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SOUTHERN STUMPIN’ By David Abbott • Managing Editor • Ph. 334-834-1170 • Fax: 334-834-4525 • E-mail: david@hattonbrown.com
VOTE!! t’s that time again…the most wonderful time… I’m talking, of course, about football season! Thank God, because I really wasn’t sure we’d get one this year. And of course, in case you haven’t heard...it’s also election time. Yay. Ok, so politics isn’t as fun as football, but it might be almost as important. Maybe. And politics has been on my mind, not just because of the election, but because of my new side gig as a 7th grade civics teacher. See, since mid-August, thanks to coronavirus concerns with schools starting back in our county, I have been sharing my office space at home with my four kids who have been doing virtual school for the first nine weeks. This means that, while juggling my duties with Southern Loggin’ Times, I have had the pleasure of helping my younger step-daughter Allie figure out multiplication and division, and the honor of introducing my younger son Logan to the study of the American political system. While going over the history and concepts underlying the Constitution, I’ve been reminded of just how much there is to appreciate in our republic, things we too often take for granted. It’s far from perfect, but our justifiably lauded Founding Fathers designed our system in recognition of its inevitable limitations—because if it involves human beings, there will be corruption and incompetence. That’s why our Constitution has built-in measures to keep the various factions of government and media in check and in balance with one another. Yes, even the media, for all its faults, plays an important role; that’s why it’s in the First Amendment. It’s a constant give and take struggle, this system; it’s messy and frustrating, but that’s, I think, how it was meant to be, and how it has to be, to keep any one group from gaining total control. I explained to my son the division and sharing of powers among the branches thusly: it’s like rock/paper/scissors, I told him; each one can stop, or be stopped by, the others. Everyone in every part of the government has someone who can tell them no, including, ultimately, us, the voters. That’s the most beautiful and remarkable thing about it: we do get a say in it. I know it’s easy to be cynical, but think about it. We can voice our opinions, formally and informally, and engage in public discourse about policy. Not everyone everywhere has always had that right; in fact before we did it here it was quite rare. We can protest (peacefully—like John Lennon sang in “Revolution,” when you talk about destruction, you can count me out). We can openly criticize our own government, without fear of legal reper-
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cussion, imprisonment, or execution. You know that wasn’t the case in most places historically, and it’s not the case in a lot of places now (try to speak against Putin in Russia or the little rocket man in North Korea, and see what happens). When our leaders break the law, they can be exposed (by the media, when they do their jobs right). They can be arrested and imprisoned. Don’t think so? Ask Don Siegelman and Mike Hubbard, our former Governor and House Speaker, respectively, down here in my sweet home Alabama. Heck, it sometimes seems like half of our state leaders are indicted, in prison or otherwise in trouble. That’s something that also wouldn’t be the case under despots and tyrants. Here, we can meet with our representatives, we can get involved in the process, we can even run for and serve in office ourselves, thereby taking a direct role in leading and shaping public policy. And at the most basic level, we can vote. Don’t like the government? Throw the bums out; give some new bums a try. Our leaders are accountable to us, ultimately. Loggers, and those of us connected with this essential industry, have seen this first hand. Many of you have been to Congress, and to state legislatures, to have input on public policies that impact your businesses directly. We’ve seen your state and national associations try to secure for loggers a share of the COVID relief funds from Congress. We saw a logging representative speak at the Republican National Convention. We’ve elected loggers to state legislatures (in Maine and Georgia that I know of, and I’m sure elsewhere as well). That’s all civics in action.
Our Time Now, as I mentioned above, there’s actually an election this year. I know you may not have been aware of that, because it’s not something people talk about much on TV news or social media (sarcasm alert). By the time this issue hits your mailbox, there will be just about a month left before we collectively get the opportunity to vote on our President, a third of the Senate, all of the House of Representatives and a number of state and local offices. I’ve voted in every election since I turned 18 in 1996 (I voted for Bob Dole that year, but somehow Bill Clinton won anyway). My wife actually just registered and voted for the very first time in her life this summer, in a Republican primary runoff here in Alabama (former Auburn University head football coach Tommy Tubberville against former U.S. Senator and Attorney General Jeff Sessions). I didn’t pressure her to do that; she just decided on her own she was ready to take part in
the system. And I’ve seen a lot of other people say they’re voting for the first time this year; people who have never paid attention to or cared at all about politics now say they see what’s going on and they want to do their part. I think that’s great. Even if I don’t agree with your views, I’d still want you to vote. It’s our God-given, constitutionally-protected right, and, in my view, a sacred responsibility, one people have literally fought and died to give us. Every election, every two and four years, the pundits and propagandists on both sides say the same thing: this is the most important election of our lifetime. If our side doesn’t win, then kiss your freedoms goodbye! Now on the one hand, I think that’s hyperbole. The dire warnings and lofty promises either way tend not to really come true. But from another perspective, despite their hyperbolic rhetoric, those partisan cheerleaders are also always kind of right: every election is the most important election yet…because it’s the one happening now, and the future always depends on the choices we make today, just as the present grew from the choices we made yesterday. It’s a never-ending story, and this right now is our time to write our part of it. Let’s not waste it. I wouldn’t dare try to tell you who to vote for…I trust each and every person reading this can figure that out for yourselves. But I do hope every one of you will get out and vote for whomever you honestly believe is the right person for each job. I feel safe in observing that many, perhaps most, of the people I encounter in the logging community are fans of President Trump, and if he’s your man, then I say go cast your ballot for Trump. If you like Biden instead, then I say vote for Biden. If you don’t like either one of them, then write in Mickey Mouse and vote on your local and state reps. I don’t care who you vote for, I just want you to vote. Even if you choose the wrong candidate—wrong as someone else might reckon it— voting is always the right choice. So please, like I’m teaching my son, let’s all do our civic duty on November 3: vote.
New Addition This month we are presenting the inaugural edition of a new monthly column we're going to try out in SLT: From The Backwoods Pew, on page 30. The writer, Brad Antill, is a forester and a Christian minister. I know a lot of our readers are people of faith, so I thought his forestry-related perspective of spiritual matters might be of interest to a lot of you. Check it out, and let me SLT know what you think.
OCTOBER 2020 l Southern Loggin’ Times
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