Why expanding the vote is a good thing, part two.

Good morning, dear readers. I hope that both of you had a good night's rest.

Yesterday, I began a long post discussing the benefits of including more blocs of people in the electoral process, you can just scroll on down and find that at your leisure. It's called Why expanding the vote is a good thing, part one, surprisingly enough. Yes, my friends, this consumer of exquisite neckties is gifted not only with the charm of the devil and the looks of a Bollywood film star (according to his devoted mother), but with an imagination and flair for composition unrivalled by anyone except for, well, everyone. Yes, I completely suck when it comes to coming up with titles for these posts. Sorry. Perhaps if I were to come up with better titles, you'd be more likely to read. Well, at the very least, if I quit this rambling, you're liable to continue reading, so let's get back to it.

We left off discussing the infamous Moynihan Report, in which Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then Asst. Secretary of Labor For Policy, discussed the differences between normal poverty and black poverty, and why standard-issue poverty combatting techniques were not liable to be entirely successful in the black community. There's really no way to summarise his findings without doing tremendous intellectual damage to what he had to say, but essentially, Moynihan's claim was that centuries of having their cultural institutions, such as families, religions and schools, destroyed and undercut by slavery, Jim Crow laws and a federal government that was hamstrung by racist Southern Democrats had created a situation where it wasn't enough to merely try and place people in jobs, as the very fabric that held their society together was falling to pieces. In fact, argued Moynihan, without comprehensive efforts to revitalise their institutions and re-engage them with society at large, any attempts at alleviating poverty were doomed to end disastrously.

We are living in a world today where what I call the Moynihan nightmare is more applicable to ethnic minorities than I think even he envisioned. A quick survey of popular music and culture shows that more and more people are starting to feel completely disengaged from the political process, as if their votes don't matter, and that the only viable political action is through violent revolution. So although I don't really care for the self-styled visionaries of the hiphop community in general, who in my opinion, are nothing more than over-indulged and melodramatic panjandrums, I must say that in the case of Puffy's Vote or Die! coalition that I absolutely endorse and support these efforts.

Any attempt to persuade someone must be made on the terms of he who is to be persuaded. You must show him how whatever it is that you're trying to show him is what he really knows and wants, and you have to do so in terms of his own framework. So while some may consider such efforts to be tacky or think that by making voter registration a part of a club night, the dignity of the process is decreased, I say that Puffy et al. are seeking out these alienated youth and working with them on their own terms. By reaching out to a generation of people who are weaned on lingering nostalgia for groups like The Weathermen, The Latter Day Zapatistasa and other such groups, we take a group of people who have never been raised with any sense of civic obligation or loyalty to the system of law and order that we take for granted and bring them into a full world of civic life which they've never had a part of. From the perspective of liberal political philosophy, the legitimacy of a government is measured by the consent of the governed. The consent of the governed is measured by participation in the government and its institutions. Without the consent of the governed, we are at risk of a breakdown of law and order, and a premature end to the grand experiment in liberty that is the American Republic.
An even more horrifying thought is that if the current generation of politically disengaged youth never acquire the lifestyle of civic participation, their children never will, either, and so we begin the long downward spiral to chaos.


Desis For Texas is proud to be involved in outreach to young voters. We've held parties at The Hookup Lounge, appeared on Generasian Radio and are constantly on the lookout for more ways to get the youth involved.

If you have any ideas, as always, drop us a line.

Dheeraj