Democracy’s Obituary?

Musings of a Simple Country Man

By Hobie Morris

…an election for Police Commissioner was held In South Wales—not one voter showed up. –London Times, 2012

(Brookfield, NY – Oct. 2014) This simple country man and his beautiful wife Lois sadly see American democracy at a critical crossroads.  Our over two centuries experiment in extremely deep trouble as it dangerously struggles in the quicksand of voters’ ignorance, apathy and growing cynicism.  All these conditions glaringly appear around election time.

Americans must squarely face the reality that a democracy such as ours is not a historical inevitability.  Unless we are extremely careful, we could most assuredly end up like many pre-1900 democracies that had vanished from the pages of history by 1940.  Often this took place with the tacit assent of the people who lost their vote and placed their more comfortable (on the surface) destiny in the obliging hands of duces, caudillos, colonels and fuhrers.

To this simple country man voting is the key to our democracy’s future.  But the current figures are abysmal and rapidly heading towards the disgraceful.  In our great Empire State only 60 per cent of the population is registered to vote and only 40 per cent bothered to vote in the last gubernatorial election.  In the last Presidential election 40 per cent of the eligible voters stayed home.  In the recent Democratic primary, less than 10 per cent of the eligible voters cast their ballots.  Our voter turnout is lower than the national average.

Somehow we, as a great nation, with our wonderful but imperfect system of government, must rekindle the fires of popular enthusiasm and involvement.  We Americans must continually honor, by our participation and veneration, our system of representative government with its theoretical power flowing up from the depth and wellsprings of the people.  If we don’t use and protect our freedoms we will wake up one day and they will have vanished.

More than three million Americans have fought and died to defend our right to freely cast our ballots at election time.  My lovely and indispensable lifelong partner Lois and I consider it one of the greatest thrills to be able to drive to the unpretentious municipal hall next to the fire house and across from the Baptist Church in North Brookfield to vote and, yes, to thank all those valiant men and women who have made this unique opportunity possible for all of us.

Each of us has a solemn and sacred responsibility to become informed, register and vote.  America has come too far to be destroyed by the apathy of those who didn’t care enough to want their freedoms.   We are at a crossroads.  Some will travel the George Orwell path, but I vote to take the road that will insure the future of a system of self-government that continues to be the envy of countless hundreds of millions around the world.  Which road will you take?

Hobie Morris is a Brookfield resident and simple country man.