Most of governing is a huge void. You can fill that void by exercising your rights and opportunities to control. If you don’t, someone else will, often someone with whom you don’t agree. Elected officials can’t represent the people if the people can’t articulate what they want. Most people have no conscious idea of how they govern themselves, their families, neighborhoods, cities, counties, states, not to mention national governments. Understanding your own values and perspectives at a deep level is key.
Even more importantly, voters rarely realize that the actual governing is done at the regulatory and enforcement levels, not the law-making level. Those regulatory and enforcement positions are not elected, they’re appointed or hired and there aren’t enough people willing to occupy those spots. Sitting in meetings, reading and writing regulations to be carried out by police, tax collectors, social workers and front desk jockeys and the like – that’s all seriously boring work.
It’s also where the political rubber meets the road. So while the public is enthralled with billion-dollar campaigns for elected office and arguing about which official will view their particular beef favorably, those who wield the real power are introducing themselves to the office staff. “I’d like to volunteer for Committee X or Commission Y.” “I’m available for your next opening as a writer or an analyst.” Public opinion about the use of police
body cameras really doesn’t matter if the cop doesn’t turn it on or its batteries happen to be dead.
We are so focused on “government for the people” that we overlook “government by the people“. At the same time that we are complaining about what they — the wealthy, powerful 1% — are doing to us — the 99% — we are declining to engage in actual governing actions. We occupy ourselves with fictional entertainment and ignore the internal but contradictory values that inform our personal actions and choices.
We equate voting with performing our “civic duty”. We think “government of the people” can be done by making more and more state and federal laws instead of by being mindful of the billions of small action decisions we collectively make on a daily basis.
Huge Void. Even Greater Opportunity. Will you choose to sit by and consume passive entertainment while “they-government” takes decisions and actions that anger you to the point of violence? Or will you invest yourself in “we-governing”, owning the process, examining your own deep commitments and values, analyzing how these can be manifested in the world and translating your positions into policy statements, white papers, rules, regulations, committee participation and community oversight? You are the engine of government, not its victim.
