Going back to why people don't vote, I presume the main reason is because they understand without reading political science texts that it doesn't make any difference how they vote. It's not going to affect policy, so why bother?

There is a kind of nonlinguistic thought going on which we are trying to represent in language, and we know that sometimes we fail.

Up until the First World War, when people turned anti-German, Germany had been described by American political scientists as the model of democracy.

The public is easily amenable to lies: the more lies there are, the greater the support for war. For instance, when the public was told that Saddam Hussein would attack the U.S., this increased support for the war.

The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people.

Technology provides means for expression and interchange and so on, so yes it should be free and open, but there are a lot of constraints on how its used.

From a comparative perspective, the United States is unusual if not unique in the lack of restraints on freedom of expression. It is also unusual in the range and effectiveness of methods employed to restrain freedom of thought... Where the voice of the people is heard, elite groups must insure their voice says the right things.