ELECTION DAY IS HERE, SO VOTE

Finally, all the bloviating, all the punditry, all the analysis, the robocalls, the negative ads, the direct mail pieces stuffing the mailbox, all of it is over. Time now for only one more thing...go out and vote. Do it because it is your privilege and your duty, not your right. It is your privilege because it was purchased for you by the lives, fortunes and sacred honor of many millions who came before you.

We honor men like George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin and the other men who led this country into independence when we vote. But we also honor all the men who struggled, suffered and died to achieve that independence at places like Valley Forge, Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, Saratoga and Yorktown. We honor the women who suffered with them, and the children who would grow up without fathers. We honor those who fought to sustain the gains of the Revolution in 1812, and who fought to sustain the country in the Civil War. We honor those who fought and suffered to defeat the great enemies of freedom in the 20th Century, and those who serve us even today.

We have a duty to vote, to participate, even when our leaders seem lost, clueless, or corrupt. We owe it to ourselves, and we owe it to those who gave their last full measure of devotion to this country, our country, the United States of America.