Raif Badawi, now thirty-one, has been held in a Saudi Arabian prison since 2012 for blogs considered insulting to Islam. Badawi was sentenced to ten years in prison and 1,000 lashes, fifty each week until the number is completed. After the first punishment was carried out, reprieves have been granted, because, it is said, his body has not yet recovered from the first round. Badawi, of course, has never voted in a national election, nor have any other Saudis, young or not, since they aren’t allowed there.

The number of 18-29 year old Americans (millenials) who bothered to vote in the November 2014 election hovers around 21 percent, according to an article by Froma Harrop. (Published in The Seattle Times on January 25, 2015.) That’s not even one out of four. In some countries where I”ve lived, the idea of not voting when you have the privilege is beyond comprehension.

Harrop scorned the idea of some young Americans that their government doesn’t care about them, or that their voting doesn’t make a difference.

Older people vote in larger numbers. That’s why we have Social Security and Medicare. Or, as Harrop said, “You don’t get served till you enter the restaurant.”