Jay Elias | You can take it with you

"I have wasted Time, and now doth
Time waste me"
- Richard II

2002-11-05- 9:40 a.m.

In Order To Form A More Perfect Union

Today is Election Day in the United States of America. It isn’t as big of a deal this year as it was two years ago, or as it will be two years from now, since the Presidency isn’t up for grabs and the stakes aren’t as high. Today’s election serves merely to determine all four hundred sixty-five seats in the House of Representatives, one third of the seats in the U.S. Senate and over half the governors in the nation. Oh, and a whole bunch of state and local government stuff that no one really notices.
I suppose that you can gather that since I’m bothering to write about it, I consider it to be pretty important. There are the obvious reasons why I feel this way; none of us can live a life in this country independent of politics and government. The five hundred and fifty or so people who will be headed to the U.S. Capitol and various statehouses will have an enormous impact on our lives, from the laws that they pass to how they decide to spend about one fifth of the money that you earn. What I find most significant however, is that those who are elected will be empowered to speak in my voice, and yours, to the rest of the world, whether I voted for them or their opponent.
This is really serious stuff. We live in a world today where Jerry Falwell can make a statement on “60 Minutes” and cause riots in India. I’m under no delusion that what I say is heard in Mali, or France, or Thailand or Yemen. They listen to what President Bush has to say. They listen to Speaker Daschle, or to Senator Kerry or Congressman Johns or Governor Pataki. They do so in part because it is these people who will make the decisions about our nation and theirs, but also because we have asked these men and women to speak with our voice. They are our elected representatives. When they speak for us, it isn’t simply because we are too numerous for us each to make our voices heard. They speak for us because we have asked them to.
When President Bush speaks, his voice carries the weight of all two hundred and sixty-five million Americans to the five billion people who are citizens of the rest of our planet. In the shattered communities of Kabul, Afghanistan, it means nothing that less than one-fourth of all Americans of voting age and eligibility cast their vote for him, or that he received less of the actual votes cast than his opponent. It means even less than nothing to them that many if not most of the people who did vote for President Bush did so because they saw him as the lesser of two evils rather than the greater of two goods. And it certainly never occurs to them that President Bush was chosen as his party’s nominee more because he could win than because he was the best the party could muster. What do they care about the fact that in American politics the ability to raise fifty-two billion dollars in campaign funds is a more important qualifier than leadership skills? There in Kabul and in New Delhi, Kigali and Bogotá, they know all they need to know: President Bush is the elected executive of the United States.
And they are right to think so. The President is the only elected representative in the entire government voted on in every district of every state; the one man in the nation empowered to speak for all of us. And if you think you can wiggle out of that by claiming that the Supreme Court and not the people made him President, remember that every Justice on that court was nominated by one of your Presidents, confirmed by your Congress, by means laid out in your Constitution. And whether or not you vote, and regardless of whom you vote for, it is certain that you endorse your method of government. After all, you pay for it. Every dime you pay in taxes is your explicit endorsement of the Constitutional method of governance of the United States. No one is forcing you to stay here, after all, and you can leave at any time. And the people who you elect today aren’t just speaking for you because you will let them; you are paying them a considerable amount of money to do so.
The people who you will elect today are your voice. They are the ones who will speak for you when it is time to decide what laws we will all agree to live by, who confirm the next Supreme Court Justice, who will decide when your fellow citizens-in-arms will go to kill and to die in your name, and who will decide how twenty-one percent of your money is spent. They are the people who are going to speak for you to the rest of the world, telling them what your goals and values and concerns are. This is your chance. The entire world is listening. What are you going to say?

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If you want to make me
famous or just complain: Jay Elias -
jelias@diaryland.com

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Doesn't Take Much and That's Messed Up - 2004-03-15
Like Water Under Bridges - 2003-09-08
Jesus On The Dashboard - 2003-08-13
An Administrative Announcement - 2003-08-11
Don't Worry, It's Coming - 2003-08-02

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