Please don't vote Tuesday

I have often thought about who gets to vote in our country. Consider the qualifications:

• Citizen
• 18 years of age or older
• Non-felon

What a blessed people we are!

Still, when I consider who gets to vote, my stomach somersaults. Folks who don't understand our form of government get to vote. They have no idea why we have three branches of government or why we have two segments in our legislature. They haven't read our Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. They think the 3/5 vote for the slave was racist (au contraire!). They think we are a democracy (we are a republic) and have never heard that our Founders could have established a democracy but chose not to do so.

Folks who haven't considered the issues facing our nation get to vote. Should the government even be meddling in things like health care? the economy? education? fuel prices or bank bailouts? They have not considered the extreme weight of issues like life (born or unborn, aged or spry, quick-witted or feeble-minded), and what happens if you begin to diminish any life from conception to the last breath. What about war? Are there such things worth dying for? Is peace at any cost a great ideal or a foolish slogan?

How many folks outside those who read things like this know that the President gets to appoint those who sit on the Supreme Court? Can any of them name a Supreme Court Justice? Can they name their US Senators or Congressman? How about their State legislators? How about their governor?

How many knew who won American Idol this year? And last? And before that?

Who was on Letterman last night?

AAARRRGGGHHH!

John Stossel, reporter of 20/20 fame, had a skewering point in his column yesterday. He suggested that those who are uninformed, though they have every right to vote, would do our nation a great service by staying away from the polls on Tuesday (you can read it here).

Would that knowledge alone could solve our plight. Knowledge puffs up, but ah, wisdom! Oh, that America would become a wise and informed people. Instead, we are just people, like me, who don't have all the answers to all the questions.

Let's hear it for digging up the answers!