Voting is essential

This country exists as a democracy because we as citizens get involved. It is really easy to call to our "freedoms" to excuse ourselves from participating in the process. What we forget is that it is that very process which allows those freedoms to exist in the first place. Ideally voting should not be mandatory, but should be perceived to be so as a social and moral obligation. If we are willing to spend billions on a campaign to discourage smoking we should be willing to do the same to strengthen the very foundation of our great society - democracy.

In my opinion this would be best achieved by promoting stronger civic involvement through education and public campaigns. Voting (and the democracy it upholds) needs to be highlighted as the basic right and duty of every citizen. In a democracy patriotism starts with voting.

Ok, maybe a bit of a grandstanding speech there, but this is something I feel very passionate about. It pains me to see how twisted our political process is at this point. Perhaps it was always like that, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to right it.

References:
1. This post stems from a discussion on voting in another blog where I posted it originally.
http://xyliaa.blogspot.com/2004/09/mandatory-voting.html