I’m beginning to come around on Carlin’s way of thinking:
“I believe if you vote you have no right to complain, people like to twist that around, I know. They say if you don’t vote you have no right to complain but where is the logic in that? If you vote and you elect dishonest and incompetent people and they get into office and they screw everything up, well you are responsible for what they have done, you caused the problem, you voted them in, You have no right to complain, I on the other hand, who did not vote, who in fact did not even leave the house on election day, is no way responsible for what these people have done and have every right to complain as loud as I wanted at the mess you created that I had nothing to do with.”
Our Framers recognized the silliness of entrusting good government to the morality or conscience of those we elect.
It is why they designed a complex, compound democratic/federal government that divided power horizontally between branches and vertically between popularly elected members of the House and State-appointed senators.
It is why the 17th Amendment, which rendered our wonderfully balanced federal republic into a horrid and unbalanced democratic republic sure to consume itself in violence.