This democracy stuff is good. I totally agree with your closing that it's a horrible form of government although far superior to all the other lesser forms we've discovered up until now.

I'll be the first to admit I come down with cases of high-on-myself-itis from time to time. My fatalism argument doesn't make a whole lot of sense now that I read through it again. You're right that voting is important because big blocs of people can get things done. But ay, there's the rub. There is a contradiction between the emphasis western culture places on individualism and the amount of power an individual vote holds.

In 2000 Bush got 35% of the hispanic vote. In 2004 he got 45% of the hispanic vote. Why because of his weak stance on immigration. Single woman overwhelmingly vote Democrat. Why? Becuase Democrats are for killing the unborn and single women want to maintain that right.

Your vote, your one and only vote, only counts insofar as you are willing to sheepishly proxy it over to an abstract group that supposedly represents you. Furthermore, people like to talk about the "hispanic" vote and the "black" vote and the "woman" vote as if all these groups of people are conducting secret meetings and coming to a general consensus about how they feel on every issue. That's not how it happens, but that's how the analysts like to portray it.

A lot of individuals vote, and those votes have overlaps in definable groups. The question is, do the groups overlap because the groups told all the individuals within it to vote in such-and-such a way; or do they overlap because in retrospect we attached labels of voting bloc to things?

I know this argument doesn't hold up to the conservative vs liberal ideology. People identify on a personal level as either conservative or liberal. Why? Who knows. I decided to take political affiliation out of my personal identity a while ago. There are many more important things to identify with, being a brother, being a student, being a writer, etc...

People, for the most part (citing that infamous poli 41 class again), are symbolically conservative yet functionally liberal. Nobody is for taking money away from schools or helping sick people or providing for retirement. But once you start calling those things medicare and social security, then those political biases come back into play--the labels themselves, the conservative/liberal, is part of the problem. Maybe the whole> problem.

Sorry this turned into a naive political essay by a 19-year-old know-nothing. As you can see, I'm disenfranchised with politics at the moment. People have been ruling the world for a long time in various forms, and from what I can tell, there's always problems, and nobody's ever as free as their government tells them they are.

PS: i'm deathly afraid of being enslaved to a car payment, mortgage on a house, etc.. and all those other things most of our parents so readily embraced as the "american dream."

have been kicking around the idea of writing this for a while. here she is (an indirect rebuttal to fitz):

Voter turnout at this year’s municipal elections was pretty low—4% among students and 14% for everyone else. Assuming someone carried a simple majority, this means 7.1% of the population put our officials into power. Pathetic by any measure.

Everyone’s playing the blame game as to why people don’t care, but it’s really not that simple. People do care; it’s just that rational people don’t vote. You know why? Because voting is not a rational act.

I’m sure there’s probably a lot more complicated math involved, but to the layperson his or her chances of tipping the outcome can be calculated simply by taking a percentage of “1 / x” where “x” is the number of voters in a given election. With just a thousand participants, the likelihood of changing the outcome is a tenth of a percent. Even a four-year old can discern that them odds ain’t good.

Because of this, all rational people reach the same conclusion, which is, “my vote doesn’t count.” I myself did not vote for the reasons listed above, and one should not confuse or misconstrue that as “he must not have cared.” The system still works, and assuming "I don't care" implies an indifference to the world impossible, even for me, to justify.

“But David, if everyone thinks like you, then just one person can elect someone.”

Duh. Didn’t you read what I just wrote? 7.1% of the population elected the people that will be governing all 100% of it. We’re quickly approaching that hypothetical “one person elects everyone” situation. This begs the question: if rational people don’t vote, who does?

It’s like one of my professors used to explain. Native Americans probably knew that a rain dance wasn’t likely to make it rain. However, when faced with a drought, the social structures are strained, and the dance does more than “bring rain.” It brings everyone together, pools resources, and reminds them that they’re all there to help each other through this thing, whatever it is.

So you see, voting isn’t about actively changing the government with a concrete purpose in mind. Rather, voting is a symbolic process whose main importance is to perform a social catharsis. No one actually believes that voting itself is going to change the world, let alone change it for the better. It’s merely a reshuffling of the deck—same cards, new hands.

