Two weeks to go

Two weeks to go before the election.

I confess. I already voted. My absentee ballot came in the mail on Thursday and I put it back in the mail today, a circle filled for every contest and even a few write-ins.

What a truly remarkable privilege voting is. The pundits suggest that this election will have the one of highest turnouts among 18- to 25-year-old voters that our nation has seen. I hope they are right.

The ancient Greeks thought that the art of politics was a gift from God. Given the obtrusiveness of this two-year presidential campaign, that Nov. 4 will actually get here might seem a much better gift from God. Nonetheless, men were allowed to practice politics through rhetoric and argument in the assembly, which was their form of direct democracy. They called it the polity, which literally translates as community. According to the Greeks, participation in polity was the highest, most ethical of human activities.

So here we are today, less than two weeks away from our chance to participate in polity. It’s what we’ve fought wars to protect. It’s what will prevent us from fighting unnecessary wars in the future. It’s our chance to vote.

It’s what these citizens of other nations fervently celebrated.

This Iraqi woman raises her purple-stained finger after the nation held its first free election in half a century.

Thousands of South African citizens lined the polls to vote after the nation's apartheid government fell

May we remember the joy of these nations during their elections when we have ours on Nov. 4.