Breathing

Like voting is to governance, breathing is to life. Each are necessary actions. Breathing is an autonomic function of the body. It breathes because oxygen is required to live. Air goes into the lungs and exchanges for carbon dioxide expelled by the body. In and out, over and over again. It does not require our will to do this. It just does it because everything else in the body requires it.

Voting, however, is not automatic. It must be done consciously. The election cycle is set up, ballots are prepared, polling places arranged, and voters show up to cast their votes on candidates and referenda. Knowing who is who and what is what, the voter needs to read or hear information on the referenda questions on the ballot, as well as the candidates who have agreed to perform their duties if elected. The voter must make a decision on all of these matters before casting a ballot.

Many voters do not study beforehand. They enter the polling place and vote by some unseen flow of ideas. Whether it is by party or by ideology, candidates are selected. So are the referenda positions chosen. Not very knowledgeably but at least taking action by ballot. Many more voters do study the issues beforehand to make a conscious decision,

Too bad autonomic actions and processing are absent with voting. The current chaotic governance climate would have been avoided. Now we see clearly what is involved. I suspect many Trump supporters would have voted differently had they known how he would carry out his agenda.

Still, differences of opinion would drive opposing voting patterns. That too, like breathing, is autonomic of human nature. We think therefore we act, therefore we vote, therefore we breathe. It is all apiece of living in a modern age. Trouble is, this has happened before, many times. It is not of modern age, but of any age. Life lived in any social order relies so heavily on education. Sharing of opinions is not the point; sharing of information and facts is. Understanding them comes from education and experience. It is then that we can understand.

Voting is so much better when informed and thought out beforehand. Ideologies are consequences of thinking and learning. Poor education creates dysfunction of reasoning. Autonomic or not, the result is grief.

April 30, 2025

 

 

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