Our challenge, of course, is to explain why tax breaks for religious institutions cannot possibly solve these problems, and why government services, in whatever form, are a better answer. It just isn't responsible to dodge the need for national and international rule-setting. And we can't fix it with words. My sense is that the vast majority of Americans are not ideologues, and that ideology is becoming as irrelevant to the average voter as party allegiance already is. Certainly the statistics seem to say so.
Polls register high levels of disatisfaction with government and politicians alike.
For our second online Controversy, we've invited a few young journalists and thinkers from the extended TAP family and beyond to express their own ideas on the subject, and to take up with Purdy the question of what, if anything, lies beyond apathy. We hope you enjoy the fray.