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Politics : Al Gore vs George Bush: the moderate's perspective -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: scoobypax who wrote (1339)	10/5/2000 5:40:36 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10042

This can be taken wrong, but education is an essential component for an informed electorate. Many people who don't vote, probably shouldn't. If democracy was always a good thing then justice could be done by lynch mobs. Good government is a process, probably more so than the actual voting. If I was a dictator of a small third world country and wanted to legitimize my position, I'd offer a free loaf of bread and a week's reprieve from beatings to anyone who voted for me. That ain't democracy in my book. In general what you want is higher levels of participation in society by all people. If and when that happens, the voting "problem" will take care of itself. In the mean time, polarization hides the fact that so many are not fully participating. I am thankful that I was born to a family that valued education as opposed to an urban slum where survival at any cost was required. I doubt my values would be the same if I'd not been educationally privileged. Or that I'd care much about voting.

To: scoobypax who wrote (1339)	10/5/2000 7:49:21 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10042

I think less than 5% of the eligible voter population votes. If you figure that a majority of black males have gone through the justice system in some way and that once convicted of a "felony", including victimless, non-violent crimes such as drug possession, you are permanently stripped of your right to vote, you have an interesting new form of vote restriction, don't you? I did the calculation once. In a really good election turn out, 30% of the population votes. Resident aliens, illegals, former felons, mentally ill, retarded, infirm, sick, dying, homeless and children excluded, in a close election, the winner has less than a 15% "mandate" of the people you see out your car window. ipl.org