While romping from the snow-capped mountains of Australia to kung-fu training in China to Germany’s Oktoberfest with a quick side trip to the London 2012 Olympics, one can assume a few interesting conversations were had:
British friend: I wish I could vote for the US president
Yes people, this is about that.
Greg: Why? Dude, you have your own government. Vote for that one.
British Friend: Yeah, but our government backs up your government.
Perhaps you haven’t noticed one of the themes on this blog so please, allow us to illuminate it a little more clearly for you –
America has a lot of friends. A lot of friends who are in the habit of standing up with us, no matter the cost in dollars or lives of their sons and daughters.
A lot of friends who don’t get a say in who the President of the United States will be for the next 4 years.
Perhaps you don’t like choices you have this election –
vote anyway:
Because if Australian soldiers can get shot down fighting in Vietnam…
And a British solider can be crippled by an IED covering our backs…
And the people of New Zealand can lose literally a quarter of a generation of their citizens holding the line in WW1…
If the people of Tahiti can back us in the both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters of WW2 …
…Then you can stand in line for a couple hours to cast an abstention ballot.
But we hope you won’t abstain. We think you should make a choice.
American citizens, tomorrow we have the power to decide who will be, for the next 4 years, arguably the most powerful single person on the planet. That person will wield power that has in the past and will again in the future dramatically impact the lives of the 7 billion people on Earth. Despite the effect our president will have on them, 95% of the planet’s population gets absolutely no say in who will win tomorrow.
As an American, you are part of the 5% of humanity that is allocated the right of a voice. So if you wonder if your vote matters we can tell you this:
It carries more weight than the combined opinion of every citizen of every other country on Earth.
This Tuesday, your voice is louder than 6,696,000,000 other people on this planet. People who would love to be heard on this issue.
They can’t…but you can.
Saying “thanks” to our international allies, or even those fellow citizens serving our own country, is pointless unless you actually mean it.
Having a strong opinion is worthless unless you’re willing to put the effort in to back it up.
Mean it. Put in the effort. Vote.
If not for you, then for those who can’t.
(And yes, we did the math to figure out that Americans are only about 5% of the world’s population. Little less, actually.)
Greg and Tiffany are traveling around the world on sailing yachts and keep a video blog of their (mis)adventures. If sailing to Tahiti on a 44 ft sailboat, 3-day delays for wine tastings, getting pooped on by seagulls, opening coconuts with dull machetes, sailing past tornadoes and ukulele Christmas carols are for you, then check them out atwww.CoastGuardCouple.com!
OK, so really cool follow-on. We’re down here in FL so I spent the afternoon volunteering – going door to door to make sure people knew their voting rights. And who was I paired with?
A German national who was also volunteering because, despite the fact he WAS NOT ALLOWED TO VOTE, he was so concerned about the US election he wanted to be a part of it! He came over from Germany on vacation and is giving up 2 days of his holiday just to help out!
EPIC!