Did ya ever hear that expression before? Maybe you even used it yourself, sometime. :-) :-)
Last week we had a primary election in Ward IV of Shawnee.
Something even more important than the actual results jumped out at me. A total of 674 individuals voted (a combintion of early voting and poll voting on election day). Now, when you consider that Ward IV has 8,810 registered voters, that figure is a disgrace. That is less than 8%.
What this means is that 8,136 folks sat on their collective asses and did not exercise their right to vote.
It may be an old cliché but hundreds of thousands have died to preserve that right to vote.
Millions more have "stood guard", ready and prepared to do the same. Yet, 8,136 apathetic fools did nothing. Maybe these apathetic folks have never had to do anything to preserve these freedoms, and do not understand another cliché that "freedom isn't free". They've just been given these freedoms and, like other things they have been given, do not realize what it takes to preserve them. Have they ever lived in a society or spoken with someone who has, where the right to vote is nothing more than a dream?
When I say use it or lose it, I'm referring to the possibility that a small group of individuals could some day take that right away. It all starts with apathetic fools sitting home and not voting.
With the early voting procedures that are available in Johnson County it is even worse.
