instead!

 

And let’s not have any talk about “the lesser of two evils” – neither candidate this time around is evil.  They’re just not.  There are complicated aspects on either side, but evil is just not a word that accurately fits either.  So pick one of the two.  If you don’t like these two choices, get active, and help in the selection of our choices for 2012.  But to choose to avoid voting today is to make yourself irrelevant, and I don’t think you’re irrelevant.

 

So go do it.