Any excuse will work

I was twelve years old when I had my first experience with door-to-door campaigning for a candidate.  My dad dropped me off at the the first house on the block and wished me luck as I grabbed my candidate’s literature and voter registration forms and hopped out of the car.  As I walked up the sidewalk I rehearsed in my head everything that I wanted to say and thought through every question that could possibly be asked about where my candidate stood on the issues.  When I finally got to the front door I took a deep breath and rang the doorbell.  I was a little surprised to see a twenty five year old man answer the door in his boxers and t-shirt, obviously having just woken up.  It was two in the afternoon.  I introduced myself and told him why I was there and proceeded to ask him if he was registered to vote.  He replied “No, I haven’t had time.”  He didn’t appear to be the busiest person in the world, but I wasn’t there to judge.  I then continued, “Well I have a registration form right here if you’d like to register now.”  He replied, “Well I don’t know where I would bring it.” I explained that I could turn it in for him if he wanted.  He then said, “No that’s ok, I don’t have time to fill it out now.”  Refusing to give up, I told him that he could go online and fill it out and it wouldn’t take much time at all.  “Yeah, but my internet is really slow.” I took that as my cue, thanked him for his time and went back to the car feeling like an utter failure.

I never quite understood how so many people could be too tired, or too busy, or too this, or too that to put any effort into improving their country.  It seems that everyone has more than enough time to complain about the government, but when asked to actually take action in order to make a positive change, all of the sudden everyone is busy, sick, out of town, tired, etc… It reminds me of the many times while I was in high school that my parents would tell me to help with the house work or pick weeds in the garden.  Whatever the task may have been, I would always have an excuse as to why I couldn’t do it. “I have too much homework!”, “I’m too tired!”, “I just did it last week!”  My dad would always reply, “Any excuse will work, you might as well pick one I haven’t heard before.”  Though I’ll never admit it to him directly, he was right.

The same is true of many people today and their attitude towards politics.  I could have spent the entire day on that door step trying to convince that man that he should register to vote, and he would’ve given me any excuse he could think of.  In my opinion, one of the most difficult things for liberty minded citizens to grasp is the idea that some people just don’t care and that some of those who do care, don’t care enough to take action.  After observing this time and time again, it becomes easy to become discouraged and even sometimes lazy.

I recently met a woman who served as a refreshing reminder that there is no excuse for being apathetic or lazy when it comes to fighting for liberty.  This woman served her country overseas and now suffers from Gulf War Syndrome which hinders her ability to walk, causing her to have to use two canes in order to get around.  However, this woman manages to go door-to-door every Saturday talking to voters about a candidate in which she strongly believes.  She believes in liberty more than she believes in making excuses, though her excuse would be more legitimate than most.  Meeting this inspirational woman reminded me that nothing excuses you from fighting for what you believe in. As my father used to say after an argument about why I couldn’t do housework, “Don’t make excuses, make it happen.”