Vote "Yes" on NO

Growing up in rural southwest Kansas had its advantages.  Life seemed pretty simple, especially in retrospect; we had everything we needed, if not all we wanted; the weather was mostly friendly, if you discount the occasional roiling green tornado-breeding skies and the raging blizzards; the crime rate was virtually nil, if it weren’t for people like Smith and Hickock and those awful Clutter murders that brought Truman Capote to town …. and the even more horrendous murder, for those of us who knew them, of a beloved and respected local couple.  After shooting them, the killer – who was never actually caught -- burned their farmhouse down on top of them.  Those things simply didn’t happen in our world.  

I’m pretty sure that’s when we started locking our doors.  Until then, we’d slept every night with the house wide open, and our whole family would take off for a week in Colorado without locking up and never give the security of our house and belongings a single thought.  In the unlikely event that anything went awry, our grandparents next door or the neighbors down the road would take notice and handle it for us.  

Loss of innocence comes to us in ways big and small.  Knowledge seeps uninvited into our lives while we’re busy being kids, doing kid things, thinking kid thoughts.  One day you’re making mud pies in the sun, the next you’re eighteen years old and getting ready to vote for the first time. 

I distinctly remember my first experience casting my vote for President of the United States.  I had just turned eighteen and was sensing the gravity of impending adulthood.  Lyndon B. Johnson had signed into law the Twenty-Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which, among other things, lowered the voting age from 21 to 18, mostly out of consideration for all those young men and women who were old enough to fight and die in Viet Nam, but not old enough to vote.  I could tell you that, but it would seriously date me, so I’ve decided not to.  

I dressed up as if I were heading for church, drove to a little country school a few miles from the farm --- closed years earlier as a place of learning but pressed into service as a community center, polling station, and all-purpose meeting place --- and gravely marked my ballot. 

I recall thinking that I really didn’t have much information to base my decision on, other than what I’d picked up from my parents’ conversations and what little was available on our two rural TV channels.  But vote I did, and I’ve continued to do so in every national election since.  It’s what you do if you were raised right.  But there’s more to it than that.

With today’s limitless access to information there’s no longer a valid excuse for, first and foremost, not voting at all, but specifically for not knowing why we vote yes on this, no on that, for this person, against that person.  There’s no justification for not making an informed, educated decision, one based in fact rather than emotion.  There’s no reason not to be responsible for doing our own research, asking questions, and trying our darndest to be well informed.   

I find it empowering to vote as if my vote will be the deciding factor.  In that booth I’m important.  I count.  The tools have changed, but the responsibility is the same as the first time I exercised my constitutional obligation to help shape the nation. 

In that more innocent time, we listened to our news anchors and felt we could trust them to tell us the truth.  Now … and perhaps then … it’s necessary to follow the money.  Who paid for the information that colors our thinking? 

If we fail in our mandate to seek the truth and act on it, we might as well go back to making mud pies in the sun.