Public Participation and the Erosion of Democracy‪.‬

A major indicator of the erosion of democratic society is the withdrawal of public participation in politics. Let's face it: if the Bill of Rights were abolished tomorrow, how many people would feel it? Only the people who use it would. The free speech provision in the First Amendment could be repealed and the millions of Americans who don't use their free speech on critical issues would just go about their daily lives, working away and not noticing. Public participation is shrinking. Participation in town meetings, the pristine form of democracy in our country's history, is shrinking. In many areas of New England, town meetings are being abolished as a form of local government. As a child I was taken to town meetings by my parents. There would be a couple hundred people in the room and there would a]ways be a few active citizens jumping up with their facts and challenging the select officials and the mayor. The other people in the room would have a doubled response because these people were very aggressive. The next day, walking down the little main street, people would say, "There goes Mr. Frantz. Mr. Frantz is an active participant in the town meetings and he always has his facts in order." He was a town citizen. Most towns have the town drunk and the town fool--the town citizen is now like an aberration, a deviation, a maverick. (The Greek word for idiot, by the way, stands for a person in ancient Athens who didn't participate in public affairs.)