Political Participation

According to economics, it's irrational to vote because of the extreme rarity of any individual vote making a difference. Yeah, your high school civics teacher wouldn't ever tell you that, but it is probably true in most elections.

Tonight I discovered a more rational way to get some representation. Salt Lake is divided into communities, and each community has a council that meets monthly. I decided to check it out because (1) I bought a house and want to have some say about my hood and (2) mayor Rocky Anderson was going to be there. Initially I was surprised at the number of people who were there, probably 50. Then Rocky got up to speak and asked all the representatives from city government to get up and introduce themselves. There were about 30 of them from every single aspect of everything the city does.

Sadly I hadn't come with anything decent to ask so I got to sit around while all the elderly folks got up and complained about traffic.