Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2016 12:22:47 -0400
From: “stinmar1
Subject: United We Stand
The 4th of July is coming and I wanted to step back and look at Chatham from a different perspective
When I was growing up I remember mama , grandma and aunt Lee all getting off work early just so they could vote . I remember daddy letting his employees off to go vote . I remember granddaddy coming home , taking a shower and cleaning up putting his best clothes on to go vote . Their employers and daddy being one never complained when people left a little early to vote as it was a civic duty , a responsibility and a right and privilege we all have
There was never an excuse not to vote it was something you did because people fought and died to give us freedom in this country . Voting is our guarantee We The People will always stay in control of our country and insure freedom for our generations to come.
I was young and even though I saw them vote I never put that much effort into voting for many years . I didn’t see the bodies coming home in caskets covered with American flags from wars fought . I didn’t see the fight for women’s and blacks rights to vote I just read about them . In many ways it was all in the past and I was in the present and I had better things to do . As I grew older I saw our government slowly change from something respected to something almost despised by many that is wasteful , deceitful and as easy to see through as muddy water . I began to wonder has everyone just lost their minds to vote in these people and their radically different views on how our country should be run . The more I thought about it the more I realized it was my fault and everyone else that didn’t vote . I realized that as the population grew less and less people voted thinking everyone else will vote in the right ones so why waste the time .
The last election is a crystal clear example of what happens when to many people feel that everyone is on the same page and don’t take time to cast their vote . You as a citizen in this county have a responsibility and even more so a right to be heard . Your opinion and your rights are in your hands and if you do not vote you are assuming everyone else will vote like minded to voice your opinion and desire . People that is the problem its not democrats or republicans in this county its apathy . The last election was a very low turn out election where the candidates that won carried the lowest percentage majority vote in county history to unseat incumbents that the majority of the citizens were happy with . You as a resident of this county would be mad as hell if someone told you that you couldn’t vote because its your right . You would fight them with an argument of discrimination and possibly a law suit so if voting is that important to you ,, why wont you take time to do it ?
Did you know that politicians not only count on your votes but on the no votes as well ? Political strategy uses several things to win an election . We all know it take votes to win but many of us don’t know that it also takes no votes and third party votes to win as well . If you have two nearly evenly matched candidates and you see your not gaining votes you can do two things . Install public mistrust in your opponent so they lose votes or throw a third party candidate in the race who you know can’t win that will pull votes away from your opponent. Any votes you lose will be offset by the greater number of votes your opponent looses swinging the election in your favor . The politicians have the mathematical advantage for elections with medium to low voter turn out when voter apathy is on their side
We the people have a powerful tool to derail political election strategy and its called voting . It doesn’t matter if you think your candidate will win or not you need to vote . If we improve our voter turn out and show a united majority voice again we can and will take control back from the people who do not represent us and our way of life. They do not care about our voice and this point was clearly made by one of the commissioners at the last zoning meeting who said she didn’t care about what people said they had already made up their mind about zoning .. If you really want to see something powerful happen go vote , get your neighbor to vote , take your elderly neighbor who cant drive to vote , teach your kids the right reasons to vote and why its important . Don’t vote by party , don’t vote by race or by sex but vote for the candidates who have roots here that respect our views and way of life . If we can improve voter turn out and make the people we vote in respect us again and listen to us again then we can come up with a long term growth plan that respects or way of life . We can force both party’s to work together for us in a united goal instead of splitting us down the middle with political lines so they can do what they please while in office . To keep this county a place you want to call home and to insure our kids will want to live here in the future , GET OUT AND VOTE every time , every election !
Goodnite Mark