For a long time I had a nagging feeling I'd lost something dear to me.
I'd wake up in the morning thinking I'd dreamed it.
But the feeling haunted me throughout the day-day after day.
A lot of thinking out loud brought me to the conclusion that that sense of loss was my own personal freedom.
At the beginning of the American Revolutionary War Thomas Paine was an activist writer in support of independence from the British.
His articles were not only an inspiration to other Founding Fathers, but more importantly to the common butcher, baker and farmer.
Today Paine is probably remembered most for his famous words, "These are the times that try men's souls.
" Two hundred thirty years and numerous bloody wars later, we are witness to the once stalwart moral fiber of the country, the American middle class, morphing into something yet to be defined, but certainly something less than it was.
These too are trying times, and maybe what our souls need is a revolution of a different kind-a constitutional amendment banning the right to vote to any American citizen who does not vote.
Whew! Would we allow our congressional representatives to get away with that sort of claptrap? I doubt it.
Yet we watch like glassy-eyed cattle our taken-for-granted freedoms evaporate.
Each day the list gets frighteningly longer.
Victims of our own genius, sophisticated technology makes our most private information public.
Aided by mega telephone companies, the Internet, satellites and spy stuff we are not even privy to, our homes are no longer our castles.
Think about it.
Personal medical records, financial information, social security numbers, phone calls, books we read, how much we pay for our houses, our brand of toothpaste and bra-size are available to any peeping Tom who cares enough to have the very best.
That's the short list.
Can you jog in your neighborhood park day or night? Can your kids walk home from school alone? These everyday choices seem to have quietly slipped away from us when we weren't looking.
Have you noticed more scams than ever in the history of the world? Do you know what your teenagers are doing on their computers? Have you heard yourself say, "You can't trust anybody anymore?" Then ask yourself what you can do for your country, and your own self-interest.
It's a no-brainer.
On Election Day, no matter what your political ideology, do not walk-run to your poling station and Vote.
It's the single most powerful tool citizens have.
People who throw away this freedom of choice like it was garbage are usually the ones who do the most whining about what is wrong with the country.
It's easier than ever to find out who the candidates are, how they vote and what they stand for.
Your personal servant, the Internet, is at your fingertips 24/7.
I came of age hearing my parents talk about Franklin Roosevelt, a flawed yet dynamic personality who, like Ronald Reagan, was a great communicator.
FDR's Four Freedoms, painted on canvas by illustrator Norman Rockwell for the "Saturday Evening Post," are not just high-minded ideals; they are the concrete material principles that Thomas Paine and his band of brothers would have applauded: 1.
"Freedom of speech and expression 2.
Freedom of every person to worship God in his own way 3.
Freedom from want-individual economic security 4.
Freedom from fear-world disarmament to the point that wars of aggression are impossible.
" FDR emphasized that his was "no vision of a distant millennium," but rather a world attainable now, in our time.
Granted today "our time" is global, more dangerous and complex.
But serious illness of a physical, economic and political nature often requires bitter medicine to exact a cure.
Vision plus guts are the cures, the kind of leadership we must send to Washington to represent us at home, before the voice of the people is nothing but a whimper from a distant past.
"Simplicity-Courage-Humor-Soul"®