Vote

I will have to start this blog with an admission. I like to listen to talk radio. I still like music and play around on Youtube on a regular basis, but when I’m driving I like conversation. It can be sports, NPR or political talk; it doesn’t matter. I don’t remember exactly when this happened, but I think it was somewhere around the time that I had to start cutting long hairs from my eyebrows. It really doesn’t matter if I agree with what is being said, I just like to hear people voice their opinions. Kindred souls; I have been known to be opinionated myself.
I was in Macon one morning earlier in the week and I was listening to AM 940. Their early morning show is mainly about local issues, and while most of that doesn’t apply to me, I find it interesting. This particular show was dedicated to the mayoral race. It was the day after the election and they were taking calls from local people that wanted to weigh in on the outcome. Many of the callers told of how they had to find a ride to the polls because they had no car and one lady had to get a ride because a tree had fallen on her vehicle. This was amazing when you consider that 74% of the population of Macon did not vote at all! Three out of four citizens didn’t even bother.
The hosts, and some of the callers, were really down on black residents for not voting. I know they have been voting the least amount of time, but it really hasn’t been that long for women either. Some of the singling out seems unfair because if you really think about it, it hasn’t been that long for any of us. We crossed the ocean to get rid of kings and queens so we could vote for our own government, and now only a couple of hundred years later we hardly participate. One out of four citizens voting is inexcusable.
Most of the calls were pretty much the same until one man called in to explain why it was alright not to vote. He explained that he liked none of the candidates and that none of them had a viable plan for running the city. The hosts tried to empress upon him that he had to pick the best of the worst and vote anyway. He wouldn’t listen. He continued with his argument that he hated all of them and didn’t want to give them the honor of his vote. This is probably one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard. Surely this man does not believe that if nobody shows up to vote nobody wins! There will be a winner, and if you don’t like it you have only yourself to blame.