Today is primary voting day in Montana. Did you vote? Do you have the right to bitch?

I remember being so excited to be one of the first group of 18 year olds that got to vote the year I turned 18.  I was going to change the world with my vote.  I still think I can change the world with my vote but not on such a grand scale.  I am much more a jaded person in my old age than I was in the spring of my youth.  I take voting as a serious business but not so black and white with age.  I had righteous outrage in my youth.  If you didn't vote you shouldn't have any right to an opinion on who won or didn't win.   You shouldn't be able to complain about any of the laws enacted or the ones that failed.  I took my voting responsibility as a scared duty and those who gave up their rights and didn't vote were someone to be looked down upon.  I have mellowed with age and have become the vary things I once despised.  I am someone who believes that you have the right, and duty to vote, but I also believe the constitution and the lives that our forefather gave in hard won battles also give people the right not to vote and still bitch about the outcome. 

How many countries in the world now have big displays of allowing their people to vote, but the outcome is already determined before they vote.  People in those countries, one and all, vote but did they really express any rights?  Did they get the ability to express a right and not vote?  Did they really elect or not elect anyone?  I have the freedom to vote and I have the freedom to not vote here.  I also have the right to be upset about the outcome of the vote whether I voted or not.  I have the right given to be by the blood of my ancestors to be part of the system or to just ride along in the system.  Did you know that most of the OWS dissidents don't vote, but they still have the right to assemble against the status quo,  I don't believe in their cause, or support it, but I do support their right to assemble and object.  I have the right to worship where I will, do they in that other country where they got to "vote"?  Do they get to worship Christ in Iraq, really or are they endanger every minute that they do.  Do I like the president of the United States, no not particularly but I do respect that he is my president and that as a Nation we rally around his right to speak for us for 4 years.  We as American are alot like a family of sisters.  In a big family of sisters I can call my sister names that would make a navy man blush, I can hate her with every fiber of my being and want to grind her in to the mud just for looking at me funny, but you had better be ware, that is my sister you just call a "what?"  so if you don't want to eat dirt you better leave my sister alone or me and all my sisters will put you in your place. This is America, where we can hate our President, bitch about the laws that he and the other elected officials make but if you are an outsider we are going to stand as one and put you in your place. 

We as American have been given many many rights that other countries dream about having and funny enough one of those right is the right not to vote.  The right not to worship at all.  The right to occupy wall street or to be the CEO of the biggest bank in the world and get bonuses we cheated everyone to get.  We have the right to be a hermit or be a celebrity.  We have to right to participate in our government and we have to right to glide along lost in the flow of the tide.  We have the right to be proud of our vote and say look what I did I voted for that wonderful guy.  We have the right to say I didn't vote and look what my not voting did.  We have to right to say I don't really care and voting doesn't effect me so why should I vote.  We have all of these right, all cherished and all rights given to us because some one died for us to be able to express our right to do it the way we choose to.  So yes today we vote and are proud of it and today just as many get to not vote and be proud that they can make that choice with out fear and have the freedom to not vote..... tomorrow.