Wrong Attitude

"Let's say you tried to have an election and you could have it in three-quarters or four-fifths of the country — in some places you couldn't because the violence was too great," Rumsfeld said. "So be it. Nothing's perfect in life. You have an election that's not quite perfect. Is it better than not having an election? You bet."

--Donald Rumsfeld

I don't normally discuss national issues on this blog, but I just couldn't resist this quote from Donald Rumsfeld.

So, some democracy is better than no democracy, eh? It makes perfect sense that this administration would back an undemocratic election when they themselves came to power undemocratically.

Maybe we can in fact tie this into a national, state and local issue, namely voter disenfranchisement. There was a recent story in the news (I don't have a link, but I believe it was on NPR) about a study that found that minorities, particularly African-Americans, experienced a higher percentage of voter disenfranchisement than other groups. Surprise, surprise. Apparently, this is due to the large number of AA males who are either in prison or were in prison at some point.

What this points to, of course, is the contradictory pattern of denying democracy while pursuing it. Voter disenfranchisement does not appear to be a problem for the Bush admin., but it's certainly our problem as citizens.