government malfunction can be blamed on people who do not vote, and are then dissatisfied with the outcome
Funny, I was just about to say that government malfunction can be blamed on people who DO vote. Don't get me wrong - I vote. But I'm starting to feel like a sucker for doing so, 'cause the new boss is always the same as the old boss, and nothing ever changes except the facade and the window dressing.
Voting only works so long as there are truly, fundamentally, meaningfully different choices to vote for, and currently there aren't any to speak of. Sure, there are independent candidates nibbling at the frozen fringes of the political landscape. But they don't have organizations nearly big enough to take on the Repubmocrats, and they are pretty well starved right out of contention by the incumbents, who entirely control the media.
Right now, voting with our feet is the only vote that will have any impact. We need to walk away from playing the game, from the bread and circuses, from the latest piece of shiny being purveyed by the corporations who rule the world with the money and the hard work which we freely give to them. It's time to turn off the tap.
But who wants to be first? Snowden tried, and although I consider him a hero, I wouldn't want to be in his shoes right now. And really, how much support has he gotten, other than cheering from the sidelines from people like us on sites like Slashdot? Even at that, a very large percentage of Slashdot comments that are at odds with the current regime's rhetoric are posted AC. If we won't openly even speak our minds, never mind act on what we believe, what chance do we have?
As far as I'm concerned, voting is an opportunity to claim "I did my part", not a chance to actually do anything substantial. Elections are just one of the acts in the three-ring circus that governments and corporations employ to keep us distracted and divided. Other acts in that circus? The war on drugs. The war on terror. The Kardashians. The economy. Facebook. Twitter. Slashdot. And on and on and on. We are being distracted and amused unto the death of our essential freedoms and of any claim to autonomy.
Until we can get our shit together well enough to take action en masse, (or even directed inaction), we'll get more of the same crap from our 'governorations'. And arguably, we'll deserve it.