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"...On this day when the nation honors its military veterans ... it might be more appropriate for these non-voting slackers to trot down to the local Veterans of Foreign Wars hall, find somebody who walks on crutches or artificial limbs, or will spend the rest of his days in a wheelchair, and explain to that citizen hero just why it was that you couldn’t get off your lazy fat apathy to vote....

"...AND, IN MEMORIUM, this column humbly suggests that one of the reasons it will be hard to hear in Heaven from now on is that the great Dave Niehaus is, at this very moment, sitting at a golden mike, calling the plays for that eternal baseball game in the sky, bringing the fans out of their seats...


<broken link removed>

Or try this:

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Freedom has a flavor that the protected will never know... I have fought for my country and understand the heartfelt difference that it makes. Unfortunately, for all too many, the apathetic feelings of some will never change. Voting is one of the luxuries that these people choose to not take part in for whatever reason and, in doing so makes it hard for the rest of us to be heard. If we, as a people, continuously take a lackadaisical stance, our rights will be eroded to the majority that does make their voices heard, by voting. It takes very few to make the decision for the lot of us. I for one WILL NOT be one of the sideline players that whine because my rights were taken...due to my lack of action. Those that do not vote, have no rights and willingly become the slaves to the Majority.
IMHO, if you did not vote, Do not bubbleguming whine about the state of affairs, after all, you did not speak up and make your voice heard!!!
 
Freedom has a flavor that the protected will never know... I have fought for my country and understand the heartfelt difference that it makes. Unfortunately, for all too many, the apathetic feelings of some will never change. Voting is one of the luxuries that these people choose to not take part in for whatever reason and, in doing so makes it hard for the rest of us to be heard. If we, as a people, continuously take a lackadaisical stance, our rights will be eroded to the majority that does make their voices heard, by voting. It takes very few to make the decision for the lot of us. I for one WILL NOT be one of the sideline players that whine because my rights were taken...due to my lack of action. Those that do not vote, have no rights and willingly become the slaves to the Majority.
IMHO, if you did not vote, Do not bubbleguming whine about the state of affairs, after all, you did not speak up and make your voice heard!!!



Please be sure to paste this remark in the "comments" section below my column. I'd like everyone to read this.

Many thx
Dave W.
 
I raised my right hand and then picked up a rifle. I vote becuase I like to bubblegum. If yiou dont vote, have not done fedral service, or dont try to betterthe place you live, I DONT WANT TO HEAR IT! I for one am sick of hearing pampered snivling people who nurse the goverment teete whin but not do any thing.




IF you can read this, thank a teacher.
If its in english thank a Vetran!
 
Explain how voting in a rigged election dominated by two corrupt parties that have gerrymandered all legitimacy out of the system means anything.

Explain how voting means anything when large chunks of the electorate have been bribed with federal blood money to vote for anybody who will toss them a bone.

Lastly, explain how the unnecessary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have protected said right to vote in a pointless election.

I have to add that I voted for Dudley just to piss off the statist parasites in Multnomah County, but I seriously doubt Dudley could have done anything to break the unions even if he won.
 
I am a vet, USAF, and once got into an argument with a friend on a camping trip about this topic. He hated the fact that our troops were being put into harms way at the whim of the politicians, heart was in the right place. He then said that he had stopped voting because he felt it no longer meant anything. I told him that, as a member of the US military, we were ordered to do things that we did not want to do, but did because our orders are the will of the people of our country. That is how many of these men and women rationalize some of the things they do. When you take the oath, you give up the right to act on your own opinion. You even give up the right to express your own beliefs, in many cases. You become the hand of the country that you represent. When I was doing things in places that I personally didn't feel we should, I did it anyway because I felt that it was the will of the people I represented. When someone tells me that they didn't vote, it makes me doubt that what I was doing was truely what the people wanted. By voting, you put the people in office who decide what we will do, what dangers we will face, where, and for what reason. I would die for my country to this day, but would want to know that it is for a reason that my people agree is worth it.
 
"...On this day when the nation honors its military veterans ... it might be more appropriate for these non-voting slackers to trot down to the local Veterans of Foreign Wars hall, find somebody who walks on crutches or artificial limbs, or will spend the rest of his days in a wheelchair, and explain to that citizen hero just why it was that you couldn’t get off your lazy fat apathy to vote....

