By the title of this post you might think that I’m writing about my need for a vaca­tion. And while I might need one, I want to advo­cate for some thing more serious.

This country is right­fully proud of it’s system of gov­ern­ment. America has been, for more than 200 years, an example to the rest of the world. Thou­sands of men and women in our armed ser­vices have fought and died to pro­tect the free­doms we hold sacred. Mil­lions more have worked to make this a great nation – a des­ti­na­tion for people escaping oppres­sion or seeking to estab­lish a better life for them­selves and their descendants.

The Statue of Lib­erty stands proudly in New York Harbor has a symbol of our way of life. Our Con­sti­tu­tion is, if poorly under­stood by some, revered by our cit­i­zens. Every day young sol­ders put their lives on the line to pro­tect us. Yet, for all of these sym­bols of our democ­racy, we have no hol­iday on our cal­endar ded­i­cated to cel­e­brating our polit­ical freedom and system of government.

Sure, we have a day set aside to com­mem­o­rate one of the cham­pions of civil rights. We have a hol­iday to remember our great leaders. We have two hol­i­days hon­oring our sol­diers and one major hol­iday cel­e­brating the birth of our nation. But there is not a day set aside to cel­e­brate our democ­racy. The Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence may have founded our nation but it didn’t form our nation or the insti­tu­tions that deserve our cel­e­bra­tion. For all the talk of our how great our country is, it seems an unpa­tri­otic over­sight not to for­merly rec­og­nize what makes America so great.

That’s why today I join those who over the years have called for a national hol­iday on the day we hold gen­eral elec­tions. What better way to honor our civil insti­tu­tions than to cel­e­brate our right – and our respon­si­bility as cit­i­zens – to exer­cise our indi­vidual polit­ical power through voting. This is the most basic part of our gov­ern­ment but also the most impor­tant. It is one of the free­doms that was won through our War of Inde­pen­dence. Many addi­tional bat­tles were fought (some deadly) so that all of our cit­i­zens – women, African Amer­i­cans – could share that freedom. Let us honor all these things the right and patri­otic way, but set­ting aside a fed­eral hol­iday to both remember and exe­cute that fun­da­mental indi­vidual right and respon­si­bility. It has cost many Amer­i­cans dearly over the years so we all may have it. We should not take it for granted. We should create an example for our chil­dren so they under­stand the impor­tance of voting in our democ­racy. And we should pro­claim clearly to the rest of the world that even two hun­dred and thirty-four years after we declared our­selves a nation we are still the model of civil society. And nothing, not eco­nomic decline or increas­ingly par­tisan pol­i­tics can degrade the great­ness of our nation. We, the cit­i­zens of the United States of America, will go to the polls to make sure of it.

Isn’t that worth celebrating?