Voter Apathy May Be Curmudgeonliness

---by Micheal, the curmudgeon

Sometimes, it seems there's no getting-along with the vast bulk of the human race. There's always someone in your face bombasting at you about how wrong you are. Rather than continue to endure that contradictory chorus, some people opt to chuck it all and live alone as a curmudgeon-hermit. Being a curmudgeon-hermit is almost a New England tradition.

New England's first curmudgeon-hermit may have been William Blackstone. William left England in 1623 to escape the petty tedium of the "Lord Bishops". He chucked the cushy life for wild New England, as an assistant chaplain for a settlement expedition.

That expedition landed near what is now Weymouth, Mass, but it was tough going. Most of them wimped out and returned to the comforts of England within two years. William was no "mountain man" survivalist type, but a rough life of peace and quiet looked better than comfort amid bombasts.

William dragged his library (186 books!) north to a sunny hillside on the unpopulated Shawmut peninsula. He built himself a little house near a cool spring, planted a garden and grew an apple orchard. For many years, it was just William, his books, his garden and 800 acres of peace and quiet. Not a bad life.

All that changed in 1630. Ships of the Massachusetts Bay Colony arrived. Settlers set up the town of Boston on William's once-peaceful hillsides. The new neighbors proved far too similar to the Lord Bishops. Within five years, William had all he could stand. He packed up his books and trekked south.

Leaving bombastic 'civilization' yet again, he found another sunny hill, this one beside the quiet Pawtucket river, just north of Narragansett Bay. He built himself another house and planted another orchard. He spent much of his time studying his books. Happy Hermit, round 2.

Not long after that, however, Roger Williams showed up with his religious exiles from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. They all set up the town of Providence just a few miles south of Blackstone's new idyl. "Oh maann," William might have said. "There's just no escaping these people." He was getting too old to start over again, so kept pretty much to himself, the refugee curmudgeon-hermit on a hill north of town.

When it comes to politics, a lot of people feel like William Blackstone. Self-important "Lords", irritating opinion-monopolists, and far too much angry shouting. It's enough to drive almost anyone into becoming a curmudgeon-hermit. Today, however, we don't have Blackstone's option. All the real hills are taken. So, people retreat inside their homes and don't answer the door, or the phone.

Voter apathy may be a misdiagnosis. They might be refugees on virtual hillsides. Any candidate or party looking to woo more voters won't lure them with louder shouting and hotter rhetoric. Those would-be voters will just do like Blackstone did, pack up and find a quieter hill someplace else.