ON HOW AMERICAN LAZINESS AFFECTS OUR GOVERNANCE

Benjamin Franklin once wrote, There are no gains without pains. After all the hard work he had to endure to get this nation on its feet, our Founding Father is probably spinning in his grave watching his beloved America grow so lazy.

What do I mean by lazy?  Let me explain by concentrating on what I think is the epitome of our laziness, our lack of zeal to perform our basic civic duties.

In May 2011 the Congressional Research Service issued a report to Congress entitled, Department of Defense Contractors in Afghanistan and Iraq: Background and Analysis. The authors reported that in March 2011 there were 145,000 uniformed men and women serving in the two war zones. However, there were also 155,000 paid civilian military contractors working these wars. More than 90,000 of these contractors were serving in Afghanistan alone.

Why is this important?  The United States has, for all intents and purposes, a Defense Department comprised totally of mercenaries. Even those in uniform are there strictly as volunteers. No young man or woman in the U.S. is conscripted. Unlike generations as recent as those that fought in Vietnam, no American is required to provide service to their country. No one is even summoned to provide some type of civilian service. Hell, the Mormon Church requires more from its youth than the United States of America.

Where else do we yawn and ask to be left alone when asked to do our civic duty?  Voting! According to the Federal Election Commission, which reports on Presidential and Congressional races, only slightly more than one-half of eligible voters turned out to vote in the 2012 Presidential race.  For all the high drama over "Obamacare" and Socialism provided by the Republicans in the last election, I would have thought 95% of voters would have participated.

Even in 1960, when John F. Kennedy won, only 63.1% of eligible voters went to the polls.  Two years later, in the 1962 Congressional elections, 47.3% of those eligible voted. Our voting participation record has gone down hill since.

In the elections to decide who sits in the White House, the turnout dropped below 50% in one campaign: 1964-61.9%; 1968-60.8%; 1972-55.2%; 1976-53.6%; 1980-52.6%; 1984-53.1%; 1988-50.1%; 1992-55.1%; 1996-49.1%; 2000-51.3%; 2004-55.3%; 2008-56.8%; and in 2012-53.6%.

Off-year Congressional elections have been even worse: 1966-48.4%; 1970-46.6%; 1974-38.2%; 1978-37.2%; 1982-39.8%; 1986-36.4%; 1990-36.5%; 1994-38.8%; 1998-36.4%; 2002-37.0%; 2006-37.1%; and in 2010-37.8%. It will be interesting to see what percentage of eligible voters show up later this year to cast ballots.

Voters stay home in droves and the impassioned fringe from both the right and the left go to the polls. People are elected from gerrymandered districts not to govern America, but to serve the needs of those who are anti-abortion, anti-taxes, anti-growth, or anti-anything the other side favors. Is there any wonder why Congress' approval rating dropped to 9% in 2013? The Tea Party members elected in 2010 received votes from only 37.8% of the eligible electorate.  Do not complain that nothing is done in Congress my fellow Americans, it is our fault for not voting. Do not say that your vote does not count, because the numbers...or, should I say lack of them...tell a different story.

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government, once said Thomas Jefferson.  This is where this discussion turns to what I consider the most egregious aspect of American laziness.

Loudmouths with an opinion do not inform people, they inflame them. Whether it is Bill O'Reilly on FOX News, Chris Matthews on MSNBC, or Rush Limbaugh screaming from your car radio, these men do not inform the people. They are performers whose only job is to generate an audience to increase their employer's advertising revenue. Rupert Murdoch has been in the newspaper, television, and radio business for a long time.  He has become a billionaire because he brings controversy to his holdings, which elevates ratings, which gain top dollar for advertising.  He is better at it than anybody else, and he owns FOX News.

Americans have many alternatives providing more than one side of any debate. National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service provide facts from both sides of an issue.  The BBC America and Al Jazeera America are two more alternatives available to us for information.  All four of these provide that information calmly. None of these venues set you screaming at your television. Is it not better to go away enlightened rather than angry?  I think enlightened is what Thomas Jefferson wanted for us.

I can provide other examples of how laziness affects us...American workers allowing their jobs to be sent overseas without a fight; letting worker unions practically disappear from the landscape; or allowing only 1% of the population to own 34.5% of all wealth in the U.S. Those Congressional elections, when almost two-thirds of eligible voters did not vote, put people in power who made all these things happen.

In 1983, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20.1% of workers were members of a union.  In 2013 that percentage was 11.3%.  Voting against your best interest or not voting is how that happened.  Right to Work Laws are anti-union laws. Without worker unity wages were cut and jobs sent elsewhere. Non-voters let that happen.

A report on the Huffington Post shows that the bottom 50% of the American public owns only 1.1% of the nation's wealth.  The top 1% owns 34.5%; the top 10% owns 74.5%.  This is shameful!

And, it happened because Americans voted for people who hawked low taxes and no regulation as if it was for our benefit. It was not.  Those cuts were for the benefit of our wealthiest citizens only. The problem now is if we raise our voices about this imbalance, Republicans and the media loudmouths call it class warfare.

Serving, voting, and thinking citizens are who made America grow from a British colony to an economic powerhouse in less than 200 years.  On our current course, it will take less than half that to turn our country into a second-tier nation.

Do we really want historians to say it was our lazy minds and bodies that destroyed America?