George,

After reading the article about getting the disaffected punks to vote, I became disgusted at the fact that certain people still think that voting is worthless. Well, I think that if you don't vote, you have no right to complain about the people you didn't elect. I'm tired of this holier-than-thou attitude that such people have towards the candidates. I don't see these people running for office. And I also don't think such people appreciate the thousands upon thousands of Americans who fought and died to preserve their right to vote. Absenteeism doesn't work in the long run. It can have negative consequences. Hitler won the German Chancellorship in 1933 democratically, due, in part, to a large amount of absenteeism on the part of German voters. In fact, encouraging people not to vote was part of the Nazi’s plan for success in 1933. Diffusing the idea that democracy was a corrupt and useless form of government came to become a major part of Nazi propaganda.

I currently live in a region of France (Moselle) that was annexed by the Germans in the Second World War. The older generation here knows what was like when their democracy was taken away from them abruptly when the Nazis invaded in 1940. These people had relatives and friends who fought and died with the Résistance. Memorials dot the landscape asking passers-by to remember the sacrifices of the Résistance members and Allied forces. In fact, I can’t even begin to count the number of memorials I’ve seen.

I think that as we commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Normandy Beach landings, we should be more appreciative of the rights - including the right to vote democratically - that the Allies were fighting for. The older generation of Europeans who lived through the Occupation and the Liberation certainly appreciate their right to vote, even if they don’t particularly like their choices. At least they have a choice.

Joseph Cheek (electronic mail, June 2, 2004)