PG. 20 #1

My first choice:

I sympathize more with the argument made my Patterson that states ..."increasing voter apathy is a danger to democracy." By having a democracy as the way of government you have to be an active member of it, so that nobody comes around and tries to abuse it. By the public making the impression that they don't care or do not have time to vote just puts our legal system at risk for no longer existing some day in the future. Also, other countries that may be looking at the U.s. to see how well a democracy really does work, if thy notice that we aren't very enthusiastic about it as we were when we first came across, they may be decide that the democracy type government is just not what they are looking for or maybe they will decide to use it and just tweak it a bit to make sure that their people vote and are active with in it.
Others may disagree with me by saying that the people don't necessarily have to be active in it, because we don't really make the decisions, the Electoral College does. They may also say that even if other countries look into democracy and notice that ours may not be 'important' to us anymore, they may find a way to keep their people interested and involved with more other than just voting.

Second half(the other side):

I agree with and sympathize more with Patterson's idea of voting strengthening a persons citizenship. By being active in voting you understand and know what is going on in the world around you. You know what you want out of the next president, governor, etc. You also know what you expect that person to be able to offer and to do for the community, state, or country. I do, also, agree that voting ties us together as a community better. Since voting stations are set up in set places within the community, I know in my community they are run through schools and have the neighbors and other people form the community helping out to run the polls and just direct and help the voters if they have problems. Voting allows people to get a sense of closeness and pride with one another even if it is maybe just for a day.
A person who disagrees with my pinion could say that some people only vote to vote and don't care about what is going on in the world around or don't care about what the next official could do for the country or state, because it's all just suck ups and lies. They may also say that voting doesn't necessarily mean you have a god understanding of what you want because over time your ideas tend to change and you see the error of your way, and once you vote it's too late to go back and change it.