Carry out your citizens responsibility

By Sun Advocate

Ok. I know I’ve said it before, and here I am about to say it again.
Next Tuesday you have the chance to carry out what is probably one of your most important duties as a citizen of this country.
To vote.
But so many of us don’t, even in general elections, and I know I am not sure why.
Some people feel they are too busy. Some just don’t get to the polls on time. Others have personal things that are pressing.
All good excuses, and one I and others can accept at a specific time or during a specific election.
But what I can’t accept is the excuse that “I can’t make a difference” or “I could care less who gets in.”
Those are not excuses, those are ways to shirk a civic responsibility.
For those that grew up in the 1960’s and became adults just in time to be able to vote in the early 1970’s at the age of 18, so many of us were excited to get that chance to pick our leaders.
It was a era when many of us thought it was about time we should have the right to vote for people who could send us off to war. It was a time of civic action, of involvement, of passion.
Not all of it was good, but few changes take place without some pain.
What has happened to many of us is that we have become too comfortable with our lives. Have we lost that passion to have the best leaders we can?
And if those comfortable lives we have are what count, the leaders we pick in the next few years will be the ones that will lead us into our lives of retirement.
Or maybe there will be no retirement. The way things look much of that could be in jeopardy. We have ways of affecting that outcome. So make the choice to vote in every election.
And if you don’t, then don’t complain about what happens.
You had your chance.