Voter Apathy

Do you feel like voting is a big responsibility with little pay-out?

One of the basic claims that results from public choice theory is that good government policies in a democracy are an underprovided public good, because of the rational ignorance of the voters. Each voter is faced with a tiny probability that his vote will change the result of the elections, while gathering the relevant information necessary for a well-informed voting decision requires substantial time and effort. Therefore, the rational decision for each voter is to be generally ignorant of politics and perhaps even abstain from voting. Rational choice theorists claim that this explains the gross ignorance of most citizens in modern democracies as well as low voter turnout. Rational abstention does, however, create the "paradox of voting" whereby strict costs benefit analysis implies that nobody should vote (taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice)

Here are some resources to help point you in a direction of uncovering the truth in as few steps as possible

Chris Martenson
Movie Trailer for "IOUSA"
Blog on an alternative to the left-right paradigm
David Walker Part 1
David Walker Part 2
Fiscal Wake-up Tour