"You've come a long way" or have you?

It has been almost five months since I blogged. Partially because I've been away and had forgotten that the blog existed, and also because while there seemed to be a lot to blog about, there was also plenty of news out there reporting the same things that I was seeing during my stint in Pakistan. Rising fuel prices, soaring inflation, power cuts, yada, yada, yada...

Today's post is not at all about that. It was going to be about my apprehensions about the 2008 US Presidential elections, but instead has shifted to a more general discourse (read: rant) about democracy and freedom.

Recently, I saw Craig Ferguson's (the guy who does the Late Late Show, the one after Letterman) monologue about voting and the duty of all Americans to do so. If you want to see it go to YouTube, it's all there, of course. It was an excellent, non-partisan commentary about taking part in democracy, I won't go into details because I think when most people hear the monologue, they will find themselves in agreement with Ferguson. What I did do after seeing the monologue was check out news articles about it. There were some interesting articles and, finally, one with reader comments. And as always, there was one that I just read and was stupefied by:

"Voting in and of itself is not a solution-- it may set us up for a bigger problem. When young, naive, pop-culturists vote because they're worked into a frenzy of irrational exuberance by well-marketed, fork-tongued devils, what might be the outcome? Let's start with a serious focus on educating our young on economics, history, world affairs, the Constitution and political science. The biggest drawback of democracy is the right of ignorant and stupid people to vote. The educated and aware will vote. The apathetic and foolish do us a service when they don't vote."

First of all...(imagine face of shock--jaw dropping)
Second of all...what?
Third of all...whoa...

I mean, where do you get off suggesting that young, naive people only vote for the "cooler" candidate? Given that statistically more elderly vote in elections and that elections are often characterised by people voting for the better-looking/more-charming etc etc candidate, really that isn't just a young phenomenon...

When I read posts like this, I wonder where the poster (postee?) gets the right to claim that by not voting people are doing a service to their country. I mean the last two presidential elections certainly prove that inadequate voter turnout, and apathy are not good things. And please, don't think that it's just stupid and ignorant people who don't vote, although I suppose one could argue that not voting and taking part in democracy is a mark of ignorance...

The implication that the fault of democracy lies in it's ability to give everyone the opportunity to participate in shaping the land and the laws that govern it is an insult of the highest order to all the people who fought to make democracy a reality in this country, from the founding fathers, to the suffragettes, to civil rights workers in the 20th century. Talk like this is eerily like an argument for eugenics or some such form of prejudice that coloured the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in America (oh yes, the Nazis weren't the first to tread this path).

Democracy is messy, there's no denying that. That is the glory of the system--it allows people the chance to disagree. A country of 300 million odd people will never all be satisfied at the results of an election--that is the nature of the beast. They can be satisfied, however, that they have been given the ooportunity to make their voice heard, even if in the end, their's was the "losing" side. The bottom line is democracy gives you freedom where other forms of government don't. "By the people, for the people" and all that jazz.

The only part I agree with in this ridiculous post is the bit where he/she says that we need to better educate the young about this country, it's history and it's current situation. Yes, we do need to move beyond a high school course of US history and government, and start encouraging youth to be more aware of world affairs and how the US is involved in the world as well as better knowledge about the political process both on the national and state level and on the city level.

But even in the absence of this, let's not suggest that there are people who shouldn't be voting. There are many problems with American governance, but these faults do not lie in giving each and every adult in this country the option to vote.