By Mark David Blum, Esq.
As a libertarian in the same vein as Thomas Jefferson, Milton Friedman, and Albert Einstein, I conclude that the fundamental change we as a nation need to make to our election system is its’ name. Simply put, the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November is known presently as “Election Day”. In a better world, the day would be instead named, ‘Term Limits Day’. That simple change in terminology would better focus the mind of the voter on the issue before them.
Presently there is an argument constantly made by candidates that they are the most qualified because they have been in office and done a good job. That argument is dangerous and is the weakest and most pathetic claim made by any candidate. Nobody is qualified for an elected office until they serve in it. Whether they have the skills, expertise, and character to pick up the mantel and lead is a different question. I remain appalled, however, when a candidate argues that we should re-elect them for their ‘experience you can trust’.
Unfortunately, the claim of “experience” is the easiest claim for voters to swallow. Those who do not do their homework and check out who is running and their qualities seem appeased by a pronouncement of ‘experience’ on the job. These voters tend to look no further and for this reason, we suffer the constant re-election of incumbents. Such a practice is the penultimate insult to our Founders. It offends common sense to surrender to this fallacious argument.
The flipside of the argument is the concept of term limits and campaign finance controls. Neither is valid and both violate basic tenets of being able to vote for the candidate of our choice or the person we feel most deserving of the office. Free speech must rule the day for if there is no right to speech or expression, then no other right will exist.
At the time of the creation of the United States, there was never assumed to be a class of persons who would be lifelong officeholders. In fact, history is to the contrary where our Founders assumed that we would all share the mantel of leadership. They pictured a nation led by its People with officeholders doing the People’s business and then moving on. Over time, that perspective has changed and now the United States has not only a class of persons self declared as lifelong officeholders, but our attitudes and perspectives have been tampered with such that we no longer see our Government as being the ultimate threat to freedom. For a nation built on such concept only to abandon that basic founding principle within 200 years, I say “for shame”.
In the end, it matters not for whom you vote. More important than even for whom is that you indeed get off your fat lazy ass and vote. You are willing to send American soldiers thousands of miles to die in the sand for others to have the right to vote. It would be a sin and disgrace to their honor if you are too lazy to walk across the street and cast your vote.
