Old folks vote, generally, to protect rights they think will be lost if they do not vote to protect them. They may be correct.
Young folks – generally – do not show up at the ballot booth because they seem to think they have little to lose. Or have little power in the decision making.
A few years ago, we turned out a large portion of the wastrels in the state legislature. We The People were nearly uniformly unhappy with lawmakers who had, in the dark of night, given themselves a payraise.
[pullquote]Unfortunately for the majority that does not vote, we too often have government by minority rule.[/pullquote]
In the district of my home, our representative seemed to have a different excuse for each audience. He voted for it because he couldn’t stop it, he said. Besides, judges deserved a long-overdue payraise. He deserved a raise to pay for his lawyering education which, he said – after 12 years of being, by his own admission, essentially legislatively useless – would make him more effective representative of his district.
During my tenure on the planet, I have witnessed numerous outcries directed toward those who would have a national identification card. Such an affront was OK for the less civilized and freedom-loving of fellow nations, but we would not be subjected to such insult.
Opponents of Pennsylvania’s Voter ID law say about 10 percent of the state’s voters will be disenfranchised (and) more likely to be Democrats. But throwing the 2012 presidential election to the Republican ticket isn’t the only goal.