By the People?

Maybe Canadians don't deserve clean water, paved roads, the CBC, snow clearing, free public education, or any of the other glorious things we're so used to enjoying in this country. The reason I say this is because the majority of citizens don't seem to be too concerned about holding our government in check. If you can't even write a letter to your MP, perform a protest song, hold an information session, call in to your radio station, or even read the news to form your own opinion about what is going on, then you are failing in your civic duty. Therefore, you have failed as a citizen, which means you have failed your community, which means that you don't deserve a democratic government.

Democracy means government by the people, right? If that is true, then it means we have to do a little work to keep everything going smoothly. We run the country. We are the CEOs of the country. Right now, we are the worst CEOs in the world. We sit back and expect our employees to do their job without any sort of supervision or direction; we expect them not to steal money or slack off when we're not looking. And then we expect them not to lie about it.

What manager or CEO would let their employees do whatever they want, unsupervised, without at least reading some sort of report (the news) to make sure things were going well? And if things were not going well (the government has money for prisons and a glass dome for the House of Commons but not for Old Age Security), they would get involved, punish those responsible, and possibly even fire a few employees.

I understand that it can seem daunting and difficult to grasp the inner workings of politic and government, but you can't expect everyone to do all the work for you. Do some reading; watch a few documentaries. The information is out there. Talk to people, even people you don't agree with. Especially people you don't agree with. Keep an open mind but use logic and reason to figure out where you stand. Care a little about your future and your family and your community.

I promise it's not that hard, really. If I can have some sort of understanding of how things are connected, there's no reason you can't, unless you're afraid of work; you don't want to be one of those people who expects everyone else to serve them. That's called royalty, and royalty is antithetical to democracy.