Warning: I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m on a soap box today.
\nSo the primary election has come and gone. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve made our decisions and declared who we want to represent us in the November election and in some cases, declared who we want to give the job to.
\nOr did we? I know I did.
\nBut what about you? Chances are very high that you didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t.
\nBecause as you may have read on the front page, only 8.5-percent of the registered voters in Bell County voted. That means 128,107 registered voters did not vote. What percentage were you?
\nIt may not seem like a big deal to most people, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s very sickening to me.
\nA nationwide study released on Tuesday showed that only 7.2% of registered voters had voted in the primaries before Tuesday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s elections in Texas, Florida, Mississippi and Louisiana.
\nSo, congratulations Bell County, we beat the national curve, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not applauding.
\nTwo of my cousins have spent time in the Middle East protecting my freedom and giving freedom to people who have never had the opportunity to taste it. One is still there.
\nOver 500 young Americans have died in Iraq so that a people they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never met can go to their polls and elect a president.
\nThese fine American soldiers fought and died so that a ruthless dictatorship could be overthrown and our country could sleep securely at night.
\nYet in the midst of a world war and in the midst of a heated presidential election, as a county we only sent 12,373 people to the polls.
\nThat\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s less than the population of Belton.
\nNow granted, I love Belton. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to live anywhere else. In fact I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m buying a house in Belton.
\nBut if I lived in Temple, or Harker Heights or Killeen or anywhere else in Bell County, I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like it one bit if the citizens of Belton began making decisions for me and deciding who would represent me and who would stand up for my concerns.
\nWho are they to decide my representation? Would you let a stranger off the street pick a lawyer to represent you in a major lawsuit?
\nI know I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. I want to take time to choose my representation.
\nIn the process of buying a house I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t walk into it blindly.
\nI chose my representation. I talked with people. I took several opinions and looked at my options.
\nAnd because of that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m super pleased with the work Terri Covington and Matt Wood have done. I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have asked for a better job.
\nI want the best possible representation I can get whenever I can get it.
\nI want someone I can trust handling my business.
\nAnd if they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not doing a good job, rather than sit around and complain, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to fire them.
\nI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not going to walk up to a phone book and play \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ouiji directory\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and you shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t either.
\nNow of course I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not saying all this to say that every other realtor in Belton is bad, or every other mortgage company is bad. I found my preference. I chose it, was pleased and stuck with them.
\nWhen it comes to electing our public officials, we each have a choice.
\nIn May we have the opportunity to select our representation for city council and school board. In November we have the opportunity to choose the leader of the free world.
\nDon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t let some stranger come and steal your right to choose our country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s leadership.
\nFive minutes can change the course of history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Warning: I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m on a soap box today. So the primary election has come and gone. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve made our decisions and declared who we want to represent us in the November election and in some cases, declared who we want to give the job to. Or did we? I know I did. But what about you? … Continue reading 8.5%<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2090],"tags":[2088,2089,2092],"class_list":["post-27","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns-reflections","tag-belton-journal","tag-columns","tag-newspaper"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/sEnSo-85","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}