Thursday, February 23, 2006

Bumper Sticker

I saw this great bumper sticker in a garage in downtown Sacramento:

DEMOCRACY IS NOT
A SPECTATOR SPORT

Truer words never written.

~Mike

6 comments:

neal said...

True, very true. I think apathy among those who are either registered or eligible to vote is one of the big problems in society today.

I also think that uninformed voting or participation in the election process is just about as bad. When someone makes a decision on who or what they are going to vote for solely because it will better their lives I think that sometimes they would have been better off not voting at all. People sometimes need to put their own welfare aside when casting a vote and think about what is best for the country overall.

For the most part though I think our founding fathers would have wanted every eligible citizen to pay attention to the issues that concerned them and make sure they participated in electing leaders that were worthy of their trust and the power of the office they were elected to.

Jinsane said...

I totally agree with Neal.

What a great sticker! I wouldn't mind having one of those.

UltimateWriter said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
UltimateWriter said...

The importance of voting on national and local levels cannot be stressed enough. The 2000 presidential election should have been a wakeup call that if more people had voted, a different, or at least unquestioned, outcome may have resulted. If someone feels strongly about a candidate or issue, chances are there are many others who feel the same way, but if they don't vote then the public at large misses its chance. It would be great to have some sort of initiative to make the "one vote doesn't make a difference" people understand the fact if everyone like them actually voted, a tangible change reflecting the opinions of the true majority would occur.

On the other hand, THE MAN might not want that type of initiative or education to spread.

Ellen said...

....yet somehow it's become a spectator sport.

I have a friend who vows to never vote, listen to, or discuss politics or religion. She says that no two people can ever agree on anything anyway. Needless to say, I tell her to just go on reading her People magazine, and don't complain about the state of affairs when it comes back to bite her in the butt... because it surely will.

A lot of people don't even realize how much their vote does count. It would have made a complete difference in 2000 if even 100 more people voted in Florida.

Voting is not just a priviledge or a right... it is a duty!

neal said...

I don't know where I read this but I do recall seeing that when you write an elected official they first look at your voting record to see if you actually have voted and how frequently. Then if they see you are actually participating in the election process they take your opinion and calculate that there are approximately 2500 other registred voters who feel the same way that you do on that particular issue.

I always look at it like Ellen said. If you don't participate you lose the right to complain about things that eventually will come to bite you in the ass.