Your Solemn Duty: VOTE!

"All the opportunity for self-government through the rule of the people depends upon one single factor. That is the ballot box...The people of our country are sovereign. If they do not vote they abdicate that sovereignty, and they may be entirely sure that if they relinquish it other forces will seize it, and if they fail to govern themselves some other power will rise up to govern them. The choice is always before them, whether they will be slaves or whether they will be free. The only way to be free is to exercise actively and energetically the privileges, and discharge faithfully the duties which make freedom. It is not to be secured by passive resistance. It is the result of energy and action.

"Persons who have the right to vote are trustees for the benefit of their country and their countrymen. They have no right to say they do not care. They must care! They have no right to say that whatever the result of the election they can get along. They must remember that their country and their countrymen cannot get along, cannot remain sound, cannot preserve its institutions, cannot protect its citizens, cannot maintain its place in the world, unless those who have the right to vote do sustain and do guide the course of public affairs by the thoughtful exercise of that right on election day." - President Calvin Coolidge (1924)

I care deeply who you vote for, but more than that I care that you vote.  It is our birthright as Americans, and the lack of interest in voting is part of the reason our country is in the troubles it is in...Because far too many Americans don't care enough to care.

"Every country has the government it deserves." - Joseph de Maistre (18th-19th Century)

The U.S. is not exempt from this reality...Sadly, less than half the American people fulfill their duty to elect a decent government - one that truly works for all of the people, instead of for half and against half.  

Which is why we'll continue to get what we deserve.

Hopefully, you will be one of those who performs this solemn duty.