Alina Stefanescu received an interesting reactionary comment on her blog recently from Mr. Gary Proctor, with regard to a posting that mentioned the absentee ballot issue concerning military military:
"what complete idiocy. As a member of the military, I can asure you that the vast majority of the deployed service members are very well aware of their ability to vote via absentee ballot. It is nothing new. Virtualy all service members vote that way even in peace times because most are not residence of the state that they are stationed in. This whole idea is complete lunacy. If you have some actual non-biased report that shows that there is some retribution for those that do not support the president I would love to see it. Oterwise, your proclimation are completely without merit and are simply your far left wing opinion. It's people like you with you simplistic and narrow view of those of us that make up the armed services that will keep from ever voting democratic. I would bet that you actually know well fewer than two peaop[le that have actually servered for more that one enlistment. I have nothing but contemp for you.
Oh and, "air america"…surprised it's still on the air. You must be the only listener. What a joke. Not a real good place to get real information. It would be like me quoting Rush. Get real.
I love the knee-jerk "far left wing" comment. Mr. Proctor has shown his complete lack of political comprehension with this nonsensical posting. Perhaps Mr. Proctor would like to Google the term "libertarian" sometime. I love these statists and their "liberal, liberal, liberal" stuff.
And by the way, when I was in the Marine Corps stationed at Camp Lejeune, one of my duties was to act as Voting Assistance NCO. In that role, I helped hundreds of Marines and Sailors register to vote and request absentee ballots. It was a duty I relished above most others.
That said, I can't count how many times a Marine or Sailor came to me demanding to know who their Representative and Senators were (easy for me to look up) or wanting to know if they were registered to vote (as if I'd know). The lack of political sophistication was frightening. Do overseas military know they are entitled to vote absentee? Most do, but deployment situations, unit encouragement or lack of, and poor prior planning will have an significant effect on whether or not the troops are able to request and receive absentee ballots in time. Hell, I sometimes had a hard time getting county offices to send the ballots to North Carolina on time. I'd hate to have to attempt it in the middle of the desert via an APO of FPO. Fortunately, my time in Desert Shield/Storm didn't coincide with any election cycles. It ain't as simple as Mr. Proctor would like suggest.
And in case Mr. Proctor has something further to say, he'd be advised to notice that I'm a libertarian Marine and that he should save that "leftie" shit for someone else.