I had a little trouble coming up with ideas for my blog, so my brother has come up with some questions for me to answer.  His first one was so good I will have to answer it in pieces.  Here it is -

 As a citizen in a democracy, I am responsible for running the government?  How much work should that be?

Well, in a sense, being a citizen in a democracy is hardly any "work" at all.  You are supposed (in the USA, not required) to vote, and I hope you would do so intelligently.  Most all of your civic duties are now being done by professionals, so you need to pay taxes.  But other than that, there are no particular tasks you have to do.

That point of view is pretty common but I'm going to propose understanding democracy, government of the people, by the people, and for the people, in a wider sense.  Being a citizen in a democracy means working 24/7, same as if you were to both live and work in a business that you own.  Even when you are just hanging around doing nothing in particular, you're still always at work because you understand that you own this place, and that you own it in common with all of your neighbors.  That mind-set, I think, is democracy, more than any government or constitution or electoral system.  Your behavior gets to determine whether your neighborhood is a friendly place, whether littering is OK, and whether people help each other in need.  Elections are a very small piece of that.

 What do others think?