>>In most cases better citizenship is [...] a lot of hard work by the
>>citizens.  With high cost of living in the modern world, it is only
>>natural to have absentee citizens.  
> 
> 
> I respectfully disagree with the second affirmation, and partially with the
> first. 
> 
> The modern world has AFAIK the lowest cost of living for the large majority
> -- at least in most of the countries where we do have a reasonably working
> democracy. In pretty much all of USA, Canada, Japan, most of the EU
> countries, most people can live quite well (not wealthy, but well) with
> some 40 hours of work per week. And this includes many goodies people in
> earlier times didn't have.
> 
> So IMO the "high cost of living" is not that high, and if people wanted to,
> they could easily take upon the "hard work" of being more of a citizen.
> It's the choice between watching a show on Friday evening or going to a
> town meeting. Or between watching another show on Tuesday evening or
> researching an issue that's up for discussion in congress (or whatever the
> country's parliament is called) and writing an email or letter to the
> representative. Doesn't sound like real hard work to me.
> 
> To be absent from the political process may be natural, but it has nothing
> to do with high cost of living. The majority of the absentee citizens in
> the cited countries have /much/ more than they need, including relax time.
> It's their free choice to be absent from the process.

I was trying to resolve why the widespread low voting rate across the 
modern world.  We starting to see an unhealthy sign:  Japan is now ruled 
by two right wing parties, both ruling and opposition parties are right 
wings.  For the high cost of living, I was trying to cost the needs of a 
family with kids, for all their educational, health and insurance 
expenditures.  I suppose they form the middle-class and majority that 
are not voting.

Effective citizenship I don't think is easy.  Even for simple writing, 
you have to research enough and write the right stuff to right persons, 
and making sure you don't give the impression that you are carrying the 
opposition flag.  All these so that some politicians will be interested 
to take up your points so their positions can be enhanced.  Personally I 
wrote a few times trying to change the direction of some policies and 
succeed I did, but I had to ensure my points were not mere echoes and 
simplistic for what the papers or CNN were reporting, and following up 
with the counter points as the debate progresses.

Ling SM

-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist