Please, Don't Forget To Vote!!!

Next Tuesday is the day. And I truly hope everyone is already registered and planning to vote in the upcoming election. I found some statistics that really made me sad. According to life.familyeducation.com only 54 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots during the last four decades of presidential elections. Compare that embarrassing number to Italy's 90 percent, Germany's 80 percent, France and Canada's 76 percent, Britain's 75 percent and Japan's 71 percent. We rank 35th in voter turnout out of the world's prominent democracies. If that doesn't make you feel a little ashamed, I don't know what will. And, honestly, I'm not sure what causes the feeling of indifference towards voting. Sure, sometimes I can feel like my vote really won't matter, but more and more people are feeling that way. This is supposed to be a strong, proud country. We need to end the apathy. In my opinion, you have no right to complain about how the country, state, county or city are being run unless you participated in the democratic process. If you aren't well informed and involved with bettering your community, how can you just sit there and complain about what's going on? I'm not trying to wag my finger at anyone, I'm just trying to light a fire under a few butts. This is serious stuff. Whether you're a Democrat, Republican or anything in between, we need to care enough about our country to really do something. This country was built on the idea that every person would have a say in how things were run. We just can't forget that.