[Peace-discuss] Voting

[John W.]

At 01:03 PM 3/28/2007, Bob Illyes wrote:

>I grant you that the Wikipedia is not extremely reliable. The trouble
>is that nothing else is either. The error rate in any published
>material is rather high, and all must be taken with a grain of salt.
>In engineering, there's something called a handbook engineer, which is
>someone who believes everything in engineering handbooks is correct,
>and designs based on them alone. Stay away from things such a person
>designs.
>
>Does anyone know from what they consider a more reliable source, such
>as perhaps the books Marti mentioned, whether Mr. Carlin does in fact
>not vote?
>
>Of the folks who could register to vote, a third did not bother to
>register. This is an extremely hard-won right, yet this many folks
>are indifferent to it. I fear that the country is drowning in a sea
>of cynicism.


Or perhaps it is just some of us on this list who are drowning in a sea of 
cynicism and despair.  As Carlin pointed out, fully HALF of the population 
is EVEN STUPIDER than the average American.  And in a nation where MORE 
than half, as N. Dahlheim has recently made us aware, cannot locate either 
Iraq or Louisiana on a map, that's pretty stupid indeed.

There was a time when I was optimistic about America.  It seemed to be 
moving forward in terms of civil liberties, environmental awareness, 
etc.  I now get discouraged because I have lived through 27 years of the 
most debilitating conservatism, during which time the nation has regressed 
to an almost infantile state.  And by the time the "mess gets fixed", if 
indeed it can be fixed, I will be dead.

Plus unlike most of you, I am not economically insulated from the whims of 
our plutocratic rulers.  I can assure you that your own prosperity takes 
some of the edge off of your cynicism, which becomes for you a largely 
intellectual exercise.