When I was in the Army, we were told “freedom is not free.”
What they meant was we had a citizen responsibility to defend our nation, but in my view it’s equally applicable to our roles in America’s civilian society. We have a good thing going for ourselves, in this country, with respect to peace, safety, and prosperity that few other societies enjoy.
But it isn’t free, because these benefits of living in America are a product of exerting ourselves to fulfill the responsibilities of citizenship. These efforts make America great, and America can’t continue to be great without responsible citizenship on our part.
A healthy democracy is essential for our economy, and therefore our prosperity. This isn’t a philosophical or conjectural musing; it’s the conclusion of academic scholarship that has done comparative studies of various economies which show a strong link between democracy and prosperity. You could say prosperity is like a plant and democracy is like fertile soil. The one needs the other.
Now I want to talk about elections. To have a strong democracy, you need healthy elections. There’s nothing partisan about that; Democrats and Republicans alike should all want that, because it’s to everyone’s advantage. Gaming or manipulating the election system for partisan advantage may produce temporary gains, but isn’t a profitable long-term strategy because it will ultimately hurt society and the economy.
The definition of a healthy election is one that’s fair and honest. The way you get fair and honest elections is by having them professionally run by impartial election administrators, with properly designed systems, procedures, and security in place, with the grunt work performed by properly trained and supervised election workers who are committed to doing the job right and aren’t there to further a partisan cause.
On the other hand, in our polarized society in which neither side trusts the other, replacing seasoned election professionals with party loyalists simply throws gasoline on the partisan fires and depends distrust of election results. That’s the wrong path to take.
I didn’t include “trusted” in the definition of healthy election because trust isn’t an element of a proper election. Distrusting a fair and honest election doesn’t make that election less fair or less honest, and is unhealthy because it contributes to undermining the election system, and ultimately our democracy. You can say whatever you want in a free society, and people have a right to question any election if they feel like it, so that certainly doesn’t violate any laws; but responsible citizens should do so only for just cause. To question impugn and election simply because you don’t like the result is irresponsible citizenship.
Good citizenship is supporting the principles that every citizen has a right to vote, have their vote counted, the votes will be accurately tallied, and we’ll all respect the process and accept the results. Trying to gain partisan advantage by violating those principles, gaming the system, or undermining trust in our elections is a dead-end street that in the end works for nobody. Freedom is not free. To keep the advantages we have in our society, we must work at being good citizens.