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November 28, 2006
Illegal Voting
On November 28, 1872, a U.S. deputy marshall came to Susan B. Anthony's door and arrested her. The crime: on November 5, 1872, Susan B. Anthony cast her vote in the Presidential Elections. The charge: Illegal voting.
The Fourteenth Amendment, adopted in 1868, had declared that all people born in the United States were citizens and that no legal privileges could be denied to any citizen. Anthony decided to challenge this amendment. Saying that women were citizens and the amendment did not restrict the privilege of voting to men, she registered to vote in Rochester, New York, on November 1, 1872. Four days later, she and fifteen other women voted in the presidential election. All sixteen women were arrested, but only Anthony was brought before a court.
Her trial, United States v. Susan B. Anthony, began on June 17, 1873. The presiding judge opposed women's suffrage and wrote his decision before the trial even had started. Refusing to let Anthony testify, he ordered the jury to find her guilty, then sentenced her to pay a $100 fine. She refused to pay "a dollar of your unjust penalty," and no further action was taken against her.
Anthony spent the next fifty-plus years of her life fighting for the right to vote. She would work tirelessly: giving speeches, petitioning Congress and state legislatures, publishing a feminist newspaper--all for a cause that would not succeed until the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment fourteen years after her death in 1906.
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The right to vote.
On November 7, 2006, I voted a straight Republican ticket, despite my misgivings about the direction the Republican party has taken, despite the fact that it has abandoned every one of the conservative values that are the core of my political agenda. I cast my vote based on one issue, the War on Terrorism, despite the fact that I have seen this administration make concessions to and negotiate with terrorists. I did this because anything is better than the cut and run appeasement policy that the democrats stand for. I cast my vote for people who want to do things I am dead set against, such a pro-amnesty Charlie Crist, who, thanks to my vote, is now Governor of my state.
I was not alone in this and although I shared their feelings, I was horrified at the number of conservatives, and the number of republicans, who stayed home. None of the democrat wins were really big wins, races were decided by a few thousand votes, but in the end, it was a big win, and they won, because we stayed home. If you think your one vote doesn't matter, look at the numbers on the Webb/Steele race.
And now, I am watching President George Bush all a flutter on the chance to give amnesty to criminals who have snuck over our border and I am watching him roll over and give the democrats his belly on the War on Terror.
Yesterday, while waiting for my lunch, I was staring at a television with the sound off. Little bits of the show where put up in text quotes and first it said that the "neocon movement was dead" and then it said that the "neocon movement started with George W. Bush's presidency." And then it said that "neocons pushed his father into Desert Storm." And sitting alone at the bar in Gordon Beirsch on Brickell Avenue in Downtown Miami, I started to laugh. If "neocons" started with George W. Bush's presidency, how did "neocons" push his father into Desert Storm?
Either the entire world has gone crazy, or I have.
And now I'm supposed to believe that a man who believes that Americans have the wholesale right to kill babies, a man who believes that I should pay for healthcare for criminals who sneak across the border, a man who believes in taking away my right to bear arms, is the great white hope for this Country and for the conservative movement. Sorry, but I don't believe it and I'm already sick of having Rudy shoved down my throat, what will next year be like?
I owe something to people like Susan B. Anthony, who tirelessly and endlessly sacrificed for my right to vote, and I realize that the perfect candidate is not going to ride out of the sunrise on a white horse in the next year. I know there will never, ever be a perfect candidate.
But how much compromising on my personal beliefs am I supposed to do? When we give amnesty to millions of criminals in this country, when we reward them with free healthcare and social security at my personal expense, when we forgive them their tax debt, when Spanish becomes a mandatory language, I will have no right to complain, because I voted for representation by people who are pro-amnesty. I hate that!
So, I ask myself, what would I do if the primaries were tomorrow and I had to choose between Rudy Guliani and John McCain? And if one of them takes the primary? I considered it on November 7, but now, for the first time ever, staying home truly seems like a viable option.
and I hate that!
Posted by LindaSoG at November 28, 2006 06:30 AM