Editor,
Noam Chomsky has remarked before that the citizens of the United States are expected to show up at the polls every four years, cast their ballot, then go home and shut up. Nowhere is this illustrated more clearly than in the comments of Sari Krosinsky and U.S.M.C. Sgt. Duncan.
To say that we should merely "abide by the mandates of our elected officials" is to say that officials, once elected, have carte blanche to do whatever they wish. That is an affront to the ideals of any democracy, even a representative one. If Americans followed this bad advice, then blacks in Alabama would still be drinking from separate water fountains and U.S. troops would probably still be killing and dying in South Vietnam.
Voting is only one means by which Americans can participate in their government; in fact, it is probably the least significant one. Public debate, protests and even civil disobedience are vital to the health of any free society.
They keep the public interest constantly in the forefront and it is for this reason that they are often so actively discouraged.
Public officials (in theory, at least) are supposed to serve the interests of the public and it is only through constant and unequivocal reminders of this fact that they can ever be expected to behave with any sense of civic responsibility.
Russell Stewart
UNM student
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