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Should Everyone Vote?

Get out and vote!  

Voting is your civic duty!

Your voice matters!

Does it?  

Does every voice matter?  

Does every citizen of the United States who has arrived at the age of majority really have a valid opinion on matters of state?

Maybe universal suffrage is a bad idea.

The media is telling you that you need to vote.  Anytime the media is saying it, you probably have reason to doubt it.

LeBron James and the rest of the NBA are telling you that you need to vote.  I guess being an athlete qualifies you to say such things.

Facebook and Instagram are begging you to go out and get registered to vote.  There's no way they have an agenda!

I've been rethinking democracy lately.  Maybe this whole "everyone has a voice" thing is a bad idea.  Maybe there's a reason that the United States is not, properly speaking, a Democracy.  Maybe our founding fathers created a Constitutional Republic to avoid the pitfalls of naked democracy.

If you have no idea what the difference is between those two, maybe you shouldn't vote.

I will never understand the push to get people registered to vote right before an election.  If a person was not registered to vote up to this point, he or she is probably not informed enough to vote. 

Or maybe that's the whole point.  Maybe they know that ignorant, otherwise-complacent citizens will vote for whichever candidate promises them the most stuff.  Maybe they know that their recruits will go into the voting booth and pick whichever candidate has a D by their name, policies and issues be damned.

Maybe there is no viable balance between the stability of a monarchy and the freedom of anarchy.

If you don't have a fundamental understanding of civics or economics, please don't vote.  

If you have chosen not to educate yourself on any of the issues facing the nation at this time, please don't vote.

If you didn't even know that you had to be registered to vote until ESPN told you, please don't vote.

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