With all the enemies of the United States, there is one group that is as dangerous than all the others, if not more…and they don’t even know it.
It is the lazy, apathetic, easily led American citizen.
Let me give you an example. I know a man who can tell me all about Lebron James’ greatest defensive plays or Sam Bradford’s passing average in high school, but he doesn’t know who Harry Reid is or what he’s doing with his health care.
I don’t think he even knows who Ben Nelson is, let alone know about the Cornhusker Kickback. Not only doesn’t he know it, he doesn’t care. This guy is one of the biggest problems in America. He thinks it’s strange that I find his apathy problematic.
Often, when you challenge one of these types of people to start thinking about politics, they will tell you, “It doesn’t matter anyway. They are all crooks.” That is a cop-out. It’s an excuse to be lazy. But it is easier, and so they focus on basketball and football stats rather than their liberties. Don’t get me wrong. There’s room for both, but the willful ignorance of politics by such a large portion of the population is very dangerous.
Why? These are the people the internal enemies of liberty rely on. It is the intellectual laziness that allows the left to smear the right as racists or “fat cats.” It also allows the left to dangle new entitlements in front of them like a carrot to a mule, leading them further across the Bridge to Dependence.
This laziness leads to disturbing trends in thinking regarding freedom. For example, a recent survey by The American Revolution Center of Americans show how important certain rights are to them. And when I say “important,” I mean they were asked, “Is it essential that Americans have Freedom, important but not essential, or not that important?” Here’s how Americans answered. Americans that felt the right was essential is in red, essential but not important in teal and not that important in black: Only seventy percent of Americans find the right to speak freely about whatever you want to be an essential right.
Only 84 percent find the right to a fair trial essential. Now look at this one: Without the Second Amendment, what guarantees the others? The goodness of our Congress? The self control of the Federal government? Nothing does. Yet 55 percent of Americans don’t think it essential that we have a right to defend ourselves from threats, be it a burglar or a government.
Too many Americans are fat and happy and don’t understand how easy it would be to lose it all. To them, it’s too much trouble to care. And why should they? They are free enough.
This brings me to my biggest problem with Americans in general. Voters….or the lack thereof. Voter turnout in the United States is just about as bad as it can get. A few of the world’s democracies have even worse voter turnout than America does, but not many. Out of the 172 countries for which figures are available, this country ranks a sorry 139th – outranking only less developed nations such as Zambia.
There are approximately 186 million eligible voters in the United States (that is, citizens over eighteen years of age without a disqualification such as a felony conviction). Of that number, only 130 million – about seventy percent – are registered to vote. And only some of those actually do. According to the latest available reports, 111 million people voted in the last presidential election, and of all elections, presidential elections get the best turnout.
That means in the last presidential election, only sixty percent of the eligible voters, and eighty-five percent of the registered voters, went to the polls. Meanwhile, 75 million people who were eligible to vote did not do so.
This is a national disgrace. With each new generation, it gets worse. Reluctantly, I’m coming to the conclusion that there is only one solution: mandatory voting laws.
Requiring citizens to vote is no more restrictive than requiring them to register for the draft. And it is far less restrictive than requiring us, for example, to attend school; to serve on juries, possibly for weeks or months at a time; to pay taxes; or to serve in the military when drafted.
In sum, voting is the least a citizen can do for his or her country, and it is not unreasonable to ask U.S. citizens to do this minimal thing. This country should take first place in the world in voter participation – not compete with Zambia and others for last place.
Sadly, it is by now clear that citizen participation in our democracy cannot be obtained voluntarily. That means mandatory laws are our only option. Fortunately, assume we follow Australia’s example, as is likely, once we enact them, we will probably need to do little to enforce them. The message they send may be enough, or almost enough to convince voters to show up at the polls. It is long past time to do what Australia was wise enough to do almost eighty years ago, in 1924, and test such laws in this country.
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