Is Voting A Right Or A Civic Duty?

While a couple of the points presented in the picture below are debatable, most are solid. We must understand that it's not as if the voters really wobble between being conservative and liberal so often. Rather, in the last elections many Democrats failed to turn out and vote. Some of that failure to vote was the result of Republicans trying to create obstacles to voters who would be more affected, like Democrats. Some of the failure was also many Democrats who felt that it was pointless. Often the media, much of which is actually quite conservative (I mean the news outlets) promote a narrative that we should expect Republicans to win. Many Democrat voters bought into that, combined with the fallacious idea that the midterm elections are somehow less important.

Image is from: Janis Ian's Facebook page.

There is also the fallacious narrative that supposedly all politicians are bad, Republican and Democrat, alike. The fact is there are many bad politicians. There many Democrats who are less than ideal. But, when you vote for the "lesser of two evils" you are setting the stage for greater chances of success when you then appeal to those politicians to get important things done. Additionally, you should know that a smaller percent of Democrat politicians than Republican politicians are bad. On top of that, most of those Democrats that are bad tend to be less bad than the Republicans who are bad. So, ultimately, even if you feel that Democrats are as bad as Republicans, you should know they really aren't "as bad".

With that, you should also know that elections depend on numbers. Statistically Democrats significantly outnumber Republicans across the nation. If every Democrat voter voted and every Republican voter voted, the outcome would be decidedly in favor of Democrats, overall. And, while in certain districts it's true that the balance can be quite in favor of Republicans, if there are more Democrats in office than Republicans it will be harder for Republicans to Gerrymander the districts in their favor. In future elections those districts would shift to favor Democrats.

Image from: Vocal Progressives's Facebook page.

Voting is not so much a privilege or a "right", as we Americans have long been taught. Rather, voting is a civic duty. As a citizen it is your duty to vote in the elections. As a Democratic-Republican Federation, our nation necessarily depends on the votes of the people. Your country, your state, and your city, all depend on your participation. It is a civic duty to vote because the vote of the people determines the direction of the society, the nation and state. Your failure to vote can negatively affect your neighbor, and yourself, every bit as much as the vote of each conservative. Your failure to vote is telling your neighbor that you will leave her at the mercy of corporations that would rather take the welfare they'd deny her. Your failure to vote is you telling your children that they should not care about their education, because you'll allow conservatives to cut funding to schools. Voting is a civic duty.

Copyright © 2015, Joshua Michail.

Romney Losing The Election

Spreading Democracy, the change in American foreign policy.

It is difficult to think of a case, in the past century or more, in which two democratic nations were at war with each other. Nations with democracy tend to have a wide array of manners in which to deal with conflicts, which do not involve war. It seems clear that democracy is good for humanity. Indeed because of democracy, in many ways, the future of humanity is brighter now than it has ever been. We, in the western democratic nations, do have a vested interest in seeing democracy spread over the globe. And, it's in the best interest, realistically, of those in nations that are not yet democratic. With the recent “Arab Spring” populist uprisings in Egypt, Syria, Libya among other nations, we are seeing a movement toward democracy and modernity and humanity in the Middle East. And, US President Obama has shown that we need and we can shift our foreign policy, our involvement in the spread of democracy, away from the old less effective and more costly ways.

A case to point to is Libya. America, leading the effort of several NATO member nations, did not set one soldier's foot on the Libyan soil. Unlike with the previous president's approach with military forces toppling the existing government and installing a new one. We used our military to only support the people in their own efforts to change the direction of their own nation. It cost us little, including no loss of American lives, and they accomplished for themselves the change they needed. We supported the people of Libya by only ensuring that the battleground was kept equal. We did not do anything to win it for them. We only made sure that the fight was not lopsided and unfair.

Now, certainly, we can't, with this approach, control everything. We can't simply install a government as we prefer. But, quite frankly we should get over our power-trip and our controlling demeanor. The biggest problem in this new way, regarding the establishment of new governments in the middle east, is that there are many who still hold on to the archaic idea that religion is important. A real democracy will require freedom of religion and freedom of speech. Though, Islamists don't want the people to have that. It's vitally important for a stable society, and for humanity, that their government stay out of religion. That the government, in no way, supports any religion (obviously there Islam) or religiousness. Of-course, the majority of people will still be Muslim, like in America where the majority are Christian. But the people must earn their identity as a free people. We must only support them, not dictate to them what we want for them. It will take time, but once the people have a taste of liberty, they will hold it more precious.

At the end of the day, the only way it will work is if the people there do it themselves. We, in America, can only choose to support and trade with a government, but we should not be installing them. It is morally wrong for our nation to dictate, let alone removing governments and installing new ones. We can, however, adjust our foreign policy to have some serious influence. We can decide that we will not trade or have diplomatic relations with nations that do not meet our standards on certain issues. Standards like actual freedom of religion and freedom of speech and open, uncorrupted, democratic elections with adhered-to term limits. We ought to require civil rights equality for all without discrimination, including gender equality and equality for ethnic regional minority groups. We should demand that they recognize, and completely abide by, the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We must let the people of the globe know what our standards are, what our requirements are if they want to trade with us and have friendly relations. We can have a strong shaping influence on the rise of democracy around the globe by establishing our own standards and criteria for trade and relations. And, once we clearly define this policy, we must stick to it.

Copyright © 2012 Joshua Michail