IT'S A GOOD THING AMERICANS DON'T CARE ABOUT POLITICS There's an interesting piece at Opinion Journal criticizing Professor Ackerman's proposal to start celebrating "Deliberation Day", a holiday in which Americans will get paid $150 a pop (at taxpayer expense) to get educated (re-educated?) about issues of public concern. Like Mr. Conway, I'm skeptical of the "Deliberation Day" proposal. I especially agree with this sentiment:

Maybe the political indifference or ignorance of the average American is not at root a vice in our national life but a virtue, a product of a mild politics. One notes that Bosnians and Serbs, Hutus and Tutsis, could easily consider political apathy a blessing; that despite its many flaws, America's political system invokes envy and inspires imitation around the world. It certainly affords its citizens more liberties than any system that came before it, including the liberty--most of the time--to pay more attention to, say, a child's soccer game or the NCAA tourney than to John Kerry's latest nuanced position on Sarbanes-Oxley.

Hear, hear. One of the greatest freedoms Americans enjoy is the freedom not to give a rat's ass about any given subject. Care more about college basketball or doll-house collecting than politics? Go nuts, big guy.