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Published Tuesday, November 01, 2005 by e | E-mail this post

BloggingOn 7.1 - Clearing the Air (or) An Admission Before Diving In

I am a woefully underinformed member of society, politically speaking. Woefully and willfully. I don't watch TV, I don't listen to the radio, I sure as hell don't read the newspaper. Apart from a short-lived obsession with NPR, I have had little to no (news)media input for the last several years. I think I decided at some point that anything really important would find its way to me one way or another. That's been, more or less, true. I'm not familiar with the subtle nuances of the latest Supreme Court nominations, but I am aware that there was a chief justice replaced, and another seat opening soon... Miers was nixed and Alito (Scalito) is being vetted.

What the hell else do I need to know? Do I really need to know that much?

Analysis of my willfull ignorance could probably span several posts, but to put it frankly (in all its possibly naive, almost certainly cliched, but somehow completely sincere and yet pathetic glory) I don't feel that I as an individual have any substantial power to exert over the American political process. The amount of time that it would require for me to be informed enough to make a significant contribution is more than I would ever be willing to spend.

Look, I'll level with you. If I were going to send a postcard to Post Secret it might very well say something like:

I'm 27. I'm not registered to vote, and I'm not sorry. No, not at all.

Or, it might say something like this:

Everyone probably thinks I'm a liberal...

But that's an entirely different post.

2 Responses to “”

Bora Zivkovic on 8:47 AM

Is ignorance bliss?

Or does it make you unprepared for things that are going to happen?

Or does it make you boil live like a frog in a gradually heated pot of water?

Informed citizenry is the neccessary ingredient of democracy. In a nation where half or two-thirds of the population decide to hide their heads in the sand, democracy is too easy to subvert (as is happening right now).

If that same half or two-thirds of the population got informed and got involved, they would be extremely powerful. As in blogging, individual is powerless, but a network has real power.
e on 12:26 PM

I don't disagree, but that doesn't change much.

I have long felt that "democracy" wasn't worth my time or effort. That is to say, our "right to vote" can be used as an excuse for all sorts of nonsense. Isn't that part of the current political clime? "They" are "scared of our freedoms", right?

"If that same half or two-thirds of the population got informed and got involved, they would be extremely powerful."

I suppose. Maybe. I honestly think it would just mean more people voting and little else. The committment required to actually create change is more than substantial.

Why should signifcant amounts of my time and energy be required in order to keep "my" government from being derailed?

In all honesty, when I came of age I made a conscious decision not to register.

From John Cage's "Diary": Nevertheless, we know the best government's no government at all. We bow, not with a sense of duty, just to save our skins. We renounce priviliges of democracy. We dream of the day when no one knows who's President, because no one bothered to vote."

I'm not an anarchist (far from it actually), I just feel it's the governments job to take care of governing. I'd rather not be bothered. I would much prefer a dedicated "electorate" whose job it was to attend to these things. That had the intelligence and the common sense (and the damned moral-fibre) to know when something needed to be changed.