Responsibilities of a Citizen

This morning the radio show I listen to on my drive to work was doing an informal poll of people, asking who they are going to vote for in the upcoming election. You can imagine the types of people who crawled out of the woodwork to call in and expound upon their particular political ideology. However, I was filled with a mixture of amazement and disgust with one particular caller. A young man called in, saying that his fiancée is voting for Barack Obama, and although he didn’t understand why she was planning to vote this way, he wished he could do something about it. When the radio DJ asked who he was planning to vote for, he replied “Oh, I’m not registered to vote because I don’t want to be called in for jury duty”.

!

There are three directions I can go with how angry this statement made me.

Our Criminal Justice System has failed:
This kid just pointed out one of the huge flaws in our criminal justice system – in that a jury of your peers is no longer really possible. What you end up with is a jury consisting of mostly people who were not smart enough to get out of jury duty. Sure, there will be a small minority of people who consider it a civic duty to sacrifice part of their precious time to go decide whether or not a fellow citizen is guilty of the crime he or she is accused of committing by the State. Those people are most often rejected by one side or the other during jury selections. This leaves the people who truly do not want to be there, but could not come up with any way to get out of it. Our founding fathers once thought that good people could be counted on to carry out what they considered civic duties, but that was one of the many times they over estimated future generations.

People who do not vote have no moral standing to complain about our leadership:
Yes, people are granted the right to say pretty much whatever they want due to freedoms granted all citizens. However, if you complain about the state of things, but refuse to take any action - no matter how small - to fix the problem, you are a spineless windbag spouting so much hot air. Sure, it may not matter in this election that you vote one way or another in a state where you already know that the electoral votes are cast for the Republican candidate, but to bring about any sort of change requires good people to act upon their consciences and vote. Otherwise, how do you sleep at night?

Is it any wonder we have the divorce rates we do?:
This kid said that he didn’t understand why his fiancée wanted to vote for Barack Obama. While I can think of reasons to vote for AND against BOTH major party candidates, the problem here is that he doesn’t understand why the woman he plans to MARRY is voting for a particular candidate. He must really know her well. I’m not saying he has to agree with her reasons, but at the very least he should try to understand them. Hell, even be able to list a few if he can’t understand them.
My wife and I haven’t always agreed on political issues, but at the very least, at the times we disagreed, we understood each other’s positions.

Maybe I am just wearing rose-colored glasses as I look at the past, but it seems that each of the above issues were not a problem back when people actually took civic duties seriously. We as a nation have rallied together many times over the last couple hundred years of our national existence. How many problems we currently face would be dramatically changed if good people everywhere started to participate more in their own governments and lives, if people put the same amount of care into their spouse, family, and civic duties that they put into their jobs and hobbies?

Citizenship in this great country is both a right and a responsibility. It's high time some people learn this simple fact.

The measure of a man

There is an old adage which says "If you want to get the true measure of a man, look not at how he treats his equals, but at how he treats his subordinates." I tried to find the actual quote, so I could give proper attribution, but came up with a bunch of apocryphal listings without any indication of whom may have said it first.
(It was even stated in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, when Sirius Black tells Harry that Hermione has a good grasp of Barty Crouch's character.)

In my job as a Constable, I've served several people in high rank of wealth, status, or position in society. Based upon my own limited experiences, I've found that people with real status don't need to flaunt it. It is mostly those who aspire to greater stature that feel the need to tell me just how important they are. For the most part, when I've dealt with someone who truly has wealth, community stature, or other societal importance, they have been very polite and even businesslike with me.

Now I wonder if that is only because I carry a gun.

Just a week ago, the Utah State Senate Majority Leader felt the need to identify himself as such to a poor college student delivering a pizza. She had the nerve to tell him that her employer did not accept personal checks as payment. He must have felt that by virtue of his status in society a simpleton such as a pizza delivery girl would be overwhelmed by his ability to influence... something or other.

News flash: If you have to tell everyone how important you are, you aren't that important.

Unfortunately for him, the poor kid went home and blogged about it. All of a sudden, the news outlets were on this like white on rice.

Now this poor girl has been besieged by people both praising her for her backbone and berating her for tarnishing the sterling reputation of a great and visionary leader.

My advice? If you want to get the true measure of a man, look not at how he treats his equals, but his subordinates.

Yet another empty fall

I love the fall. I love the crispness in the morning air, I love the changing colors in the trees, I love that I don't have to mow the lawn as much, I love that my life gets ever so slightly less busy after school starts for my wife and kids. But as much as I love the above, I really love football.

While I like watching NFL games, I've never really closely identified myself as a fan of one particular team, largely because living in Utah denies me the chance to have a 'hometown' team to root for. As such, I can watch NFL games and enjoy them, usually without regard to who is playing, instead enjoying the battle between individual players whom I like to watch.

That method of watching football somewhat quenches my thirst, but I really crave the ability to root for a local team. This brings me to college football. I have been a rabid BYU football fan for most of my life. I remember the heady days of Jim McMahon, even though I was only a little boy. I remember the hysteria following the national championship in 1984. I have Ty Detmer's autograph in my scrapbook. I just really love BYU football.

But BYU betrayed me.

They, along with the rest of the Mountain West Conference, wanted more money than they were getting. So they signed a dark backroom deal with a company whom is only one step better than the Mob, Comcast. This deal gave Comcast the ability to hold my love for BYU football hostage through their new sports network, 'The Mountain'. This is a channel created by Comcast to exclusively broadcast Mountain West Conference games. Now if I want to watch BYU games I have two options: go to the game in person, or subscribe to Comcast's services. As such, I have not paid much attention at all to the BYU football program the last two years. Not being able to follow the program closely, I haven't even tried to go to games in person. Why bother, if I can only watch a couple of games? I used to plan my extremely busy Saturdays around when 'The Game' was on, but now I might turn on the radio while I'm working on a project if I happen to remember.

Sorry Bronco Mendenhall, I would love to be able to follow the fantastic progress you have made with your program, but since I don't want to deal with Comcast in any way, shape, or form, I have been locked out.

Yet another year where I feel somewhat empty, and more than a little sad as time turns to what used to be my favorite time of year.

UPDATE:
A short while after posting this, I found a statement from the Mountain West Conference saying that they would be available on DirectTV (my satellite provider) starting on 8/28/2008. I heard something similar each of the last two years, so I wasn't holding my breath, especially since there was nothing confirming this on DirectTV's website. I was absolutely delighted to find that I began receiving "the mtn" as advertised, and was able to watch BYU play Northern Iowa last Saturday.
I've added entries in my calendar for all of the other games of the season...