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Days left until 2008 presidential election: 68
 
Ed. Note: This article was initially written in the fall of 2004 (Oct 29, 2004), a few days after the first voter registration forms were distributed throughout Iraq and in the midst of what would be a heated and contentious U.S. Presidential election. The U.S. troop involvement had recently been extended and increased again and the strange dichotomy between "Democracy in action" and "troops in battle" caused many Americans to reflect on matters both local and global. The article was updated two days after the November 2nd election and remains in that form.

Why Bother Voting?

I have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret opinion has ever been, and still is, that God Almighty will not give up a people to military destruction, or leave them unsupportedly to perish, who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of war, by every decent method which wisdom could invent. Neither have I so much of the infidel in me, as to suppose that He has relinquished the government of the world, and given us up to the care of devils;
 
Thomas Paine, 1776
  The American Crisis 

Over two centuries have passed since Thomas Paine looked upon the New World's struggle for independence and found both inspiration and hope within our struggling young democracy. He recognized the difficulties facing The People, not just from the tyranny they were overcoming but also the sheer magnitude of the task that lay before them: the birth of a new nation, one built upon the freedoms and foundations of Democracy. His preamble rings as true to our modern ears as it did for the troops of Washington's Revolutionary Army, lo those many winters back:

THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.
 
Thomas Paine, 1776
  The American Crisis 

Upon the eve of the 2004 US Presidential election, soldiers were fighting for Democracy and Freedom, trying to bring to a people the opportunities of choice, of self-rule and of those very same inalienable rights that were the lifeblood for the young nation of Thomas Paine. Our beginnings are similar and humbling: our democracy is measured in centuries; theirs in days and weeks. Yet, we are inextricably joined by history, by right, by choice.

In the very near future, they will hold elections for the first time in their New World. Just as we have held ours. Men and women, fathers and sons and daughters have and continue to fight and to die for the ideals of Freedom and Democracy, for the right to choose the way their nation is governed, their people treated, their children protected. And at the heart of this prize, for which so many have struggled, lies the freedom of choice: to follow your beliefs, to live free of tyranny, the choice of who next governs the land.

November 2nd, 2004. The right of choice remained yours.

You honoured those who have gone before, fulfilled their promise, Voted.

Congratulations to the Electorate of the United States, especially on the record-setting voter turnout. How you voted is second only to the fact that you voted: as a party, as a people, as one nation, united.

Well done, America.

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