Guys -- I respect your personal philosophies and commitments and am not interested in arguing them with you.
My point only addresses ownership. When people own their country and its governance from their local neighborhood all the way up to the closeted central folks in their capital city, the level of individual engagement and investment across the board is remarkable. When instead people throw up their hands and say "It's not our problem, it's not our fault, it's not our responsibility; they're screwing up everything; oh boy," everything stays in the hands of those who have claimed ownership, assumed the right to chart the course, and moved ahead. Doesn't sound like independence to me.
Voting is a tiny part of governance in a democracy; the larger part is design and execution. One of the merits of the American system is that the work of maintaining order is distributed across the three branches and over several levels; the national spirit is at work in a small city council, in a corporation business meeting, and in the day-to-day runnings of a local clinic, as much as in Congress during a Floor debate.
I know it's increasingly popular to think some dark-spirited elite cadre is running everything and so nothing of significance can be done by an ordinary person, but such a belief only limits one's sense of what is possible and well within one's capacity.
Sad thing is that if you insist you have no power, you'll never exercise any, and then you'll really have none. You'll instead have an oligarchy that will never speak for you because it doesn't hear from you and so cannot be affected by the perspective that you bring or the skills that you have.
If you don't participate, by working with your local leaders to solve local problems, or by communicating with your state reps and state agencies on state business, or by contributing to national interest and educational groups that publicize and act on matters you care about -- if you just stand aside and look, your values will never filter. If you don't learn about the local and national and international issues driving policy, and never communicate in conversation, by letter, or through objective articles with members of your community, and you don't build person-to-person relationships with people who are in leadership positions, and you don't pitch in when something needs to be done, you will always be peripheral to the people designing and executing policy.
My point remains that spectators don't get to play. We might now have an increasingly noisy and shrill audience, but the strategists have no need to take them seriously because their attention is so short, and their engagement in the activity of governing only seems to last until the next political affair. When strategists hear from people who have researched carefully and committed their own time and resources to programs and initiatives that work, and formed alliances to get it done better, quicker, and smarter, they pay attention. When values drive action, and action produces results, that makes a difference.
What are the needs where you live? Who else cares about them? What relationships are weak? What services need improving? What can you all do together to address them? Must you think inside the box? Pick an issue. Research it. Identify a finite problem. Find allies who care as much as you do. Develop a plan to address it. Commit time and energy and thought to it. Present the plan to structures that could help. Play your part in carrying it out. Evaluate the project, and share your results with other communities. That's democracy; it takes time and a high personal investment, and I can't think of anybody who doesn't respect it when they see it.
It was not meant to be directed at you personally or even however you view politics.
