Election Day!

These four-year election cycles are brutal, and here we are at the end, the big day.  DH went and voted this morning already (39th in line), and I'll stop after I drop DD5 at school.

Go vote, but PLEASE only if you've informed yourself...this is too big a deal to decide based on the way you feel at the moment, or the last commercial you saw, or who has the better shoes. (Okay, vote based on the shoes.  Because then we know who'll get your vote!)

Teddy Roosevelt wrote about the state of the country after the Civil War, in particular the preoccupation with business, "exploiting the natural resources as quickly as possible," and the general military unpreparedness of the country here:

It was reënforced by the large mollycoddle vote—the people who are soft physically and morally, or who have a twist in them which makes them acidly cantankerous and unpleasant as long as they can be so with safety to their bodies. In addition there are the good people with no imagination and no foresight, who think war will not come, but that if it does come armies and navies can be improvised—a very large element, typified by a Senator I knew personally who, in a public speech, in answer to a question as to what we would do if America were suddenly assailed by a first-class military power, answered that "we would build a battle-ship in every creek." Then, among the wise and high-minded people who in self-respecting and genuine fashion strive earnestly for peace, there are the foolish fanatics always to be found in such a movement and always discrediting it—the men who form the lunatic fringe in all reform movements.

So are you part of the mollycoddle vote? Or the high-minded one? Where do you stand?