The reason why we cannot have nice things

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

In the coming weeks, the opinion writers of the Arizona Republic are going to extoll the virtues of being a "no party registraton" (independent) voter while trying to convince you that the Open Government/Open Primary initiative is a good way to get more "moderate" Republicans elected to office. Democrats are "irrelevant" to them (as are apparently the more than 40% of Arizona voters who are their constituents).

This despite the fact that the head cheerleader for this half-baked idea, Laurie Roberts, acknowledges that "Independents" cannot be bothered to take a few minutes to vote in party primaries in which they are allowed to participate. 88 percent of independents didn’t vote in the 2010 primary, and so far in 2012, despite Laurie Robert's "Operation Dekookification" of the Tea-Publican Party and her pleas for independents to vote in the GOP primary, LaurieRoberts – Want to dekook? Then you need to get de ballot:

There are 626,633 independents in Maricopa County alone. Of that, 299,674 asked to be put on the permanent early voting list.

Thus far, only 25,376 of them – a pitiful 8 percent — have requested a ballot for the Aug. 28 primary.

Given that three quarters of voters cast their ballots by mail, it appears that independents are once again taking a pass this year.

Democracy is a participation sport, it is not a spectator sport. The civic duty of a good citizen is to take the time to get informed on the issues and the candidates, and to participate in the electoral process, and yes, the political process.

These voters have a plethora of excuses for having "checked out" of the electoral process and abandoned their civic duty to be a good citizen, none of them vaild.

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The vast majority are politically disengaged and either uninformed or misinformed on the issues and candidates (just catch Jay Leno's Jay Walking segment sometime), and they are "too busy" to be bothered to vote. It's a wonder they ever took the time to register to vote.

This is the reason why we cannot have nice things. Americans are abandoning the political process to the super-wealthy elite, and the politically connected and powerful. They are lost in their "bread and circuses" of cable TV programming, internet porn, video games and cell phone apps, entertaiment and sports. All the while Ceasar — the global corporatists — are preparing to cross the Rubicon and bring an end to our Republic.

This is borne out in a poll released this week by Suffolk University:

Suffolk University-USA TODAY Poll – Aug. 15, 2012

Nearly 40 percent of adult U.S. citizens will stay away from the polls this coming November, but if these Americans were to vote, President Barack Obama would coast to a second term in office, according to a Suffolk University-USA TODAY (.pdf) nationwide survey of unregistered and unlikely voters.

That is some 90 million registered voters who will not vote in November. That does not include the millions more who are eligible to vote but who have not registered to vote. And it does not include the upwards of 5 million registered voters who will try to vote but whose vote will not be counted due to GOP voter suppression laws. Voting Law Changes in 2012 | Brennan Center for Justice.

If you want to get rid of our "less-than-do-nothing" Tea-Publican Congress, 14 reasons why this is the worst Congress ever, also Congress Hits All-Time Low Again With 10 Percent Approval Rating, and end the "gridlock" in the Senate that is the result of seditious obstruction by Tea-Publican filibusters of even the most mundane housekeeping legislation, Gridlock in Congress? Blame the GOP, then you are going to have to put down the TV remote and get up off the couch and, at a minimum, take the few minutes it takes to cast a ballot. More is required of you to satisfy your duty to be a good citizen.

The same goes for replacing our lawless legislature and Governor who are imposing a Tea-Publican tyranny on the citizens of Arizona only because the citizens of Arizona are politically disengaged and either uninformed or misinformed on the issues and candidates, and are "too busy" to be bothered to vote. They have "checked out" of the political process.

As President Abraham Lincoln long ago warned us:

"Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step over the ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! — All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a Thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."

1 thought on “The reason why we cannot have nice things”

  1. Great post. On the top two primary thing, I think it was very telling when a former Phoenix Mayor and spokesman for this initiative Paul Johnson let it slip during a Channel 8 debate that the backers don’t really care about increasing turnout. Of course they don’t. It’s about favoring candidates with the most access to money.

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