The Enemy Has Breached The Walls - The Sheep

An Opinion by Martin

This is the last is the series of opinion articles “The Enemy Has Breached The Walls”.  In the first three articles, we had an Introduction, an article on Progressives, one on Conservatives and in this last article we will look at the rest of us – The Sheep.

The majority of the population of the United States, and that does include Colorado. go about our daily lives without any thought about what is going on in the world around us.  Oh, you look at the news each evening, see the death of Osama bin Laden (a celebration), a robbery at the local 7-11, a shooting on the south side and say to yourselves “that’s terrible, but it doesn’t really affect me” and go right back to dealing with your immediate problems such as making ends meet, whether or not your kids will graduate from high school or even if you can afford to send them to college, or in some cases, if you will even have a job.

These are all problems that are important and should be dealt with in turn, but each person who lives in the United States, and in Colorado, has a duty to be involved in local and state politics at some level even if it’s just voting.  If you don’t vote in local, state, or federal elections, you really can’t complain about the spending that goes on, the increases in taxes, fees and whatever that sucks more and more money out of your pocket not to mention the legislation that is passed to take away or limit your rights.

Because you didn’t even take the time to register to vote, you have illegal aliens on the verge of getting free citizenship that your parents and grandparents may have had to work hard for, you have criminal activity taking place in the seats of government at all levels because of collusion between special interests (big business, big unions and money people of all stripes) and the elected officials who are supposed to be representing YOUR interests.  It is because of you, the sheep, that these acts are taking place.  There are various reasons that you didn’t vote:

1.      You convinced yourself that you just didn’t have the time to understand the ballots – the people running for office (mayors, legislatures, judges, sheriff, etc) and the various measures and bonds that seem overwhelming and appear to be written so that you can’t really understand them.

2.      You felt that voting is a waste of time because the elected officials are going to do what they want to do and they aren’t going to pay any attention to you, an ordinary citizen.

3.      You felt that your vote doesn’t make any difference in the long run or,

4.      You’re just too lazy to get off the couch, push away from your desk, or stop on your way somewhere when you drive by the polling station to make the effort to punch or mark a ballot or pull the lever that, with your fellow citizens, CAN make a difference.

The next time that you open a newspaper, watch the 6:00 news, or listen to the radio and hear that the government has raised your taxes, removed one more of your liberties as defined in the US Constitution, exercised eminent domain and took over an area of affordable housing to build a mall.  Just remember that you didn’t vote!  Go back to grazing on the fields of indifference with the rest of the sheep and don’t think about the wolves just over the hill and moving in your direction.