Before we even get close to November 6, 2012, I’d like to suggest that everybody pledge not to pressure their friends and neighbors to get out and vote. There is absolutely nothing un-American about staying home and minding your own business on Election Day.

I, for one, am sick and tired of hearing about all the brave Americans who fought and died so that we’d be free to vote. What those good people actually fought for was the freedom to vote, not the obligation. It is the freedom not to vote that is denied to slaves. It’s only when dictators are in charge that people are compelled to go through the motions. The likes of Fidel Castro, Joseph Stalin and the Stalin wannabe, Saddam Hussein, never had to worry about chads and miscounts. When those guys got out the vote, they got out the vote!

I can certainly understand why the two major parties want everybody showing up on Election Day. After all, each side is convinced, after losing an election, that if only 100% of the electorate had shown up and done their duty, the right guy – their guy – would have won. But they’re in the business. What’s in it for us?

Please understand that I am not writing this in my own defense. It so happens that I vote every chance I get. In fact, having been born in Chicago, I subscribe to the belief that I should vote early and often. I mean, I’m good at it. I can be trusted. There I am, faithfully watching CNN and FoxNews, reading a daily newspaper, keeping up on things political, and then, come Election Day, some lunkhead who’s spent the past four years watching wrestling on TV and reading Hustler gets shamed into voting, and he winds up canceling out my vote! Is that fair? Is that just? More importantly, is it good for America? I think not.

What possible good can come from the 50-60% of the electorate that prefers to sit things out on Election Day being herded like so many sheep to the polls? I mean, if you think the politicians we elect now are inept, lazy and corrupt, can you imagine what we’re going to wind up with when really dumb people start voting in record numbers?

It’s bad enough that the Democrats are constantly looking to extend voting privileges to felons, illegal aliens and the deceased, without letting them get away with the pretense that a national ID card smacks of fascism. In a society that already takes drivers licenses, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, cards for granted, it is sheer poppycock to pretend that a national identity card would do anything but make it harder for deadbeat dads to ditch their families, for killers like Whitey Bulger to disappear into the ether and for Democrats to steal elections.

Frankly, I think we should all be ashamed of the fact that in America you have to prove who you are in order to rent a video at Blockbuster, but not to cast a vote in a presidential election.

Yes, I understand this is a democracy and that a double-digit IQ doesn’t disqualify anyone from voting – or from pursuing elected office, for that matter. But why on earth would anybody in his right mind want to encourage those sloths to foist their ignorance off on the rest of us? Instead of pretending it’s our obligation to get every single numbskull to the voting booth on Election Day, it should be our patriotic duty to urge them to stay home and mind their own beeswax.