Voting Is Like Doing A Rubik's Cube
Photo credit: Ks.mini, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Voting for me is like a Rubik’s Cube. It is 1700 hours on 04 March 2024, and I have completed my 2024 Official Primary U. S., American Voting Ballot. It needed votes on County and State Officials and Judges; as well as votes on some of the Nation’s most important Jobs in Government. It has taken me two weeks, three days, and five hours to research candidates, review arguments, and Translate my convictions of right and wrong to come to my decisions. It was now ready to go to the Voting Box that next day.
Why? Is the question some wonder? I understand that this is a responsibility and a privilege to be an informed conscientious voter who has done their due diligence for a comprehensive appraisal of a candidate who is undertaking the establishment of rules and regulations that not only effects he or her, but also myself, family, friends, neighbors, the country, and to some extent the world. Knowing that I am entrusting the candidate, with decisions that can have huge effects on all our lives, Decisions that can last for decades. I am aware that whoever I vote in, those decisions come with both assets and liabilities.
Another layer is that I vote, knowing that the privileges and obligations of voting comes with a very high price tag. Paid by ancestral women of all colors; disenfranchised peoples who were not straight; and African American men who had long dreamed of having the right to vote, to be able to set their course and destiny (which in many situations and in many states, is made difficult). I do this in memory of and gratitude for those courageous and dedicated men and women who fought for the right to vote. Through their activism in the Civil Rights Movement; The Suffragettes and Women’s Movement; and the Gay Movement (and especially those thousands upon thousands that lost their lives due to Aids indifference) I know who have gained privileges once denied.
Do you know the saying: Power Corrupts and Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely?
The Fifteenth Amendment and the Voting Rights Act hold meaning for me because they showed that voting rights could be pried out of the hands of a select privileged group who felt they had “the Rights under God” to treat others with disrespect and disregard, to break others’ spirits for their ease and comfort and to lord over and demand obedience because of their privileges and lack of humanity.
Rubik's Cube players know there is an algorithm to the Cube. Voters who move Humanity to better governing, likewise need intelligent conscientious people who are aware of issues and pay attention to what is going on and then vote with conscience, even if sometimes that does not lead to their immediate benefit. We do not only live for ourselves but for the future of humanity.
I know some people feel that voting is a useless exercise in self-deception. I also know that a vote can seem nothing more than a gesture, or a finger-pointing, but it is a gesture nonetheless, to fight against the corruption of power.
We live in a Country to whatever degree we can take seriously this gesture of Voting. To have the feeling of “we the people” rather than some small megalomaniac group that thinks they get to make all the rules.
To vote “For The People”, or to vote for a candidate whose personal profit and ego come first, is the voter’s choice in consideration of the candidate they choose. The voter must do their due diligence in the choice of their Candidate. These questions should be questions in the voter’s mind: does the candidate have a vision for the future? Is the candidate open to new ideas, solutions, and compromises that will make that vision happen? Does the Candidate feel obligated to be a servant of the people and not after just their financial ends? Can the Candidate meet challenges and within a timely manner get things done?
Know that another component of the Privilege to vote is Education. Know that educational responsibility is finding out about the candidates you are voting for. We must know how government runs and how to adjust and correct course when it is out of step with the best interest of all its people. This is a reason we set term limits for office holders, it allows candidates to know that their work is being reviewed and that they are not the supreme rulers, but rather rule as representatives of and for the people.
The freedom to vote is now held by a majority, thanks to the efforts of freedom fighters involved in the Civil Rights, Gay, and Women’s Movements who did not just sit back, but who fought for their right to be heard and live life with the pursuit of Truth and happiness The battle continues with you and how you do or don’t vote. Your vote should be the alignment of research and discernment of candidates for character and ethics. Does your Candidate hold in esteem the inherent worth and value of all human beings, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, or any other characteristic? Freedom is the power and right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint as you author your life. It is the responsibility you have to author or allow yourself to live, For me, the ones who truly live authentically have had to think about their “I am-ness” and through their research, experimentation, failures, and triumphs, the education that comes from these experiences allows them to vote to be authentic. In the end, my vote is for those who support my being, and the authorship of my life.
I close with a quote from Sharon Salzberg: “Voting is the expression of our commitment to ourselves, one another, this country, and this world.”
May the mastery of the Cube be the key to your vote.
Calvin