Happy All Souls’ Day. My kids have a tradition for Nov. 1. They
destroy their jack-o’-lanterns. Up till now, the favorite technique
has been to throw them off the roof, but this year Anne intends to
hack hers into pieces with a sword, and Oliver wants to blow his
up.
Happy All Souls’ Day. My kids have a tradition for Nov. 1. They destroy their jack-o’-lanterns. Up till now, the favorite technique has been to throw them off the roof, but this year Anne intends to hack hers into pieces with a sword, and Oliver wants to blow his up.
He wants to blow it up because Dr. Dale Clark over at Gavilan is a cool chemistry teacher, who sets his hands on fire (safely), throws chalk across the room into the waste basket, and blows up hydrogen balloons. Oliver’s dad will have to supervise Oliver’s explosion.
I will merely set my pumpkin against the fence line, to grin evilly until it rots. (Neither The Dispatch nor I assume any responsibility for foolhardy methods of jack-o’-lantern destruction.)
After All Souls’ Day, Guy Fawkes Day. “Try to remember the fifth of November for gunpowder, treason, and plot,” sing-song the British schoolchildren. We Americans will be trying to remember for whom and what to vote.
Eleven months of the year, whoever brings in the mail places it on the coffee table, where all family members rifle through it for their own real letters. Junk mail accumulates until Garbage Night, when the residue is bundled unceremoniously into the blue bin.
But in late October, early November, I don’t dare let it pile up. It would be a fire hazard. Indeed, I barely pause at the coffee table en route to the blue bin.
I do scan each campaign flier as I consign it to the bright blue depths. Most rate only a cursory glance, although I enjoy identifying the fallacies on the issues mailers. Bandwagon seems particularly popular this year.
If I haven’t made up my mind on a candidate, I will peruse his flier. They are usually not very informative. Candidates seem more wary of scaring off voters than interested in standing up for what they believe in, if anything.
The type of flier I absolutely loathe is the one Dispatch columnist Tom Elias dubs a slate mailer. It’s usually on card stock. It usually has a header such as (for Republicans) “The Conservative Choice!” I imagine the Democratic equivalent would be entitled “Choose Social Justice!” or some such liberal sacred cow.
I hate these things because some of them lie. In addition to the high profile obvious party choices, they will slip in some anti-conservative (or anti-liberal) candidates and issues. There really is no substitute for carefully reading every ballot measure and examining every candidate’s voting record or case history.
Unfortunately, it seems that many voters don’t take, or can’t make, the time to investigate the ballot choices well enough to make informed decisions. They are at the mercy of mud-slinging campaign fliers and TV commercials and newspaper editorials.
For example, Davis’s commercials keep saying that Bill Simon was found guilty of fraud. Baloney! The court completely exonerated Bill Simon of that false charge. But would a voter ever figure that out from TV commercials (or from Dennis Taylor’s column)? Not hardly.
I know that this sounds terrible, but I like low voter turnout. No, wait, listen. Look at the communist countries and various other dictatorships, with their ninety percent or better voter turn-out. Does high voter turnout equal better government? No, in dictatorships, voter turnout is meaningless, a farce.
Now, look at the United States, where in order to vote, a citizen has to register. That means he has to go to a library or some other public place to get a registration card, or send away or call for one. Then he has to fill it in, and send it in. Then he has to take time or make time on election day, or before if he votes absentee, to actually vote.
No one forces a citizen to vote. And no one prevents him, either. If he wants to vote, it’s his right, his privilege, and his responsibility.
The constraints of registration and making time to vote are good things. They make it slightly more likely that a voter will actually have reflected on the issues, and considerably less likely that he will be punching random numbers or voting for someone because he likes her hairstyle.
Besides, the fewer people that vote, the more mine counts.
Cynthia Anne Walker is a homeschooling mother of three and a former engineer. She is a published independent author. Her column is published in The Dispatch every Friday.
