And A Child Shall Lead Them

Today is Election Day a time to make your voice heard a privilege we Americans sometimes take for granted. This is a privilege many people have died for to insure that generations are allowed the same freedom our fore fathers granted us. As a child my earliest memories of Election Day was going with my mom before school to vote the voting precinct was located at my elementary school. We would go behind the curtain as she explained to me what a privilege it was to pull the lever to make your voice heard. My father was the news junkie he is the one to teach me about politics we would argue as I got older about certain issues, but he also taught me that everyone has an opinion though you may not agree with that opinion you must respect that person’s right to have it and though the canidate you voted for is not elected you must respect the office and whom every is elected to it. He said it did not mean you could not bitch about it, but you must understand that the majority has spoken he is the commander in chief and you have the opportunity to vote again to change the person. These are the lessons I taught my son when every year until he was around nine years old I would take him with me to vote to show him democracy in action. I was a moderate Democrat when he was about five years old and Bob Dole was running for President, my son got up on a stump in the front yard to announce that I needed to vote for Bob Dole because he was going to make sure that people who made swing sets where going to get more work. It was in that moment I knew that I had gave birth to a Republican but also that I was raising a free thinking citizen. I bought him his first book about the Constitution when he was around nine and to this day at the age of Twenty-one he carries a pocket Constitution with him. Though his political views have changed his love of freedoms we as Americans possess is still important as is his cynicism. So whatever your political leans are please make sure that you exercise your right to vote but also remember that weather you agree or disagree with the way the Election turns out that it is far better than other countries that do not have this right. That in order to move this country forward that we must stop the insults and find the common ground and come together as a nation to show the world what a unified country can do. That everyone has an opinion and voice it does not give anyone the right to place labels on those people that one opinion is no greater than the other.

Here is a picture of my great nephew who went with his mother to vote, and a child shall lead them.