Sian

The Catholic Church has told the Italian people not to vote, and as it turns out, most of them are, in fact, still obedient.  They pretty much got up this morning and just ignored a national election.  Life can't be put to a vote.  Life?  Well, they don't actually mean you or me.  Or millions of Jews in the holocaust in which Holy mother Church was complicit.  They mean a couple of cells in a petri dish.  A couple of cells in a petri dish are sacred.  In case you hadn't guessed, I'm a little pro-choice.  Not enough to really care how a vote turns out in Italy.

But what the Church has done is to tell people to boycott Democracy.

Not to voice your opinion, not to vote your conscience, or even to vote the Pope's conscience.  Boycott the process, entirely.

That, I care about.

There's something bigger, here, than whether a few women die in back alleys, or even whether a few embryos get washed down the laboratory sink. 

Do you see it?

Right there.

That's how tenuous the world's hold on Democracy really is.  Even in the developed world.  Even among the educated, even among people who were raised believing that Democracy is the best system of government in the world, even in the birthplace of DaVinci and Galileo and Machiavelli, even in the very seat of the Renaissance, all it takes to make people betray Freedom and Democracy, is a whisper from a guru in a temple.

That's so little!

Someone should say something about it.  Some wise old man should point, and say to his grandson, "See how easily it could all slip away!"

Today, the Italian people have made a political statement.

That statement is not that Life can't be put to a vote.

The statement is that Democracy doesn't matter.

posted by: SianNorah at 04:48 | link | comments (2)

Comments:

#1  13 June 2005 - 19:43

 

people will insist on being brainwashed, whether it is not to vote or how to vote.

in respose to your comment on my blog -
i'm going to community college in san francisco. everything is going to be political. and believe me i am completely prepared to hold onto my beliefs with a mental vice.

monsoon

#2  14 June 2005 - 06:10

 

A good quote...

"Ennui has made more gamblers than avarice, more drunkards than thirst, and perhaps as many suicides as despair."
Buddha

Complacency is a dangerous thing. Another quote, that I can't remember the origin of, "The only way to maintain peace is to prepare tirelessly for war". Democracy is great, but it also breeds laziness.

Although, I laughed that you put Machiavelli on the list of accomplished Italians.

Randis

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