Please vote as if your life depends on it - in many countries, it does

Vote

I have only a few words today, but they are about something that is important to the future of our democracy.

Please vote.

Vote for the candidates of your choice and on various propositions. If you are a U.S. citizen, see it as a responsibility of citizenship and a way to keep democracy alive around the world during a time when we see an increase in the rise to power of despots.

Facebook photo shared in April by Maj. Brent Taylor. Photo courtesy of The New York Times.

If you still aren’t sure about whether to vote or haven’t gotten around to it, consider these poignant words of Maj. Brent Taylor, mayor of North Ogden, Utah, and an officer in the Utah National Guard, who was deployed to Afghanistan in January:

As the USA gets ready to vote in our own election next week, I hope everyone back home exercises their precious right to vote, and that whether the Republicans or the Democrats win, that we all remember that we have far more as Americans that unites us than divides us. God Bless America.

Maj. Taylor was killed in Afghanistan last week, and his words were reported in The New York Times on Nov. 4.
Barbara

The views expressed in this blog are Barbara Rimer’s alone and do not represent the views and policies of The University of North Carolina or the Gillings School.