“Don’t follow leaders — watch the parking meters.” Bob Dylan

“… people like us (are gonna make it because) we don’t want freedom, we don’t want justice, we just want someone to love.”  Talking Heads

Americans have never had a real democracy, and most don’t want one. The nation was founded by a few wealthy white men. Women, Native Americans, and slaves could not vote. At first that privilege was limited to white male property owners. Later they extended the vote to all white male citizens, but even black men could legally vote years before women of any color.

Most of the founding fathers never intended to create a true democracy. They didn’t like paying taxes to the king of England. They wanted to create a government of checks and balances where no single member of their private, wealthy, land holding buddies could get too much power over the rest of them. They didn’t want a king or a dictator, but they also did not intend to enfranchise all citizens.

These days many Americans, perhaps even a majority, would seem to prefer a dictatorship or strong man form of government. A big percentage of our citizens idolize the wealthy. People (mostly white males) who happen to have inherited wealth, or have a talent for accumulating it are generally respected more than scientists, teachers, generals, artists, movie stars, or even sports heroes.

We know the above to be true because it would be so easy, especially with our modern communications technology, to make our government more democratic. Below is a list of of obvious changes which would accomplish that, but will probably never take place in this country.

1. Require all citizens 18 and over to vote. (Penalties  or fines for not voting, as in some more democratic countries.)

2. All voting by mail or online. (No old or infirm citizens waiting in lines in the cold at polling places, etc.)

3. Make federal and state election dates mandatory paid holidays (In an actual democracy voting would be a celebration, not a hardship.)

4. Abolish electoral college (One person, one vote.)

5. Establish strict limits on corporate and single donor election spending. 

That fact that these obvious changes are rarely discussed or even brought up in congress or the media, is an indication that the oligarchs don’t want everyone to vote, and much of the public doesn’t really want the responsibility of participating in a more democratic form of government.