Purple badge of courage

By Cletus Bianchi

Forty-five and drizzling, with a brisk north wind, is considered a very wintry day in South Texas. It’s the kind of day most people would prefer to spend in front of a fireplace or at least in a deer blind.

It is also the kind of weather that might keep many Americans from going to a polling place to vote.

That thought struck me as I entered the courthouse Monday afternoon to vote in the San Antonio River Board election. The greatest threats I faced in my trip to the polls were walking across Calvert Street and the sneezing fit I suffered while driving home.

No one left a letter on my door threatening to shoot me if I went to vote. I did not see anyone lingering in a doorway with an AK-47. I wasn’t concerned that the pickup full of feed sacks driving past the courthouse might also contain explosives.

Once again, I was struck with how many liberties and privileges we take for granted.

Recent world news has focused on the first real elections to occur in half a century in Iraq. The image that sticks with me is the ‘peace sign’ raised by an Iraqi woman with one defiant finger stained by the purple ink indicating she had just voted.

Early estimates show that somewhere in excess of sixty percent of eligible Iraqis voted. When is the last time you heard of a turnout like that in an election in America?

We hear about disenfranchised voters each election. They complain if they had to wait in line for more than an hour; or if there were not enough parking spaces at the polling place; or if there was some inclement weather; or that the ballot was too confusing.

I wonder if fifty years is too long to wait for the opportunity to vote? Or if ‘never’ is a bit long for a woman to be forced to wait? Or if walking miles to stand in line for hours is an inconvenience?

Forget about the risk of death…

Whether you agree with the war in Iraq or not, voted for President Bush or not, are Democrat or Republican or somewhere in between, I believe you have to look at what just happened in Iraq with a tremendous amount of respect and reflection.

How quickly we forget the birth of the first true democracy in the late 18^th century and the sacrifices made by those colonial citizens. Have you recently considered the foresight of our Founding Fathers when they drafted a Constitution that has withstood the test of unprecedented societal and historical changes in this world over the past three centuries?

Odds are that you have not, but neither has a huge percentage of Americans. In fact, if I weren’t doing a number of mundane tasks like installing flooring and painting molding, I probably wouldn’t be spending too much intellectual capital on it either.

But every once in a while, something happens that I feel should make everyone sit up and take notice and evaluate his or her own situation.

Obviously there’s no sense bemoaning missed opportunities to vote. What’s done is done. But, there are countless issues that will arise in our future that require our attention. If you do not feel obligated to vote every Election Day, I encourage you to seek out the photo I described of that Iraqi woman and put it on your refrigerator.

Every United States citizen has the ‘right’ to vote. Many don’t realize, or don’t care, that this right is a ‘privilege’ unavailable to countless other people on this planet. Millions have died to secure that privilege around the world.

I have often suggested in these pages that the only folks who should be allowed to complain about politics are those that have voted. But, our First Amendment guarantees everyone the right of free speech. Perhaps I could just convey a little guilt on those that fail to vote, but not to complain.

Better yet, what if you had to raise your stained purple finger for all to see, before you used it to point out a part of this society you would like to see changed?

(click here to read archived columns by Cletus Bianchi)