Democracy Or Idiotracy?
If you watch and listen to news reports you have probably heard the word "democracy" used a great deal, especially lately! And invariably, it is almost always regarded as a term with POSITIVE connotations -- especially AMERICAN democracy. It's a GOOD thing... right? Well, here's a thought.
Government OF the people, BY the people, and FOR the people is a wonderful concept... AS LONG AS the PEOPLE are well educated, fully aware, actively involved, genuinely interested, and reasonably civilized. But with each passing day, and each developing news story, I become more convinced that Americans have crapped out, and ARE GETTING exactly the kind of society they deserve!
Yes, I know it is dangerous and unfair to generalize, so I won't use any absolutes here, OK? Not ALL, not EVERY, not EVERYWHERE, not NO ONE! But for these I will substitute "SUBSTANTIALLY LARGE PERCENTAGE!"
It is said that one of Winston Churchill's favorite sayings was that "a ten minute conversation with the average American is all it takes to understand what's wrong with democracy!" And I have no doubt that such an assessment is even more true now than when he made it! We have become borderline literate (most newspapers and magazines are written at the fifth grade level), extremely unrealistic in our growing sense of entitlements (city services, child care, idle entertainment, health care, and so on) while we complain constantly about taxes, corruption, greed, waste, and bad behavior while actually demonstrating all of these on a daily basis.
I've been saying for many years that to judge a society just look at how it spends its money! We spend HUGE amounts of money on fashions, sex, violence, drugs, junk food, and hedonism of almost every imaginable kind. At the same time, nurses and teachers at every level are poorly paid and overworked. Educational funding and social services nationwide are miniscule compared to other trivialities like new sports complexes, recreation centers, highways, airports, corporate lobbying, and new shopping centers.
Considering that almost fifty percent of eligible voters stayed home in the last two national elections, and over 90 percent of the adult population has NEVER even tried to communicate with their elected representatives, I'd say we're getting pretty much the kind of government and society we deserve!
