On Tuesday, 24 January 2012 at 23:17:15 UTC, Nick Sabalausky
wrote:
"foobar" <f...@bar.com> wrote in message
news:teutlxbmxkyzvyrqg...@dfeed.kimsufi.thecybershadow.net...
There is this phenomena in the US where some people feel that
they have the right to be ignorant but they ought to realize
that this isn't a core human right and it slowly degrades
society in such a way that they lose all other rights and
freedoms. People should educate themselves and be responsible
for their votes and actually do vote. In my country (Israel)
an elections with ~67% of people voting was the lowest
percentage ever and usually it's closer to 80%. in the USA
it's closer to 50%. That isn't even a majority of the
population!
I agree that if someobody's *going* to vote, they have a moral
responsibility to be informed about what it is they're voting
on (and the biased handwavy-propaganda-with-no-real-information
we get bombarded with from each side doesn't count). And it's
*absolutely* best to be informed and then vote.
But real legitimate information (as opposed to
non-informational emotional, and frankly patronizing,
propaganda: And I mean propaganda quite literally) is
surprisingly difficult to find in this supposedly free country.
The real information is essentially hidden by those who prefer
us to vote emotionally - that way we're more easily swayed. And
the US is such a goddamn rat race, many people just simply
can't afford the time to dig through the mountains of bullshit:
they're too busy trying to keep the bills paid.
And if for that reason, or any other legitimate *or*
illigitimate reason, when somebody *isn't* informed, it's
downright socially irresponsible for them to vote (but many do
anyway, and that's part of why american elections have
degenerated into little more than popularity contests).
The current situation is directly connected to the ignorance
and lack of caring by the people. After all, a democratic
government comes from the people and represents the people.
Clearly, the citizens of the USA didn't care enough.
It's not so much apathy. Mostly, we've just lost faith in
politicians (and not without reason). Besides, to borrow from
South Park, we're usually faced with a choice between a giant
doucebag and a shit sandwich: We all lose no matter how the
vote turns out. At the very least, that 50% turnout is a big
vote for "We need a candidate who doesn't have their head up
their ass."
All I can offer is my local experience and the common sense that
if you ain't gonna fix your problem yourself no one else would do
it for you (and yes, I do realize that's hard, takes time, money,
effort, determination, etc while you still have to pay those
bills)
In our local political system when people aren't pleased with
current parties they just start new ones. Granted that this isn't
perfect and has many problems and we have way too many parties
*but* on the other side, it also means that some parties lose
relevance and disappear while new ones emerge. Hence it's more
dynamic and can adapt better to change. I think this general
pattern can be applied in various degrees to many EU countries. A
good example would be the pirate party in Sweden. This is like
Kirk's solution for the Kobayashi Maru scenario :)
In that sense, I don't subscribe to the notion that the only
option is to select between two kinds of smelly shit cause you
are left with shit in your hands no matter what and that is
clearly not the definition of democracy.
