Truly, independentmind, I didn't take umbrage at your remarks. And I completely agree with your statement, above.
I wasn't thinking so much of the committed denizens of Second Realities (who may be hopeless cases for all I know), as much as of those "bystanders" who qualify as "normal" Americans, but who do nothing to exercise their responsibilities of citizenship. I mean, here we are, the United States of America, the only governmental system in the world premised on popular self-government. And your "average Joe in the street" is so busy with his personal life and fortunes that he doesn't have the time or the interest to get involved in the conduct of public life?
I am not alone in being thoroughly depressed by this, I am sure. The idea of the citizen who has no public role to play comes straight out of 19th-century German Idealism....