this woman is a saint

There is a ton of “we get something for free” attitudes in America.

Democracy isn’t free. It requires every citizen to take substantial time to be engaged. The founding fathers were SO concerned with HOW MUCH engagement it required, that initially ONLY landowners could vote…and EVEN THEN, they still installed an Electoral College to create a further barrier to prevent an incompetent from becoming President.

Moreover, inherent in that, baked into the FIRST AMENDMENT is the most critical aspect of how citizens speak truth to power and keep the reigns in on government and that’s a FREE PRESS.

None of that is free. It requires vigorous and rigorous engagement. It requires time. OUR time. Our resources as citizens.

When there’s a mess, be it due to natural disaster, or citizen neglect, YES, YES, YES, it will take relatively more time and resources than otherwise in order to fix what was out of order.

Once a balance is attained, then maintenance levels of time and resource allocation can be allotted.

In this instance, I admire Bernie because he’s far more optimistic than I.

I would have what I call “potentially, the last vote” in which, it would be mandatory that every eligible voter would have to cast a vote. Period. The only issue would be this: “Will the United States remain a democracy?”

The alternative would allow citizens to abdicate their rights for their responsibilities.

If democracy didn’t win at least 50%, then a second vote would be taken with a limited set of alternatives…fascism, corporatocracy, oligarchy, “council of elders”.

And that would be that.

Cuz, frankly, the reason we have this current fascist state is because more than half of the eligible voters aren’t willing to take seriously their civic duty. People have died, sometimes badly, for the franchise. For ANYONE to cast it aside??? Yeah…that’s bullshit. That MORE than half the country does?

Makes me wonder whether us being Nazi Germany 2.0 isn’t what’s supposed to happen. Not that I endorse it.

But as I told the wife today… when I grew up, people used to ask “how could it have happened”. Well… THIS is how it happens. Present tense. Happens. As in currently happening.

People think that the New Deal reforms were free, that weekends and the 40 hour work week and overtime and the lack of child labor and workplace safety, etc all got here from Bible times and no one had to lift a damn finger.

Well, as we all know, a metric fuckton of fingers were lifted.

And because most people stop doing the lifting while the pressure increased to take worker reforms and even our very democracy away…we now find ourselves in this environment.

We as a society can either band together and fight… or become batteries in the fucking matrix.

Cuz for real, a small band of rebels ain’t gonna drag society by the hair to the promised land.

Either people want to be free or they don’t.