On this election day, Ron Dzwonkowski, the editor of the Detroit Free Press editorial page poses the following challenge to the large majority of eligible voters who will not make it out to the polls today:

The citizens who vote today will decide issues of leadership and direction for the nation and for the state at a critical time for both. If that doesn’t call you to the polls, maybe democracy just isn’t for you.

If you don’t vote, you still have to live with the results. So why not exercise your right to that last word?

Perhaps, democracy isn’t for everyone. But that doesn’t stop the statist democracy supporters from cramming it down our throats. It is only partially correct to assert that “[t]he citizens who vote today will decide issues of leadership and direction for the nation and for the state at a critical time for both.” The truth of the matter is, no matter which way you slice it, only a fraction of those who vote today (i.e., the winners) decide these issues, which are then forced down the collective throat of the rest of the citizens.

…So, even if I were to heed Mr. Dzownkowski’s advice and vote, I still have to live with the results; even if – and this point is of critical importance – none of the outcomes correspond to my voice, exercised through the voting mechanism. Since I have very little (or perhaps nothing) to gain from voting, whereas the process of acquiring the information necessary to make an informed decision is costly, the laws of economics justify rational ignorance.

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More on rational ignorance later, Desiree Cooper, also of the Detroit Free Press brought out the tired “non-voters are lazy and failing to do their civic duty” argument.

I knew I shouldn’t have looked at the front page today.