[jbeckham]

We don't have a democracy in the United States. We have a representative republic. There is a big difference.

Not being involved in the political process just completely removes any influence you have on the process and the outcomes. However, if your belief is that not voting is the right thing to do, then by all means, please abstain from voting. I'd rather only have engaged people vote anyway.

EDIT/Clarification: We don't have a pure democracy in the United States. We have representative democracy and a republic as pointed out below.

[snowwrestler]

We have a representative democracy in the U.S. We also have a republic. The two terms are not contradictory.

"Representative democracy" tells you how decisions are made--we select a few citizens to make decisions on our behalf. "Republic" tells you who is sovereign--in the U.S. the individual citizens have the right and power to rule, and have used that to construct our own government.

Counter examples:

The U.K. is a representative democracy, but not a republic. It's a monarchy.

North Korea is a republic but it's not a democracy. It's an autocracy.

[biggot_man]

What you have, in particular, is a "I'd rather only have engaged people vote anyway"-cracy

Not very democratic eitherway.

[jbeckham]

Unfortunately, we don't have a "I'd rather only have engaged people vote anyway"-cracy because the get out the vote crowd will bus in people with the bribe of a free lunch.

I never claimed I wanted a pure democracy...