I personally hate introductions that envoke the pathos of a country’s history; but, I recognize that sometimes it’s a necessary step in constructing an interesting — and hopefully persuasive and insightful — argument. This might just be one of those times.
I understand the philosophical reasons behind Democracy. I also understand that the fathers of the constitution understood that the United States could never be a pure democracy. Whether because of a bourgeois highbrow or an insightful deduction about the possible destruction of the Roman Empire at the hands of the masses, the fathers of the constitution had, to some extent, a fear of the voting power of the masses to change government for the worse. But, to what extent should we fear the masses when we ultimately want them to have the power to influence the government that they chose to live under?
All this brings me to the recent explosion of voter drives for this year’s election. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that there are people out there stressing the importance of everyone’s vote. But sometimes stressing the importance of a vote may actually hurt the democratic republic in which we live in. Some of these “target voters” are disinterested in the democratic process, and as such, are horribly uninformed about candidates and their policies.
I guess my question is, will the shepherding of uniformed voters to the polls prove to be better for our country, or are we better off letting individuals chose not to vote because they have the commonsense (or I suppose Socrates would call this wisdom) to know that they really don’t know enough to be an informed voter?
