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The View From the Ground - 9/14/00

By Patrick J. Shanahan

Relax, Stay Home (And for God's Sake, Don't Vote!)

One of the most frightening trends of our time is the quadrennial propaganda campaign aimed at “getting out the vote.” Not the entirely understandable efforts of Candidate A to get his people to the polls, but rather the mindless “generic” effort to get as many people as possible to vote, for no apparent reason other than to get as many people as possible to vote. This is led by the same forces who wail every four years because the voter turnout is not “high” enough.

Let me tell you something. I have seen what happens when people who have never voted show up at the polls. They elect celebrity morons like Jesse Ventura. Contrary to the “Rock the Vote” crowd, high turnouts by ignorant voters are not only less than beneficial, they positively corrupt democracy.

Democracy requires more than voting, it requires self-government. Voting is just one public manifestation of self-government, it is the "shove" that keeps the wheels of democracy moving. Self-government ensures that the tracks are pointing in the right direction.

What do I mean by "self-government"? I think it means the active pursuit of knowledge and understanding on the part of the citizen. It means actively seeking out issues, reading newspapers and magazines, discussing and debating approaches and alternatives, making a conscious effort to understand the major concerns facing our towns, states and nation. It means acting not as simply a payer of taxes, a recipient of services and a follower of edicts, but acting as an active partner in the democracy.

Then, and only then, does it mean voting. Voting ought to be the exclamation point of an ongoing process.

Those who engage in active self-government, whatever their party affiliation or philosophy, will almost certainly vote. For them voting is a logical extension of self-government. By contrast, persistent failure to vote is frequently a symptom of a lack of self-government. But to participate in voting without the discipline of self-government is to engage in mob rule, not democracy. A person who ignores politics and government, then shows up once every fours years to vote is no more a good citizen than a person who goes to church once a year on Christmas is a good Catholic.

To paraphrase Paul Erlich, giving an ignorant voter a ballot is like giving an idiot child a machine gun. Nonetheless, the maintenance of democracy (as is reflected in the Constitution) demands that voting be an absolutely undeniable right. It would be wrong and stupid to prevent the blissfully ignorant from voting. But let's at least stop encouraging them!

In fact, there are some fairly easy guidelines we as citizens can follow in order to determine whether or not we should vote:

• If you cannot name your state’s two senators and your district’s Congressman, Don’t Vote.

• If you watch Jerry Springer more than once a month, Don’t Vote.

• If your decision on whom to vote for is based on how funny the candidates are on Oprah or Letterman, Don’t Vote.

• If you pay no taxes, Don’t Vote.

• If you cannot understand the English language, Don’t Vote.

• If the candidates’ preferences in undergarments has any relevance at all to you, Don’t Vote.

• If your motivation to vote depends on whether or not it is raining on election day, Don’t Vote (even if it is sunny).

• If you have never read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and thought about what they really mean, Don’t Vote.

• If your only source of news and information is network TV, please Don’t Vote.

Our Founding Fathers engaged in a radical experiment when they sent this democracy on its merry way. They knew that democracy on this scale would be a dicey proposition, which is why they almost unanimously felt that its citizens would need to possess two characteristics. They must be virtuous (hence the early emphasis on the importance of religion in public life) and they must be informed. The past eight years have cinched it that we as a nation now laugh at the concept of virtue. If we intend to also do away with the expectation that voters be informed and active participants in their own government, we may as well stop fooling ourselves and skip right to the corrupt mob-rule stage of democratic decline.

But you can do something to help. If you meet one of the criteria listed above, or if you simply do not care that much about “politics,” you can take a positive step to help your country and preserve democracy: just relax, stay home, and for God’s sake don’t vote!

I thank you, and the Founding Fathers thank you.