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| Home Front: Politix |
| A Republic If You Can Keep It |
| 2024-07-20 |
| [FE] In the current run-up to the 2024 presidential election, data shows that more than 10 million hunters and gun owners—just shy of 3% of the total US population—are not registered to vote. That’s a lot of non-voting bastards. Maybe they should go live in their own state? We can call it "North Korea." For context and scale, the entire population of the state of Georgia is approximately 10.6 million people. In the 2020 Presidential election, Georgia was decided by 11,779 votes, none of which came from Georgia’s 350,897 hunters and gun owners who are not registered to vote. Hunter and gun owner votes mattered big-time in Georgia but, instead of voting, these people left America high and dry. When asked why they’re not registered to vote, the theme was clear: defeated, apathetic conservative voters across the U.S. believe that elections are rigged, that their votes don’t count, and that voting doesn’t make a difference. Stephen Aaron is an advisor to Vote4America.org, the non-profit voter advocacy group reporting the 10 million unregistered hunters and gun owners stat. According to Aaron, "Data shows several reasons for voter apathy, especially among gun owners and hunters. The biggest being, voters are not connecting their personal anxieties to decisions made by elected officials." If Ben Franklin were alive, he’d be disappointed, but probably not surprised. The first votes of the new American democracy were not on parchment or paper. They were lead musket balls, fired from the rifles of pissed-off, over-taxed, and under-represented colonists at the battles of Lexington and Concord in 1775. Over the next six bloody years, hundreds of thousands of votes were cast against the tyrannical rule of British monarchy by the Continental Army. Not all of these votes counted. Many ended up lodged in trees and buildings while others ricocheted into oblivion. Some votes were only cured after the plunge of a bayonet. Nonetheless, in 1781, the final votes were cast at the Battle of Yorktown and enough had cured to settle the score with the English. British General Cornwallis fled, accepting defeat at the hands of an "inferior" fighting force, and the fledgling American republic began to spread its wings. "A republic, if you can keep it." —Benjamin Franklin’s response to Elizabeth Willing Powel’s question: "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" With the wetwork of kicking out the lobster-backs complete (sorry Craighead, we love you brother), it took eight more years to operationalize the playbook by which Americans could keep their republic: the U.S. Constitution. Today, Americans love to talk about our favorite constitutional rights like speaking freely, bearing arms, and remaining silent. But we rarely talk about the one duty required to keep our republic, and preserve these rights: |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #3 A faux-Republic Tax-Plantation run by an un-titled political aristocracy with oligarch-plutocrat patrons. Interestingly, the majority of the terms above have Latin roots, linking the modern civilizational conundrum to the same problems manifest in Rome. Curious but history doesn't repeat itself, just rhymes? |
| Posted by: NoMoreBS 2024-07-20 13:32 |
| #2 we need to re-write the bill-of-rights. keep the first 10 and add these two... 11: no discrimination on shape or color of skin. 12: all voting same day in person and on paper. |
| Posted by: irish rage boy 2024-07-20 09:11 |
| #1 It's been an oligarchy of special interests for decades whose leaders have been bankrupting the nation to line their own pockets or attaining power. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2024-07-20 06:48 |