Thursday, December 29, 2011

Welcome 2012 By Elizabeth Horner

I hope that you had a Happy Christmas, an Epic Holiday, and I wish you all a Blissful and Merry New Year! I am praying for special blessings in 2012 --- a year I have been waiting for all my life.

In 2012, I turn 18 years old. While many girls in the Filipino-American community get presented to the public as a lady through a ceremony called debut, I opted out of that in favor of a Kindle Fire and Netgear 300 Wireless Router connection as electronic gadgets are a necessity these days especially since I head to college in the fall of 2012, the beginning of another milestone in my life.

In 2012, I am also looking forward to my new legal rights. No, I don’t mean the right to smoke. I am not even eager to drive yet as I prefer to be sitting in the back seat of our car, writing, reading and enjoying the views and not fighting the traffic. I am referring to my legal right to sign contracts and open my own bank account without a co-signer, to voice my opinion on certain issues limited before due to my age, and yes, my right to vote, however nerdy that may sound.

To know that in the beginning, in 1776, as an independent democratic country, only white men with properties had the right to vote seems unthinkable to me. It was not until almost a century later, in 1869, when Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment that states, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude”. While it was progress, significant things were still omitted.

It was only in 1920 with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment that the right of women to suffrage was finally achieved, after a long struggle, personal sacrifices and incremental changes at the state and local levels. Along with the battle for suffrage, women had to fight for their rights to own properties. While the setting was in England for the classical movies “ Wuthering Heights ” and “Pride and Prejudice”, which I highly recommend that you watch if you have not done so, I can picture American women being in the same shoes, living in a very uncertain world highly dependent on men for the quality of their lives.

Today, some of the fervor associated with the right to vote seems missing in many citizens. Is it because life has gotten so much better that decisions, laws and regulations passed and signed into law, and practices by our elected officials really do not matter that much anymore? Are we really feeling so secure in our future and the future of our loved ones? The last time I checked what’s happening in Washington , I felt scared. I felt scared about not just my future but the future of the United States in general. Have we learned the lessons from the downfall of great civilizations? Is this country immune from collapse? Do we know the people running for office, what they stand for, and what drive their votes and decisions? I hope that those who have not registered to vote in 2012 do so, and exercise their precious right before it is too late. Let’s welcome 2012 with a new commitment to a more responsive citizenship!!!

7 comments:

  1. Well written, Elizabeth. We are proud of you. But also realize that there is a steady attack on the right to vote from radical right wing agendas who can only win elections by blocking the more democratically oriented voters from voting by both deceit and manipulation. Changing voting rules, demanding photo ID's for voting, getting rid of early voting, and confusing deadlines in voting by mail are just a few of the ways that out freedom to vote is being attacked. Electronic voting machines are another way to steal elections, as is stacking judicial offices and secretary of state positions with unscrupulous partisan players.

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  2. It would take an absolutely crazy lunatic, probably while wearing his foil hat, to take a young writer's piece about looking into the future she has ahead of her in 2012 and turn it into some sort of political rant about how one party's efforts to stem corruption (brought about by similar lunatics...perhaps in similar foil hats) are going to ruin some of the things she is looking forward to.

    Way to go, Mr. Finton. I bet you're the one who pees in the pool at a child's birthday party, too, in an effort to save them all from drowning.

    Hope the foil isn't bankrupting you...

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  3. did you ever stop to think that ever since women got the right to vote, we have had bigger and more wars, more crime and corruption, more child delinquency, more trouble with the economy, and the list just goes on and on, prohibition that didn't work,, i wonder if this will bring any comments??

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  4. Miss Horner, this is a well written comment. Thanks for your view.

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  5. Ken Finton you just cannot help yourself can you? Everything you say is directly from the democrat talking points. To think asking people to show they are who they claim to be before they vote is somehow racist or hateful is beyone lunacy. I wonder how these same people manage to sign up for govt programs such as welfare and food stamps or medicaid? Stop portraying black and poor voters as somehow so helpless they must have their hands held at the polls. Perhaps you are afraid the voter fraud that the democrat party is known for will be exposed. Does the Kennedy election ring a bell? How many dead people voted in Chicago? Admit it Ken Finton you and your party wants to keep the blacks and poor downtrodden because you use them to get your party elected. People on this forum have seen your act Ken Finton, it is getting old. Great article Elizabeth!

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  6. Hmmm, no wonder you write as ANONYMOUS. Republicon attempts to change voting laws are not for the purpose of stemming corruption. They are designed to keep poorer and less informed people away from the voting booths and to silence enough votes to win majorities. 50% of the people do not even bother to vote because both parties are equally abhorrent to them and they do not feel that their votes count at all. It is how the votes are counted than matters in elections. The ability to cheat is in the hands of the people who count the votes and the regulations of the voting process, not so much the voter.

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  7. I wonder why the following is wrong:

    - Asking for a photo ID to vote...Why is it wrong that someone have some sort of identification available so that nobody can go and vote for somebody else? It is there to ensure the person going in to vote is indeed the person actually going in to vote! I have had an election volunteer tell me that I couldn't vote because I already had that day!!! Turns out the person just got her lines crossed and it was the person above me whose name she thought was signed in for me, but still...Had someone said they were me and were not id'd, I would not have been able to vote and some corrupted moron like Ken Finton would have cast my vote for me! All for photo IDs and everyone else clearly should be, too!

    - Getting rid of early voting...How is it that someone who voted in October but dies the next day is having a say in who represents their lack of existence? Say a bus full of one party's voters in a small town go to the polls to vote early and all vote their party. On the drive home, they are all killed in a bus accident and there are no longer any persons of that party in the small town other than the candidates (who voted on election day for the photo op). However, that party's candidate is elected by a bunch of deceased persons. So you have a town full of one party affiliation being run by the few of the other who would have NEVER won if not for the bus accident. Justify that, please!!!

    - Confusing deadlines in voting by mail...what, can't figure out if today is the deadline because you are too high? Seriously???

    And aren't judicial positions and the secretary of state elected in Ohio? Magistrates are appointed, I believe. Am I missing something???

    Another blemish on the reputation of the lackluster Mr. Finton.

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