Let’s use another hypothetical for a moment. Candidate X, the incumbent, and candidate Y, the challenger, in any given election, are ten times out of ten, negligibly different from one another.

In high school all of us could agree that the election for class president was just one big popularity contest. We each knew that nothing about the school or its running was going to change no matter who won. However, the biggest mistake we’ve made thus far is our belief that this somehow changed between then and now, because it hasn’t.

There’s a power structure currently in place so heavily dogmatized that anyone, no matter what their intelligence or claims to morality, when placed into a political position, will almost always make the same exact decisions. I say almost always because exceptions, of course, must be made. That’s the human element, because some people aren’t rational (like the people who still vote), and there are always potential “x-factors.” This is why politics and social sciences aren’t formulaic like math. Because simplifying life into symbols and algebra is like trying to divide by zero.

The system I’m talking about is the threat of losing power. Politicians are all afraid to lose elections, so elected officials will always act with constituents interests in mind, to a greater or lesser extent.

So yes, we do care, but no, we don’t vote because it doesn’t matter who wins. The system has established the decision-maker’s interests, and thus it follows that all decisions will reasonably be the same no matter who makes them. Everyone is fallible, and anyone in power is just as likely to make mistakes or to be great as anyone else. None of us are so smart as to know who will be better or worse beforehand, so all we do is make guesses by voting in elections. And guessing, my friends, well, that’s democracy.

Some of you noticed, I’m sure, the Daily Tar Heel editorial objecting to the fact that one of Carolina Review’s writers wrote an article advocating voting but did not vote in her own local elections. The editorial went on to name several other prominent campus figures – including three members of Seth Dearmin’s cabinet and a Daily Tar Heel columnist – who did not vote in their local elections. All of this finger pointing about who did and didn’t vote, however, is distracting from the main issue, namely, that few people are voting in local elections.

Based on liberal ideology this isn’t much of a problem. By definition, liberals in America want more government, more federal programs, and more central regulation of people’s lives. The local arena is just a testing ground for more important state and federal policies. To liberals, therefore, local elections do not hold much importance when compared to state and federal elections.

From a conservative or libertarian standpoint, however, local elections should hold vast importance. Libertarians want little or no government control over their lives, while conservatives clearly want to limit the powers of the federal government. Both ideologies clearly base themselves on the power and rights of the individual and try to limit government’s influence over the individual. As a result, the level of government closest to the individual – the local level – should hold the most importance.

Most individuals will never have an effect on the federal government. On the local level, however, the individual can make an important impact. In Durham, NC, where I am registered to vote, for instance, our lovely city government appointed Marcia Conner as city manager in 2001. Unfortunately, Ms. Conner was unqualified for the job (she had not graduated from a management program that she claimed to have graduated from), violated city policy, and was unable to hire a police chief. Once all of these problems were exposed, several citizens banded together and organized a petition calling for Conner’s resignation. In the face of the petition, Conner was forced to resign. Local individuals were able to challenge and change the local government with a few weeks of effort. Could they have caused the same changes had Ms. Conner been the Secretary of State? Probably not.

Still, many will argue that the local elections are not important. After all, your county’s government is not going to solve the Social Security problem or, with the exception of Carrboro, NC, try to stop the war in Iraq.

While local politics may not be sexy, that doesn’t mean that local elections are unimportant. Schools, garbage collection, and property taxes are just some of the very important actions under the direct control of local governments. Don’t believe me? Look at the difference between the Chapel Hill and Durham school systems. Chapel Hill voters place high importance on the school system and provide bonuses to all teachers so that they will come to Chapel Hill. As a result, Chapel Hill’s schools are the best in North Carolina. Durham, meanwhile, is plagued by an ineffectual and racially divided school board. Not surprisingly Durham’s schools are among the worst in the state.

The point is not to advocate more spending on schools. Instead, the point is that local government has a real impact. Local governments have important responsibilities and your city council can truly influence your day-to-day life. For libertarians and conservatives this is a good thing. Individuals, the starting-point of both political theories, can have tremendous influence on the local government. Citizens can hold local officials directly responsible for their actions. And if things get really out of hand, a concerned citizen can run for office without spending a fortune or having to move.

