We pride outselves on our involvement. We relish charts, graphs, polls, and facts. Mostly we love the knotty, arcane, carefully accumulated facts that we prise from the pile that should hold a pony - but rarely does.
We are geeks. Geeks of a rare and unusual type. We value and understand the Constitution. We value and understand the roll of government. We can discuss the philosophical differences between the parties and recongnize the red herrings thrown out to divert us, and disguise the intent of politicians who seem to feel a deep seated psychological need to accumulate wealth and power.
There is one element of the elective process which we address infrequently, however, and that is the topic of this diary.
Because we are a well educated and involved community, we often forget that most people neither know, or care, about the issus that drive our passions. Overwhelmed with the day to day demands of their lives they do not have the time, training, or interest in the arcane trivia that forms our world view.
And we rarely offer real help in instructing or enlightening them.
We all know the appaling statistics when with the name of the document withheld, people are asked to signal their approval for the founding principles of the nation.
Those who would not vote for the Bill of Rights, describing it as far too "Liberal".
Those who would not vote for the Constitution, describing it as far too Communist.
Those who would not vote for the Declaration of Independence if the 1st paragraph is not included, (they mostly recognize the preamble, thanks to those "mean old teachers" who drilled them in 6th grade) because it is just too, too...well too much.
We have muttered about "framing" the issues but that has had a less than stirring effect. Framing carries with a certain willingness to bend the light around the objective truth and we feel a deep committment to representing our version of truth completely and accurately. Even if that means baffeling the uninitiated with an incomprehensible information dump.
I want to propose another approach, free of the shuddering detail, requiring no explaination of our sophisticated and complex understanding, and needing no defense or further expansion.
Let's start with a couple of simple questions for which we have a right to request answers.
Let's start with:
Why are we in Iraq?
This question should be asked of everyone you meet. Everyone. Look puzzled when you ask. Look puzzled by their answer. Let them respond to your puzzled silence as our culture encourages. Let them keep talking. Talking and talking and talking until they begin to hear the profound foolishness of their statements.
This takes some skill, as Socrates, and a few brilliant professors I have known, can tell you. We are made very uncomfortable by the obvious discomfort of others. We want to rush to their aid and help them out of the verbal dilemia they create. If you can refrain from that you can create a wave of self-instruction among all but the very cognitively inept.
The second question we need to embed in the public consciousness is:
Why does it take 60 votes to pass anything in the Senate?
Let that simmer. Let that worm it's way into the dialogue until it begins to reverberate across the nation. Let people begin asking themselves when the US Senate required a 60 vote majority to pass legislation. Let them begin to question teachers and finally, their own Senators.
The third question that I would like to propose is:
When did we give the guys on TV the power to decide who we were going to elect a year before the election?
Let them mull that for awhile. We can't make people stop watching the silly, posturing bloated gasbags, but we can get them to listen critically without suggesting they have not been critical enough.
Join me in a carefully crafted, remarkably subtle and subversive effort to undermine the status quo, not by challenging the people who know no better, but by eliciting their unwitting help in planting the seeds of doubt and creating a battle cry to demand accountability.