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Participation

THE BLADE

Participation

Newspapers traditionally urge readers to “get out the vote” on Election Day. But a few other things also need to be said.

It is a good thing to remember, on this day, that young men and women have died for our political freedom and that the Founders pledged “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor” to this experiment in freedom.

Those are not clichés. They are truths.

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History does not teach many simple lessons. But this lesson it does teach: Freedom does not come easily, and it is even harder to keep.

So, yes, a grateful citizen participates on this day.

But there are different ways to do that.

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VOTERS GUIDE: A look at the contested issues, races in Tuesday’s election

Part of our freedom is the freedom to say no. If you don’t like the choices for president, you don’t have to choose “the lesser evil.”

Those brave souls who died for your right to vote also died for your right to vote outside the mainstream. And, furthermore, your right not to vote.

You don’t like Hillary or Donald? Don’t vote for either.

But don’t stay home.

There are many important choices down the ballot: There are issues and offices that will have a huge impact on people’s lives. For example, if the city of Toledo has to lay off police officers and firefighters, actual lives could hang in the balance on many a given day and night. And, no small matter, the city’s image could also take a terrible hit.

So, you don’t have to hold your nose and vote for those you cannot support to be a good citizen, but you do have to find a way to engage — to participate — on some level in order to be a grateful and contributing American.

There are also a few issues having to do with the quality of our democracy that we should all examine.

One is the problem of noncompetition. In Greater Toledo and northwest Ohio, there are more races without challengers, or without serious challengers, than there are challengers. On almost every level — county offices, the state legislature, judges and state justices of the Supreme Court, Congress — we have uncontested races and barely contested races. That’s a sign of poor political health in a free society.

No simple, immediate remedy is evident. But we need to talk about this.

We also need to talk about whether we want to be more democratic as a country or less. Many people will now say: Bring back the smoke-filled room. We’ll have better candidates that way.

But it could be argued that the modern smoke-filled room gave us one of the presidential candidates in 2016, and the other candidate, while loathed by many of our elites, got millions of people to register, to vote again, to care again — to participate.

Of course, the more directly democratic the nation becomes, the more important civic education and the press become. Less civics and fewer newspapers; more yelling and less reflective journalism have the effect of starving democracy.

But we have to decide, as a people, whether we really trust democracy, or whether we only trust the mass movements that include people who look like us.

The overall direction of American history has been toward more democracy, not less. Maybe we need to better nurture our democracy and maybe we should consider creative and prudent safety valves — like votes of no-confidence, or making it easier to form third parties, or maybe making U.S. House districts smaller.

But we need to have a discussion about how much we truly value political liberty and participation if we say we want every American to participate in the system.

First Published November 8, 2016, 5:00 a.m.

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