So before we conservatives start complaining about the federal government and its plethora of policies that we will probably never change, let’s take a look at our local governments. Get informed about the politics. Get involved with the system. Get out and vote.

On the local level you can make a difference.

Brian you almost said something brilliant with your feminism post. Almost.

Feminism has been and always will be about choice. It's about not being relegated to a docile set of duties in the home, but being allowed to take part in society in any way you choose--whether that be as a "housewife" or out in the workforce.

The stereotype, as handed down to us by cultural norms and historical practice, is that men go out and engage each other in economic activity while women stay at home to raise the family. Some people try to defend it as "specialization of labor" that is "inherently more stable," and to that, I say, what a load of crap.

You were right, though. It is selfish to want both a highpowered career and a loving family. Just be ready to admit that life is an inherently selfish enterprise, each of us taking it upon him-/herself to acquire as much happiness as possible without putting the happiness of others at risk of injury (thanks Mill).

Marriage is a partnership, a 50/50 split, and it's as much give as it is take. That being said, if a couple wants both, then they have to accept equal obligation. None should feel more "duty" to home than to work, and BOTH must make sacrifices. And if that means a couple decides, as a unit, that one will work while the other stays at home, then by all means we should stay out. We lack the personal knowledge, not to mention the authority, to pass moral judgement on how other people decide to set up their homes. There is no gold standard. Templates, maybe. But that's the beauty of being human. The rejection, adaptation, and manipulation of templates to suit our needs, to find that happiness. Cookie-cutters are for baking, not the creation of families.

On to the next subject: Christmas.

Christmas lost its meaning a long time ago. You know who killed it? That fat bastard in the red suit. I asked my 9-year old stepbrother one time a simple question. "Why do we celebrate Christmas?" You know what he said? Nothing. He just sat there, and thought and thought and thought, and didn't have an answer.

"It's Jesus' birthday," I told him.

"Like, the day he was born?"

"Yes."

"How old is He?" (I, of course, am adding the capitalization here for him. I doubt he would have known.)

"Oh, not so old--2000 years or so. Do you know why we celebrate?"

Stumped again.

"We celebrate because God sent Him to die for us so we could be saved."

More silence.

"Saved from what?"

"Ourselves, mostly. You know those kids that are bullies at your school? Do you think its right what they do to other kids?"

"No."

"Right, that's sin. There's lots of other kinds, but you'll figure them out later. But basically, Jesus was sent to die for us and pay for our sins, because none of us can be good enough people on our own--actually we kind of suck at being people."

More silence.

"David?"

"Yea Nick?"

"If it's Jesus' birthday, why don't we make him a birthday cake?"

Obviously my philosophical indictment of the human race was mostly lost on him, but suddenly I was the silent one. "I don't know."

And so, from that year forward, our family, in an attempt to add what little meaning we could in an age of hyper-consumption and secular institutionalism, have baked Jesus a birthday cake. We even sing that horribly written, acoustically unappealing song; but we do it so lovingly I don't think God really minds.

The point I was trying to make is that Christmas only loses as much meaning as you allow it to. Religion is an extremely personal thing, and its a process--one that requires constant questioning and interpretation, lest we all become lemmings content to accept anything we hear on our march over a cliff a la The Walrus and the Carpenter. You can't force anyone to believe anything. A whole bunch of crusades and persecution throughout the centuries should stand as evidence of that. I know Christianity assumes this "we're right and everyone else is wrong" type of mentality, (I am the way... no one comes to the Father but by me spells it out pretty clearly); but we have to remember that we are not God, we are people, and none of it is for us to decide or judge. Most of the time I have enough trouble worrying about David Hodges.

So to respond directly to the Wampler, taking the word "Christmas" off of buildings or out of phrases doesn't bother me one way or the other. Those aren't the places where Christmas is. Christmas is a part of my faith, and my faith isn't on a wall or in a "Christmas tree" lot. It's within me and everyone else who believes. To hell with everyone else.