"...AND, IN MEMORIUM, this column humbly suggests that one of the reasons it will be hard to hear in Heaven from now on is that the great Dave Niehaus is, at this very moment, sitting at a golden mike, calling the plays for that eternal baseball game in the sky, bringing the fans out of their seats...


<broken link removed>

Or try this:

<broken link removed>

Only about 20% of the eligible 18-29 year olds voted, but that age group probably makes up over 70% of our armed forces. It seems to me that they are voting with so much more than a mail in ballot that it makes this comparison absurd. These kids have given up so much and complain very little, I'm very proud of all of them. I only wish the leaders that decide to have wars for nothing, and the crazy people that supported them, had 10% of the integrity of our fighting youth.
 
i'm a vet.. a disabled one, at that. i didn't vote, and i don't blame anyone who doesn't. voting for the "lesser of two evils" is still voting evil.

how's that?
 
Pointless wars? You stupid motherbubblegumer. They attacked our soil. Our sovereign soil. Didn't they just prove through those Wikileaks that there WERE WMD's in Iraq? The other country was a completely totalitarian terrorist regime. All those bombings in Europe and Indonesia and the Middle East, want that bubblegum here in the states? Want you and your family to live in constant fear of being blown to bits when you go to the store? Sure, there's crime here, but you can defend yourself against an armed thug. You CAN'T defend against a suicide bomber or a big *** bomb hidden in the trunk of a car. I agreed with you about the BS that is our political system, but you just ruined it with your "pointless war" comment. ***!
 
Pointless wars? You stupid motherbubblegumer. They attacked our soil. Our sovereign soil. Didn't they just prove through those Wikileaks that there WERE WMD's in Iraq? The other country was a completely totalitarian terrorist regime. All those bombings in Europe and Indonesia and the Middle East, want that bubblegum here in the states? Want you and your family to live in constant fear of being blown to bits when you go to the store? Sure, there's crime here, but you can defend yourself against an armed thug. You CAN'T defend against a suicide bomber or a big *** bomb hidden in the trunk of a car. I agreed with you about the BS that is our political system, but you just ruined it with your "pointless war" comment. ***!

Who's "they"? Oh right, a bunch of nutjobs funded by Saudi royalty, and yet Bush and Obama (ultrastatists both) still genuflect to those despots because the American state needs their oil to fund their wars. So the American regime starts two wars, brainwashes the sheeple to support it, all so the government can justify its astronomic military spending. Hurray.

Do fighting the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan really made people safer in the US? Because killing a bunch of people thousands of miles away will surely make them realize the justice of the American way and stop hating us. :s0114:

In the name of safety, do you also support the nudie scanners and genital groping we are forced to endure at airports?
 
Right, and fighting those wars in Iraq and Afghanistan really made us safer in the US because killing a bunch of people thousands of miles away will make them realize the justice of the American way. :s0114:

In the name of safety, do you also support the porno scanners and genital groping we are forced to endure at airports?

what do constitutional violations have to do with foreign wars? there's nothing in the Constitution that prohibits our government from laying waste to 3rd world muslim cesspools.

same bubblegums, different problems.
 
i'm a vet.. a disabled one, at that. i didn't vote, and i don't blame anyone who doesn't. voting for the "lesser of two evils" is still voting evil.

how's that?

Sorry, that doesn't wash.
I don't buy that "lesser of two evils" crap.

You will NEVER find a candidate who agrees with you 100 percent of the time unless you run for office yourself.

One might suggest that you earned the right not to vote, but it's sad that someone with your perspective would do that.

Thanks for your service and your sacrifice.
 
what do constitutional violations have to do with foreign wars? there's nothing in the Constitution that prohibits our government from laying waste to 3rd world muslim cesspools.

same bubblegums, different problems.

Noted, they are totally different problems, but the people who support wasteful wars are usually the "law and order" sheeple who support police abuse of civil rights.

By the way, the whole concept of Congress authorizing "military action" is in a constitutional grey area, as far as I'm concerned.
 
