I learned something this week that blew my mind. Totally changed my world view and the way I perceive…voting. Okay, okay, before you roll your eyes and delete this email, did you know that Australia regularly achieves 90% voter turnout? They consider below 90% to be problematic—potentially disastrous even. For a bit of comparison, 2020 was the first time the USA topped 60% voter turnout since 2008.
But, the fact that Australia has achieved a true democratic process is not the totality of what blew my mind. Steady yourself. If you’re standing, you might want to sit. If you are operating heavy machinery…then, wow, I need to know the secret to reading emails while operating heavy machinery. (That sounds too fun to pass up.) Here is the mystery of the universe I unlocked this week:
Voting should be like behavioral training for politicians.
Let me explain. As I’ve written about in the past, my family is a bunny family. We attained our second pet rabbit, Ivy, as a result of the neighborhood Bunny Outbreak of 2022. Ivy is now being introduced to living free-range inside our house. Litter box training is a snap. Rabbits want to poop mostly in a single contained area…unless they become disgruntled or territorial. The harder task for Ivy has been to resist chewing and digging. You see, it’s in a rabbits nature to bite and dig. Teeth and claws are pretty much what rabbits have as far as tools to interact with the world—function, exploration, and even expression.
But if Ivy wants freedom to roam throughout the house at her discretion, she has to temper those natural tendencies and prove she won’t interact with her surroundings in a way we deem as destructive…even if to her it’s simply an expression of her inner nature. We’re using a vinegar spray bottle to mark things around the house that are “no chew.” (My oldest son has a reflexive puke response to vinegar which makes the whole experiment that much more adventuresome.)
If something smells like vinegar, chewing on it gets Ivy put back in the cage. Ivy doesn’t like being back in the cage. But we can’t spray everything in the house with vinegar. Furniture legs are clearly, “no chew.” The baseboards behind the couch are “no chew.” But what about the couch cushions or chair arms? The legs smell like vinegar—a clear indicator of “no chew,” but the arms…no vinegar there. I’ve watched her puzzle through this very conundrum. I can see the battle playing out inside her little instinctive brain:
The base of this territory is clearly marked as “no chew.” The texture and nature of the territory up here is strikingly similar to the “no chew” territory below. But…I really want to taste this grease-seasoned wood. It’s soooo soft and tempting. What if I bite it once? Maybe no one will notice. But the big, furless rabbits might put me back in the wire-borough-of-no-escape. That one is staring at me right now. He suspects something. I better not risk it. I’ll do it quickly. Well, maybe later. Oh crap, I’m chewing on it right now! He sees me! He’s getting up! He has the spray bottle of “no chew!” Run for your lives!
Politicians are instinctive creatures. It’s in their natures to seek power, adulation, and personal gain at the expense of others. Asking them to act contrary to their natures without a training infrastructure in place is foolishness on our part. You can’t own a politician without training them properly, or as the politician owner, any destruction they inflict is on you.
What I learned this week, the realization that blew my mind, was that voting is the equivalent of the spray bottle of “no chew.” When a politician gives into their natural instincts in a destructive manner, we have to correct them and instruct them to “no chew” by voting accordingly. But what Australia taught me is that this is only possible if everyone votes. Literally everyone. When people don’t vote (or have their vote disqualified for any variety of reasons) politicians learn they can poop and pee on those people and/or their concerns indiscriminately. They can give into their tendencies. Mixed signals abound!
This also means we can’t let voting devolve into “That German Shepherd scares the crap out me. I think I’ll vote for the Chihuahua. Or maybe it’s time to get a cat.” Then it becomes Cat Vs. Dog and neither learns jack crap about how to behave. The dog owners have to train their dogs. The cat owners must train their cats (or at least keep them from scratching out the mailman’s eyeballs). Voting is the only tool we have for training these unruly politicians. I, for one, say it’s time we break out the bottle of “no chew” and put the whole lot back in their place.
If You Wish to Start Reading The Green Ones…
[Click here to start at the beginning.]
Thanks so much for taking the time to read these scenes of Boundaries, Season 2 of The Green Ones. I’ll be publishing FREE daily scenes from The Green Ones until…I die…or something terrible happens. Seriously, I’ve got over 100 scenes written so far, and I’ll be writing more until the story reaches its natural ending. You are totally welcome to read the entire story for FREE! If at any point you decide you would rather finish the story in ebook or print format, just click the buttons below and you can do that as well. If you enjoy reading the serial releases, BUT you would also like to support me as a writer (my kids need wine!) please subscribe to my premium content for bonus scenes, exclusives, and insider access to my process. And of course, I’d be grateful if you would share this post with any of your reader friends who you think would enjoy The Green Ones. Happy reading!