My mother used to lecture my sister and me about the importance of treating other people well; her (very outdated) measure of other women’s character was how they treated their maids.
Maids are in very short supply these days, but the sentiment remains valid. You can tell a lot about people by the way they treat subordinates or strangers.
Or–as I was recently reminded–by the way they act behind the wheel of a car.
My husband and I were driving home from South Carolina a couple of days ago and encountered one of those construction sites requiring the merger of two lanes of interstate traffic into one. Most of the affected motorists dutifully “lined up” when they first saw the signs, but there were several who immediately sped up–passing the patient/obedient drivers who were inching along waiting their turns, in order to get to the head of the line where a courteous person would allow them to merge ahead of the rest of us suckers.
This behavior, of course, further slowed the progress of everyone else.
Drivers who do this are sending a pretty clear message: “I matter, other people don’t, and if some of the schmucks obeying the signs are inconvenienced, I couldn’t care less.”
I can think of few behaviors that are more revealing of essential “assholery.”
These are the people who go through life making everything harder for the rest of us. If they had maids, they’d treat them badly.
The “War” Was Started By the John Birch Society: If you’ve never heard of the John Birch Society then you probably get a better night’s sleep than I do. Founder Robert Welch, a candy manufacturer, started off with a fairly legitimate organization dedicated to fighting communism in 1958, but like most people who made fighting communism a life-long goal what he started turned into a paranoid conspiracy that accused everything from fluoridation of water to the Book of the Month Club to being sinister, subliminal plots from hidden American commies to overthrow the capitalist nation.
One of their earliest campaigns, though, was the idea that Christ was being eradicated from Christmas celebrations as a classic communist strike at undermining religious belief in order to make people less able to resist the state. From the 1959 pamphlet “There Goes Christmas?!” by Hubert Kregeloh:
“The UN fanatics launched their assault on Christmas in 1958, but too late to get very far before the holy day was at hand. They are already busy, however, at this very moment, on efforts to poison the 1959 Christmas season with their high-pressure propaganda. What they now want to put over on the American people is simply this: Department stores throughout the country are to utilize UN symbols and emblems as Christmas decorations.”
An interesting response to recent, transparent efforts in several states to suppress the votes of “those people” has been the suggestion that America make voting mandatory. Many other democratic countries–notably Australia–require people to vote and fine those who don’t. (Actually, as I understand it, what is mandatory is appearance at the polls. There is apparently something akin to a “none of the above” option that will fulfill the legal obligation.)
If America ever did go to a “vote or pay a fine” system–something that we might do at about the same time pigs fly over a frozen hell–I’d lobby for a vote-by-mail system like the one in Washington State.
Be that as it may, what are the pros and cons–real and theoretical– of a mandatory voting law?
Arguments for such a system generally include the following: increased participation would ensure that election results mirror the preferences of the entire population, not just those sufficiently motivated to express those preferences at the polls. At least some percentage of the currently disengaged would take more interest in government and politics–knowing that they would have to cast a ballot, at least some Americans would make an effort to know something about the people on that ballot.
Arguably, universal turnout would require candidates to craft more inclusive messages, since targeting an ideological sliver would no longer be the path to victory. (That targeting is one reason for our currently polarized politics.) Candidates and parties would also save a lot of money and effort currently spent on GOTV (get out the vote) efforts. The role of money in politics would thus abate somewhat.
So what are the cons, the arguments against mandatory voting?
Requiring people to vote would assure the participation of low-interest, arguably uninformed people, “alphabet voters” who would simply pull a lever in order to avoid a fine. (You can lead a voter to the polls, but you can’t force him to think.) A fine would fall most heavily on the poor and disadvantaged–the very people who have difficulty getting to the polls in our current system.
The most compelling argument against mandating voting is a First Amendment one: the Supreme Court has recognized that, just as government cannot censor what Americans say, the government cannot compel Americans to speak. If voting is compelled speech, if it is tantamount to an endorsement our electoral system, then requiring people to cast a ballot would be unconstitutional. (Proponents respond to this argument by pointing out that jury duty is mandatory, and that participation on a jury can be seen as an endorsement of the justice system.)