I raised my right hand and then picked up a rifle. I vote becuase I like to bubblegum. If yiou dont vote, have not done fedral service, or dont try to betterthe place you live, I DONT WANT TO HEAR IT! I for one am sick of hearing pampered snivling people who nurse the goverment teete whin but not do any thing.




IF you can read this, thank a teacher.
If its in english thank a Vetran!

As one who has carried a rifle in combat, I will say.....'you' 'federal' 'veteran' plus several other errors in grammar and spelling. I make a plea that if we, combat veterans, are going to ask for others to have respect for our service and our fallen let's at least spell correctly or spell check.
 
I too am a combat vet. I have fought on two continents. I have been shot, and I have had RPG shrapnel pulled from my body and I VOTE. If you don't like the two party system, vote third party or run for office yourself.

Now, do the wars make us safe? I do not know. What I do know is there have been school blueprints and diagrams (Salem School District) pulled from caves in Afghanistan. I have also seen training videos of Al Qaida "martyrs" learning how to take over a shopping mall all the while raking up the body count. Draw your own conclusions.
 
I'd originally meant to post to this thread as soon as it was first started, but felt that any 'Thanks for your service, Vets' thing I'd add would just seem like empty platitudes from some random civilian who admittedly can't really comprehend what it is to have served in the armed forces. And maybe it'll still come across as just that. But the truth remains that I appreciate what our people in uniform have done and continue to do for those of us who have never served. As this thread has grown, I feel more compelled than ever to add to the discussion. I can't express my gratitude sufficiently with mere words, and this will probably ramble all over the map. But having friends and family members who've given so much of themselves to protect us and our rights... well, emotion can overtake coherency. So maybe you'll bear with me on what is my 100th post here on the forum... Anyway, THANK YOU to all of you who've served. We should all honor our Veterans every day... so here goes my ramble...
* * * * * * *
Few subjects inspire feelings and opinions as intense as these: the two party lock on the American political system; the moral underpinnings of the wars we fight; and the worth of an individual vote. It's good that we can discuss and even heatedly argue our positions. And whether or not we agree with the ethical judgements of our elected leaders, on any particular subject, we are the only ones who can make a difference. We, the people...

In a democracy that becomes ever more polarized and bludgeoned by 24/7 media that is ever more polarizing, our rights to organize with like-minded people and VOTE our own conscience remain as our most powerful weapons against tyranny in all its forms and the destruction of our freedoms. And for these most powerful weapons, we owe our Veterans boundless gratitude.

The corollary being that we owe our Vets as much gratitude for granting us the luxury of choosing to NOT vote... but I myself will choose to vote in every election, referendum, plebiscite, whatever. I know that there can never be a 100% guarantee that my vote will even be counted (especially with the advent of easily hackable electronic machines that leave zero paper trail), and often the final tally will be contrary to my wishes. But just as I choose to exercise my 2A rights by owning and carrying firearms, I will choose to exercise my right to vote.

I reckon that on a wide range of issues, I'm more 'liberal' than some people and more 'conservative' than others-- just like every human with free will and a central nervous system. Both of those terms (lib and con) and all of their permutations have greatly morphed in meaning over the last dozen decades. Definitions change, opinions change, understandings change. Any word can seemingly be a badge of honor one day and a filthy pejorative the next.

Wars have been instigated or avoided, won or lost, become protracted, been ended or avoided altogether by bullets and bombs and words. To vote is to speak my own word, even if I can't ever be 100% certain it'll be counted. If I don't vote, I can be certain that no one will hear my voice. Political systems and empires rise and fall, but the opinion of an individual stands free from any external scaffolding, even if that opinion is never heard. In our system, voting can sometimes feel like shouting down an abandoned well. And I'd rather shout down that well than stare silently into the abyss...

Our Veterans have helped to guarantee our freedom to choose whether or not we vote. I accept this priceless gift with sincere thanks, and will exercise this right and vote with eternal gratitude. Others (Veterans and civilians alike) might choose to not vote, and I am not fit to judge their choice or motivation. I'm just grateful that others have sacrificed so much so that I may speak, even if it comes out as a raspy whisper lost in a whirlwind.
 

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