NOT STARSHIP TROOPERS:

Getting All Veterans to the Voting Booths (Charles Slaughter, May 27, 2004, AlterNet)

On Memorial Day this year we will dedicate a new national memorial to Americans who served in World War II. The decision to join America's armed forces isn't something most of us make lightly. As an Army veteran of the Vietnam era, Memorial Day reminds me of the tremendous sacrifice of my brave friends and colleagues. I am blessed to still be here as a community activist and father to my four daughters.

Another celebration this month -- the 50th Anniversary of the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision and its extraordinary impact on American society -- reminds us that many World War II vets returned from fighting for freedom abroad to a society that not only tolerated but enforced segregation, racial discrimination, and denial of voting rights.

The Brown decision galvanized a national commitment to making progress on all those fronts, yet 50 years later there are still more than 4 million Americans, including 500,000 veterans, who are denied the right to vote by state laws that keep felons and former felons out of the voting booth. It is especially troubling that the most fundamental right of citizenship - the right to participate in the democratic process -- is denied to those who risked their lives to achieve the goals set forth by the authors of our Constitution: "... to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."

The most fundamental responsibility of citizenship isn't military service but to obey the law. Violate the domestic tranquility and there are consequences.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 28, 2004 12:44 PM