29 January 2007

And democracy wept...

Nova Scotia held a special by-election yesterday for the African-Nova Scotian seat on the South Shore regional school board.

No one voted.
Peter Loewen dropped by to comment on a post I made recently. Unlike a lot of the mostly anonymous "hit and run" name-callers, he made a calm, lucid, non-partisan argument... and sat back and waited for a response.

He's worth the read.
Political scientists have spent a lot of time and energy trying to figure out why and when people vote. This book is a great overview of the research, this article is rather pathbreaking, and this argument is quite compelling.
At the risk of trashing my rep as a lowbrow, kneejerk, 'shoot-em-all, let god sort 'em out' Neo-Conservative, I just have to quote Peter, one more time...
I am generally of the mind - and it's due to my training - that a lot of what we find in the world we find because we want to and not because it is "true".

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