We have grown up with the lesson that it is wrong to give in to the temptations of others. Something nags at our consciences when we combine vice giving in to peer pressure rather than making informed decisions that take responsibility.

The concern we have with peer pressure is a concern with tyranny. “Tyranny” describes a situation in which a person is subject to some arbitrary, oppressive force. To the extent we do any action simply because others do it or expect us to do it, we have subjected ourselves to tyranny.

Tyranny is most often a political concept. Aristotle named it as one of his five deviations from the most perfect government; we have grown up with history lessons expositing the Declaration of Independence was written protesting British tyranny. Various forms of independence — a college degree, entrepreneurship, home ownership, a nest egg on which to retire and others — are such a part of American culture they have come to define the “American dream.”

In keeping with the connection between tyranny and politics, it is worth noting one blatant attempt to use peer pressure in politics — even though the presidential election is here and most of us have probably already voted. This time, rather than coming from 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean or from myriad regulations and laws from our own Congress, the tyranny comes from our television sets.

A recent ad from the Obama campaign asks viewers, if they do not register to vote, what they will tell the same-sex couples who cannot get married or the women who cannot make decisions about their own bodies? Will nonvoters say they were too busy or didn’t think it mattered or that their vote didn’t count?

But while we may vote a certain way because we want to help of be kind to groups we do not belong to, at the end of the day politics — including voting — is about making our own decisions, individually. The “conversation” the ad advised us to open up requires us to give our own reasoning, not that of someone else. Voting is one of many acts of citizenship. It is, for most of us, the culmination of our acts of citizenship throughout the past several years.

For the acts of citizenship to be ours, though, or for the act of voting to be ours, we must do so out of our own motivations, not the expectations of others. We have previously lamented the fact voting is done in secret, behind the voting booth’s curtain. The silver lining of that is in the privacy of voting, we can keep our decisions to ourselves and preserve the independence our country was founded to safeguard.