Truly, independentmind, I didn't take umbrage at your remarks. And I completely agree with your statement, above.
I wasn't thinking so much of the committed denizens of Second Realities (who may be hopeless cases for all I know), as much as of those "bystanders" who qualify as "normal" Americans, but who do nothing to exercise their responsibilities of citizenship. I mean, here we are, the United States of America, the only governmental system in the world premised on popular self-government. And your "average Joe in the street" is so busy with his personal life and fortunes that he doesn't have the time or the interest to get involved in the conduct of public life?
I am not alone in being thoroughly depressed by this, I am sure. The idea of the citizen who has no public role to play comes straight out of 19th-century German Idealism....
I understood what you meant. I can't remember a single time my parents, or the rest of my family ever voted. They have always tried to get by doing as little as possible. It took years to figure out how wrong all this was. But recent experiences have made me feel very much of two minds. On the one hand, one can never give up. On the other hand, I can't see it as anything but hopeless.
Freepers haven't done anything to increase my optimism any, especially recently. This article articulates what is wrong, but not what we can do about it. I look at California, that has universal health care for illegals but not for citizens, whose Governor is calling for things that didn't work in Soviet Russia and I feel like I'm in a Kafkaesque Fellini movie.