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The View From The Ground
11/4/98
Self Government
When I pulled up to my cutesy small-town polling establishment on election day I was taken aback by the line snaking its way out the door and almost into the street. As my urge to vote was greater than my impatience with lines, I resigned myself to a half hour or so in queue.
After I had been in line for no more than a minute, a kindly gray haired election official poked his head out the door and asked "Anybody here who has already registered?" To my great surprise, mine was the only hand that went up. What on earth were these people doing here if they were not registered? I found out as I glided past the line to get my ballot: they were new voters registering on the spot. It was at this point that I knew with certainty that Jesse Ventura would be elected Governor of Minnesota.
Normally apathetic non-voters don't stroll down to the polls at 7:30 at night to register and unless they are driven by a strange passion. But here they were, and I suspect they were also in every other polling station in the state. They were the people with whom Jesse "The Body", former professional wrestler and personality extraordinaire, personally resonated.
The day after the election the media in Minnesota saw this as a good thing. Voter participation was higher than expected, and we just have to pat ourselves on the back. All of these youngsters and never-before voters participating in the process. Sure signs that democracy is alive and vibrant in Minnesota, you betcha. Across the country the media echoes this theme: high turnouts are unequivocally good, the biggest problem in modern American democracy is apathy, etc....
Once again I seem to find myself on the opposite side of the fence. 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 country. 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 is 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 particpate in voting without the discipline of self-government is to engage in mob rule, not democracy.
To paraphrase some famous liberal/radical (Paul Erlich, maybe?), 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 try to stop the blissfully ignorant from voting. But for God's sake let's stop encouraging them!
If they choose not to participate as active partners in the democratic experiment, that's fine. But when they lurch out of their chairs and away from the deadly magnetism of Jerry Springer or Monday Nitro, and head down to the voting booth to cast their ballot for Jesse Ventura, or anyone else, solely because they think he's "cool", or they like his action figure commercials, or he's cute, they cheapen democracy. And that's nothing to crow about.