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Most Americans Don't Like the Republican Party

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Message Jerry L
Neither the Democratic Party for that matter. The truth of the matter is that America is less a democracy than a indifferencecracy (the power of indifference).

Let's see the numbers from Infoplease:

The average turnout from 1960 to 2006 is 47.8 of the eligible population. That is, more than half the people with a right to decide leave the decision to others.

In general, you could say that 50% of the voters vote for the Republican Party, and 50% vote for the Democratic Party. That leaves a paltry 25% of eligible voters deciding for 75% of the population. In other terms, if you were in a group of 4 people, following the desires of 1 of them. We would only accept that situation in our lives if we were wasted and that 1 person was de designated driver, otherwise we would gently kick his/her ass or just ignore them.

However, in this great American democracy we leave the decisions about our future to that small minority. What's more, we let even smaller minorities decide on our personal issues.

Which takes me to the next point. More interesting than the paltry number of people deciding for the large indifferent majority is the dismal number of people who are "issue voters."

The following study, slices the "social issues voters" in the republican party. Interestingly enough we find that 55% of the Republican voters are "social-issue voters". Of those 22% think that abortion should be illegal in all cases. Again, this is 1 fifth, of a half, of a half of the American population thinks abortion should be illegal. That's 5 out of 100 people, or half the number of Nonreligious/Secular people in the US.

You would have thought that there were many more people with that same views based on the coverage the issue receives. A similar non issue, is the opposition to gay marriage, where 18 people out of a 100 are opposed. As you can see, this is a really small minority, to which we are giving too much credence.

In a democracy they should, of course, have their voices heard. However, the volume of that voices should be that of a whisper, not a scream. There is only one reason these groups have somebody as Palin as a candidate for Vice President. That reason is our indifference. Of course, if McCain-Palin win the next election and they elect judges from the minority for the supreme court and those judges rule against gay marriage or abortion, or for any other oppressive measure only supported by less than 10 percent of the population, it will be too late to complain about it.

I am the blogger who does not make commentaries about the personal life of Palin. The only spec of vitriol I will let drip is that she ruined for me the animated series King of the Hill. After leasing to the 1 and only overly repeated speech of Palin, I'll never be able to see Peggy Hill again with any sympathy.

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