A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves.

In 2004, there were approximately 221 million people of voting age. Of those, almost 175 million were registered to vote, or 80%. Of those, only a little over 122 million actually voted in the 2004 presidential election- or 55% of all the people of voting age (from now on, for purposes of brevity, I'll use "Americans" to refer to people of voting age). And of those, only 50.7% of them voted for President Bush. Lest anyone think I'm choosing sides, in 1996 there were almost 197 million people of voting age. Of those, 146 million of them were registered to vote, or 75%. Of those, over 96 million voted in the 1996 presidential election- less than 50% of Americans. Of the people that did vote, only 49% of them voted for Bill Clinton.

I know that was boring, but I hope you made it this far: it's important. The president is being elected by 25% of Americans. (I won't even get started on the elections in years in which there wasn't a presidential election- suffice to say, the numbers are even more abysmal.) I only gave the numbers for two years, but they're no better in other years- you can look it up yourself. Our leaders are being elected by a minority of Americans, not a majority.

Presidents assert that because they were elected, it means that Americans trust them and want to be led by them. The opposite is true. Most Americans are so disillusioned that they don't even bother to register to vote, much less vote. (Even if you consider the few million felons who can't vote, it's not enough to change the numbers much.) Presidents are granted power, but only 25% of Americans are granting that power. There's something wrong with this picture.

The biggest problem is the two-party system which forces people to vote on the basis of one or two "big issues." Even if you aren't a libertarian, I'm sure you don't agree with many of the views of your party- but you're stuck with it because there's nothing better. A second problem is the prohibitive cost of running for president: in 2004, it cost over $1 billion to finance a campaign. Most people can't afford that. There are certainly more problems, but these are the two big ones. Something needs to be done. 75% of Americans had no say in choosing our president, and that percentage is even higher when it comes to Congress.

So what can be done? There's no easy answer, but hopefully if enough people start thinking about it we can change things. Getting rid of the two-party system is key. Again, even if you aren't a libertarian, I'm sure you'd like to have more options. So would the 50% of Americans who don't even bother to vote for president. I wish I had something more enlightening to say, but I don't have any answers- just a bunch of ideas, the same as you. It's up to all of us to put them into action and get candidates out there that will actually excite people. When was the last time you truly believed in a politician? (And it doesn't count if you just though he'd do better than the other guy.)

The title of today's post is a quote by Betrand de Juvenal.