I'm going to make this short.
Election turn out has grown smaller in America. Fewer and fewer people are voting.
The percentage of Americans voting, however contains a greater percentage of active participation in the process than in other countries.
So a majority of a minority is having a greater impact than the actual majority.
Why is this?
Why are people not voting?
1. No faith in the process
2. No confidence in the results
3. Apathy.
Now I know that those are three problems. But maturity dictates that people are able to accept the fact that in a democracy, that they are not always going to get what they want. The faith issue is because good honest people who have the population's interests at heart are anywhere else but in the political spectrum. Instead, we have the sterotypical selfish, self centered dude who either
A: Wants oil from Iraq, and obviously therefore votes from Haliburton, which obviously runs the country.
or B: Wants to garner support by calling shit down on how wrong the Iraq war is or stuff.
Now the problem here is twofold, in this case. There really aren't good candidates, but it's up to a person to decide if they want to dirty their hands or not. Not much to be done there.
The other side is that people don't care anymore. They have lost confidence in politics, and reason that nothing good comes from them, and therefore do not care. Therefore, the majority plays a very small part in what is supposed to be a representative process.
if people are not active and critical participants in the process, and don't partake in it, there are always other people who are very willing to take advantage of apathy.
So that's the problem. Now how do you cure apathy?
Darn. I thought I said this was going to be short! >:(
