president’s message
Get Out There and Vote!
By Lynn M. Roberson
Swift Currie McGhee & Hiers LLP
O
ur current issue of The Atlanta Lawyer focuses on
the election and the importance of voting. Many
citizens leave the choice of president (and all the
other elected positions) to those of us who care enough to
exercise our right to vote. I guess we all may be better off if
the election is decided by people who care enough to learn
about the issues and take the time and effort to vote than
if everyone participated, but it is difficult to understand why
some citizens care so little about participating in a process
that people around the world envy and for which so many
of our forebears fought and died.
Save the date
for the Emory Public Interest Committee’s
2013 EPIC Inspiration Awards
Ceremony and Reception
7 p.m. Tuesday, February 5
Tull Auditorium, Emory University School of Law
Honoring
Robert N. “Robbie” Dokson
Lifetime Commitment to Public Service
Jeffrey O. Bramlett
Outstanding Leadership in the Public Interest
Tamara Serwer Caldas
Unsung Devotion to Those Most in Need
All funds raised support Emory Law students
working in public sector summer jobs.
To make a donation or for more information,
visit EPIC Inspiration Awards
or contact Sue McAvoy at [email protected]
or 404.727.5503
4
THE ATLANTA LAWYER
November 2012
[email protected]
One need only look back on the people of the Middle East
and the risks they took to participate in the voting process
once they had won the right to vote and select their leaders.
The turnout in the first Iraqi free election was very close to
100%. The fact that our own elections turn out less than
half of eligible voters speaks to our complacency about
our freedoms. But it was not so long ago (in fact, within
my lifetime) that some of our citizens were barred from
exercising their right to vote. All the more reason to cherish
one’s right to vote and exercise that right whenever one can.
Look at the recent example of Malala, the young teen girl of
Pakistan, who knowingly risked her life to take a stand for a
girl’s right to an education in a country which has historically
marginalized its female citizens. I am not sure I could ever
demonstrate the courage of this young girl in opposing the
positions of the Taliban. The Taliban – that “organization”
which was so threatened by the words of one young girl that
they had to send out an assassination squad to eliminate
this dire threat to their hopes of returning an entire culture to
the twelfth century. The fact that one young girl’s advocacy
and opposition is perceived as such a threat by the Taliban
demonstrates to us all what strong and virile men make up
the Taliban. (I hope my sarcasm is patent) True warriors are
not threatened or intimidated by opposing views. They do
not feel the need to eliminate the opposition, but to win it over
through education, persuasion, and endurance, qualities
which always prevail over mindless violence.
Already we are seeing the world of sanity come to the aid of
young Malala. Her own people have taken to the streets to
protest the attack on her and support her position that girls
should have the right to an education. Malala’s strength
has only grown though this barbaric attack on civilization.
Her ideas and advocacy have received a far greater hearing
because of the efforts to silence her. The Taliban’s strength
has been greatly diminished by its cowardly assault on this
courageous young girl. In light of her struggle and near
death experience, her message has become ever stronger.
More and more people who were too intimidated to speak
out in support of her ideas have been moved to speak out in
The Official News Publication of the Atlanta Bar Association