At least one scholar has suggested that–rather than making voting mandatory (which we are highly unlikely to do)–we should work to make elections more competitive, because turnout increases when voters have meaningful choices.
In Rome, the tactic was “Bread and Circuses.” Food was distributed and big spectacles were staged with Christians and lions or gladiators, all to distract and preoccupy the masses.
Our current overlords seem to have forgotten the bread part of the equation, but the Romans would be absolutely green with envy if they could see how adept our politicians and their fellow-travelers have become at mounting “Circuses.”
What race was Santa? (Ignore the fact that Santa is imaginary.) Get out there and fight the (equally imaginary) War on Christmas! OMG–the President ACTUALLY SHOOK HANDS with Raul Castro–cue up the Impeachment Brigade! And there’s Sarah Palin (a walking, semi-literate Circus all by herself), warning good, “real” Americans about the growing Atheist Threat.
And on and on.
Our pitifully inadequate media (I won’t dignify most of them by calling them journalists) dutifully spend their time reporting this drivel, and ignoring subjects that should matter to citizens in a rational universe. State and local corruption flourishes as coverage evaporates; nationally, bought-and-paid-for Congressmen and Senators pass legislation benefitting their donors and patrons at the expense of other Americans.
But we don’t care, because–look over there at the shiny object!–Obama is a Muslim! The Gays are coming for your children! Somewhere, some slutty woman is using birth control, and White Jesus wouldn’t like that!
I was pretty exasperated by my undergraduate class this semester: their lack of interest in government, politics and policy was matched only by their inability to write a grammatical sentence. (This is most definitely not typical. Generally, SPEA students are pretty engaged with policy—they are, after all, enrolled in a school of public affairs.)
Although there were exceptions, this semester, my undergraduates were intellectually inert–unaware of current events, unfamiliar with news media (online or off), and generally passive about most of the issues of the day. (The exception, interestingly, was same-sex marriage, for which most of them expressed strong support.)
As the semester went on, I became increasingly frustrated, and as a result I did something I’d never previously done: I added an entirely optional “extra credit” question to the take-home examination.
During the semester, I have noticed—and expressed concern about—the lack of interest in current events, politics and policy displayed by a significant percentage of this class. Answering only for yourself, what would it take to make you take an interest in public affairs? What would make you a regular reader of media accounts of current events and policy debates? What would it take to engage you in political discussions and activities? (If you are engaged—why?)
Most of the students chose to answer the question (they needed the extra points!), and I was struck by the consistency of their responses. They claimed that they don’t follow the news because they don’t trust the news media.
Over and over, students characterized the current media environment as polarizing and unreliable. They were skeptical of the accuracy of reporting, going so far as to suggest that politically partisan sources don’t simply engage in spin, but actually “make stuff up.”
And they painted with a broad brush—they didn’t distinguish between the more obviously partisan reporting from Fox News and MSNBC and more trustworthy sources like the New York Times or (locally) the IBJ.
One student wrote, “Perhaps, if I knew of a credible source that I could rely on to just report facts, I’d be willing to spend the time to know more.”
Although I would argue that disengagement is the worst possible response to this phenomenon–if, indeed, distrust was what was motivating their indifference– these students aren’t entirely wrong.
Those of us who have followed the efforts of traditional newspapers to survive in an electronic era have bemoaned the loss of much local news coverage, the layoffs of investigative reporters and the replacement of hard news with “soft” human interest and “how-to” features. Fewer and fewer news sources are offering what we used to call “the news of verification.” The explosion of all-news cable channels and the twenty-four-hour “news hole” have encouraged a rush to be first, and damn the accuracy.
A great irony of our current media environment is that while we are awash in information, the credibility of that information has steadily diminished. Students look at the news media—traditional press, bloggers, television news, the constant messages via twitter and Facebook—and they see an undifferentiated mass of propaganda, “infotainment” and sensationalism.
A common advertising come-on for newspapers these days is “news you can use.”
Apparently, what we really need is “news you can trust.”
