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Politics : Clinton's Scandals: Is this corruption the worst ever? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: greenspirit who wrote (8337)	10/15/1998 11:08:00 PM
From: jbe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13994

All too many people have become completely cynical about the whole political process. They don't follow it, they don't think voting matters, and so they don't vote. Alas, so true, Michael. And as a result, we have had essentially minority governments for years, from the national level all the way down to the local level. Case in point. For years, I lived in a small New England town, which had the purest form of democracy, the Town Meeting. Everything related to Town Government (including the school budget) had to be brought before the Town Meeting for a vote by the citizenry. Absolutely nothing "corrupt" about the political process. So who actually came out? The members of the Taxpayers Association, for the most part retirees who had summer homes in the town, and had no interest whatsoever in paying taxes to support the local schools. They would turn out in force, meeting after meeting, to vote down the school budget. The parents of school-age kids (that is, the majority of the residents)would then yell and holler... but hey, why didn't they come to the Town Meeting at which the vote was held? So it is, that a determined minority so frequently carries the day. As for all this talk about what "the people" think...Well, they probably do think what they say they think. The real question is, are they going to vote? If not, it very well may be that a determined minority is again going to carry the day. Joan