LETTERS: WON'T THROW AWAY VOTE NEXT TIME

To the editor:

In the next election I will be voting for the first time even though I'm well past 18. I have never voted because I felt that not voting was a way of protesting a system of government that is illogical, confusing and frustrating. I also felt that I had inadequate information to make a choice. In order to make a fair choice, I would have to know as much as possible about each candidate. I felt and still feel our resources for information are not giving us the facts we really need to know.

The most popular way we have to learn about a candidate is through the news media. But the news media have decided that we only need to hear about two candidates. We are lucky to even hear the name of anyone who decides to run for office who is not a Democrat or Republican, unless he has enough money to support his own campaign. Even if an alternative-party candidate manages to have his name mentioned, it is usually in a mocking way. We are letting others decide for us what we hear. We are letting others limit our choices.

We believe that if we vote other than Republican or Democratic, our vote is lost. The reasoning behind this is that other party candidates get so few votes that there is no chance of them winning an election anyway. So to vote for an alternative-party candidate is to throw our vote away. It's just an obvious conclusion. We have been told that, so we believe it.

One thing I've learned is that what seems an obvious conclusion isn't necessarily true. If enough people had enough courage to vote for someone besides a member of the two major parties, an alternative party could win an election. It happened in Minnesota. But if an alternative-party candidate didn't win and if a sizable portion of votes when to him, it would shake the two major parties up enough to realize we are ready for a major change in how this country is being run.

There are a lot of us who have been made to feel we are not educated enough to understand politics. Yet lack of opportunity for getting an education is a major problem for Americans that is seldom addressed. It seems that balancing the budget is what the politicians push at us. It doesn't take a college education to understand budgets. You cut out extras and spend on basics. The real issue is what do we consider basic.

I doesn't take an education to know what is right for us as citizens and what is not in our best interests. I may not have a college degree, but I am not dumb. I mean that both literally and figuratively. I'm not dumb intellectually or physically. I have a mind and a voice. And this election I intend to use both.

It's time for the people to take back America. This is supposed to be a nation of the people, by the people and for the people. And it will be that only if we choose for it to be.

This country has turned into a country run not by the people, but by money. It is not for the people, but for money. And it is not of the people, but of money. There are more low- to middle-income people that rich people in this country. Why have we let the rich run everything?

I'm certainly not saying all rich people are insensitive to the less fortunate. But a person who has had lots from birth had a hard time imagining what it is like not to have even basic necessities. And the rich seem to place the blame for the lack of means on the poor person's ethics and motivation, at the same time making it harder for a person born in poverty to ever achieve anything. If money rules, it's because we have let it rule.

If we think we have lost some of our basic freedoms and rights, it's not because we have had them taken from us. It's because we have given them away. I'm not going to give away my right to vote anymore. I'm not going to be dumb anymore. I hope you won't either. See you at the polls.

SANDRA FANN

Jackson