http://jimbovard.com/blog/2009/02/17/epigrams-from-attention-deficit-democracy-2006/ Author James Bovard Sat, 11 Feb 2012 22:37:13 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.3 http://jimbovard.com/blog/2009/02/17/epigrams-from-attention-deficit-democracy-2006/#comment-119836 Jim Thu, 19 Feb 2009 03:46:22 +0000 http://jimbovard.com/blog/?p=709#comment-119836 Dirk, your opening line is a fine epigram in itself! Dirk, your opening line is a fine epigram in itself!

]]> http://jimbovard.com/blog/2009/02/17/epigrams-from-attention-deficit-democracy-2006/#comment-119811 Dirk W. Sabin Wed, 18 Feb 2009 16:17:15 +0000 http://jimbovard.com/blog/?p=709#comment-119811 "Democracy" is the bait and switch of American Politics. It allows the ruling Establishment to divert attention away from the captured representative government with sentimental stories and open-ended promises. If the citizen realized that they were not participants in a Democracy but were instead, part of the checks and balances of a Republic, they might work a little harder at selecting their Representatives and insuring that these same Representatives are not bought by Special Interests. This persistent notion that we are a Democracy and not a Democratic Republic has really devalued the importance of being a citizen in this country. People think that it is simply a matter of popularity and that their individual vots are as important as the other mechanisms of the government. As a result, they satisfy themselves with the role of spectator and think that pulling the lever is the chief obligation. It isn't. Even the politicians now are reduced to this mob thinking of a Democracy...they are automatons of the poll, following the whims of the media and technocratic pollsters like they are a pack of dogs trailing a garbage truck . Perhaps the dysfunction afoot is a result of our slow turning of the screw into a defacto-democracy , further compounding the hilarious dark comedy of it by attempting to inflict democracy in places of the globe where tribal realities encourage the blood sport tendencies of Democracy. “Democracy” is the bait and switch of American Politics. It allows the ruling Establishment to divert attention away from the captured representative government with sentimental stories and open-ended promises. If the citizen realized that they were not participants in a Democracy but were instead, part of the checks and balances of a Republic, they might work a little harder at selecting their Representatives and insuring that these same Representatives are not bought by Special Interests. This persistent notion that we are a Democracy and not a Democratic Republic has really devalued the importance of being a citizen in this country. People think that it is simply a matter of popularity and that their individual vots are as important as the other mechanisms of the government. As a result, they satisfy themselves with the role of spectator and think that pulling the lever is the chief obligation. It isn’t. Even the politicians now are reduced to this mob thinking of a Democracy…they are automatons of the poll, following the whims of the media and technocratic pollsters like they are a pack of dogs trailing a
garbage truck . Perhaps the dysfunction afoot is a result of our slow turning of the screw into a defacto-democracy , further compounding the hilarious dark comedy of it by attempting to inflict democracy in places of the globe where tribal realities encourage the blood sport tendencies of Democracy.

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