Where does apathy fit in? (Off-Topic)

by cheapLEY , Thursday, November 03, 2016, 22:16 (2728 days ago) @ someotherguy

Or does it?

I used to be that guy, you know the one, the guy that always said "The system is so broken, why bother? It doesn't matter anyway."

To a large extent, I still think that's true. Congressional districts are so gerrymandered they're nearly useless for determining what the populace actually wants. Money has entirely too much influence on the entire process. The two party system is pretty clearly fucking broken. Etc, etc, etc.

I've come around, though, and feel like most people use apathy as an excuse for laziness. I still don't particularly think voting for President is all that important (in the grand scheme of things), but voting for your representative in Congress and keeping up with local ballot issues is super important in terms of actually affecting your day to day life.

Bottom line is that researching the issues isn't as easy as Earendil would have you believe, but it's also not impossible, and you don't have to know absolutely everything to be well-informed. You just have to decide which issues are actually important to you, but without being willfully ignorant of other issues your chosen candidate might champion.

As with just about anything, there is no easy answer. I think it's a ridiculous that so many people refuse to participate. I feel frustrated that anyone would site ignorance as a reason for doing so--that's something that is entirely within your control and could be fixed with a solid afternoon, or an evening or two a month in the lead up to election. On the other hand, if someone is going to absolutely refuse to put in that work, I'm not sure they'd be helping anything by actually going to the polls.