Join our Mailing List!
Please click the link below to sign up for your community paper mailing list. Stay up to date with all the events going on in your community as well as the latest news.Sign Up Today!
Don’t forget about your old friend, democracy
Remember to register by Oct. 8 to exercise your right to vote
COLUMN
By Michael Westblade
Wednesday, Oct. 8, is the voter registration deadline in Missouri and if you haven’t registered to vote by then, you will be forced to stay at home Tuesday, Nov. 4, like a lonely girl without a prom date while everybody else parties with democracy.
Trust me, it won’t be fun.
While everyone else is participating in the democratic process by voting for the elected leaders who will control a good deal of their lives for the next few years, you’ll be at home, feeling pretty insignificant and apathetic, wondering why you didn’t just fill out that little card so you could join in on the fun and excitement of election day, one of the nation’s most sacred days.
Believe me, whatever uneventful and inconsequential thing you plan do Nov. 4 will pale in comparison to what the rest of us will, be doing — voting and participating in the system while having our voices heard.
What else could you possibly have to do that’s more important than helping to decide the fate of your county, your state and your country by choosing its leaders?
For the most part, it takes less time to vote than it does to make pancakes and considerably less time than it took me to come up with this absurd analogy to make my point.
You will spend, what, 10 minutes to make a stack of pancakes and maybe another 20 eating them? So, that’s 30 minutes to make and consume your pancakes and the energy produced by those pancakes, if you ate them at 8 a.m., might get you by until 1 or 2 p.m. or until you start thinking about lunch.
Assuming there isn’t much of a line, voting takes about 3 minutes and it’s 3 minutes of work — the outcome of which could feasibly have a direct effect on your life for four years.
The pancakes will take 30 minutes of work and affect your life for six hours.
The point being, if you can motivate yourself to cook up some flapjacks in the morning, there’s no reason you can’t spend a few minutes filling out a voter registration card and maybe another few minutes on Election Day doing the actual voting.
If you have time to make breakfast, you have time to vote.
It doesn’t even matter who you vote for, just vote.
If you don’t vote, chances are you’ll be spending the next few years complaining.
Well, you’ll probably be doing that anyway, but at least you’ll be able to say you tried.
printable version
e-mail this story
By Michael Westblade
Wednesday, Oct. 8, is the voter registration deadline in Missouri and if you haven’t registered to vote by then, you will be forced to stay at home Tuesday, Nov. 4, like a lonely girl without a prom date while everybody else parties with democracy.
Trust me, it won’t be fun.
While everyone else is participating in the democratic process by voting for the elected leaders who will control a good deal of their lives for the next few years, you’ll be at home, feeling pretty insignificant and apathetic, wondering why you didn’t just fill out that little card so you could join in on the fun and excitement of election day, one of the nation’s most sacred days.
Believe me, whatever uneventful and inconsequential thing you plan do Nov. 4 will pale in comparison to what the rest of us will, be doing — voting and participating in the system while having our voices heard.
What else could you possibly have to do that’s more important than helping to decide the fate of your county, your state and your country by choosing its leaders?
For the most part, it takes less time to vote than it does to make pancakes and considerably less time than it took me to come up with this absurd analogy to make my point.
You will spend, what, 10 minutes to make a stack of pancakes and maybe another 20 eating them? So, that’s 30 minutes to make and consume your pancakes and the energy produced by those pancakes, if you ate them at 8 a.m., might get you by until 1 or 2 p.m. or until you start thinking about lunch.
Assuming there isn’t much of a line, voting takes about 3 minutes and it’s 3 minutes of work — the outcome of which could feasibly have a direct effect on your life for four years.
The pancakes will take 30 minutes of work and affect your life for six hours.
The point being, if you can motivate yourself to cook up some flapjacks in the morning, there’s no reason you can’t spend a few minutes filling out a voter registration card and maybe another few minutes on Election Day doing the actual voting.
If you have time to make breakfast, you have time to vote.
It doesn’t even matter who you vote for, just vote.
If you don’t vote, chances are you’ll be spending the next few years complaining.
Well, you’ll probably be doing that anyway, but at least you’ll be able to say you tried.