Word: altmans
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...read with some puzzlement the commentary by Daniel Altman in the "Dartboard" of May 12, 1995. By his suggestions, it is obvious he does not shop at the Coop or appreciate the value the Coop offers students...
...Altman's other program to make Americans into hypermetropic policy wonks is compulsory voting. "A democracy shouldn't have a 'right not to vote," he argues. Furthermore, "passive" Americans who do not vote do not have the right to dispute the decisions of elected officials. This is what most Americans learn in basic high-school civic education, but it is exactly wrong. When we vote we tacitly agree to abide by the outcome of the election; when we don't vote, we make no such agreement. Personally, I do not think any Americans should lost their right to argue with...
When the political contest is between Yale College's George Bush and Yale Law School's Bill Clinton, why should we be burdened with voting? Altman's arugment assumes that elections offer us meaningful choices. Sometimes our system does, sometimes not. Voluntary voting allows us to decide whether we have been offered a meaningful choice. Compulsory voting would force Americans to choose between the lesser of two evils. This is what Boogie Down Productions' front-man calls a choice "between the mumps and the measles." Decent people do not vote for evil, and when offered a choice between a greater...
...participation or support for centralized government. Real activism is always local. It begins at home and within onself. Sure, people do not necessarily know what is best for them, but this only reminds us that people are much less likely to know what is good for others. What has Altman so mixed up is that we are taking charge of our lives without seeking to be in charge of other people's lives. To a centralist who does not realize that compulsion is the antonym of freedom, this is baffling...
...Altman the activistic atavist is too in love with the idea of forcing people to be free. He envisions a 'brave government' shaping a "passive people." Get real. Americans are a brave people who want a passive, limited government. The era of American support for centralized activism, whetehr a war on poverty or drugs or whatever, is long past. As Brutus warned us long ago, standing armies are inimical to liberty. Americans are rejecting war as a domestic policy, and with it the centralization of life's most important decisions. All the compulsory programs in the world will not turn...