A Little Bit of Politics and A Whole Lot of Feist

Dear fellow Americans,

I have been attending caucus meetings for many years now. I love them. I loved it when they were held in my home growing up and I loved it when I had a home of my own and we had the caucus meeting right at my house, with refreshments and everything.  I love the whole process of electing and voting. It's all quite amazing to me that Joe Smoe, next door, can be our next state delegate.

I went last night excited that 16 year old son, Jonny, was going to join me and see first hand what we've talked about and what he's been learning in his government class. But last night something happened that I've never seen happen before. We had 8 nominees and we only needed four to be state delegates. That's not unusual, but, for the sake of time, we were told that "because we didn't want to be there until midnight, we would forgo any questions." I was waiting for an objection. My heart was racing as I realized no one was saying anything. I was clear in the back and I don't have a very loud voice, but someone had to say something. I raised my hand with my typical, "Wait!" My face flushed and I wasn't sure how to say what my heart was pounding about. "We can't do this the lazy way," I blurped. "We need to be able to ask our questions."

It doesn't surprise me that the pleadings of my heart came out so tactless. I'm not an on-the- spot speaker. I'm glad others, in their eloquent way, jumped on the bandwagon and things got changed. We needed a change.

 

I've thought about last night a lot. If I was a speaker, what would I have said? First I would stand up, holding the chair in front of me for support. I would then point to my 16 year old son and say, "I have brought my nearly 17 year old son to this meeting tonight. There were many mothers of the Revolution who gave their 17 year old Johnnys so we could have a voice here tonight. I can hardly believe they felt a whole lot differently about their boys as I feel about mine, the apple of my eye. It's one thing to silence my voice, but in silencing my voice, you silence my Jonny's voice. In silencing his voice, you silence the voice of all my children and then my grandchildren. That is where a line is crossed and when that line is crossed, the cries of the broken hearts of the Revolution are also silenced. This is where we need to step up and make it stop. Our voices, their voices, cannot be silenced.

Our founding fathers would roll in their graves if they knew we were quieted for the sake of a couple of hours. Do we not remember the many hours and days and weeks they sat in the smoldering heat- Benjamin Franklin being in exquisite pain the entire time? Have we also forgotten that there were some who left? Some who couldn't stay for health problems, some for family or business issues they needed to attend to. Some just plain 'didn't want to be there until midnight.' And that's fine! Do you know why it's fine? Because this is America, and in America we don't have to stay until midnight if we don't want to, and that's totally okay because it's our prerogative to stay or to leave. What is not okay, is being told we cannot stay until midnight."

In this fast paced, everything right now world, it's easy to forget what is important. Once in a while a little voice needs to holler 'Wait!'

With much love,
Signed,
The Little Voice