How do you get people to care enough to get involved and help change laws and help government with making laws

Question

I am asking this question because I always talked about what I thought, but I never got involved other then voting. When I got injured on the job, and experienced first hand what it is like, then I wanted to get involved. People seem to not care unless it effects them. How do you get people to care enough to want to get involved? To change some of the laws of work comp, health care, and education. Am I the only one that thinks there needs to be some changes made? Why is it people only gets involved when it effects them? I am not pointing any fingers because I used to be one of those people. Please think about it, I mean this in a sincere way. Thank you in advance to anyone who answers this question. To be fair, this question if answered by at least two people will be put to a vote so all answers welcome good or bad.

Answer 1

You're not the only one who cares or who wants to see changes made. The core of the problem is not finding others who feel the same way but in finding a means by which they will all become cohesive in their efforts through action rather than talk. It's my belief that the peoples of this country who DO want change and recognize the need as you do for a collectiveness of the people, for the people and by the people fail to take collective action because they see the redundancies of both our legal and judicial systems in doing so. It's not fear of the systems but rather frustration as our own government has shown over and over that it simply doesn't respond to the will of the majority any longer but simply subjects policy making to its own sets of rules and laws. Not to sound anarchical but I've come to the opinion that until the people use their real power to instill change then nothing will be resolved other than that which our govenrment chooses and by its own standards. The real power of the people lies within its fiscal support of our government ... our money. Take that away from the government for even one day and they become nervous, Two days and they start to panick. A week and they're in deep shyt. I'm not going to spend a lot of time going into detail but you get the idea. Like I said, it's a matter of getting the tax payers, not the voters, to work together to bring about change and in my opinion we need a tax payers union to represent us against our own government. Personally I made my contribution by becoming a self employed person and I'll tell you now that I take every advantage of the tax laws to reduce my payments. When I was making 6 figures working for the 'other guy', my tax burden was over 38%. Last year my tax burden on a 6 figure income was less than $2500.00. How you like them apples?

Answer 2

In a society of individualism, you are correct regarding the lack of caring until it directly effects someone. It typically take a major tragedy to get the attention. Good example is a documentary recently showing a young girl being "kidnapped" on a busy street. Through all the screaming and fighting, only one pair of guys got involved enough to confront the person. I experienced a situation with a man down in the middle of a busy intersection suffering from a massive heart attack. People maneuvered their cars around the guy. Regarding education, I just left a position that was liaison to 19 school district in the Northwest. Try to get somebody to care that a student that can't read or write is getting graduated because they sat in the seat the required number of days.

Answer 3

Most of us just don't know how. There is so much red tape. People are working everyday just to stay ahead of the game and live their own lives.

I agree with all you said but I wouldn't even know where to begin.

Hope you get some really good answers. Changes are imperative because we are more and more becoming like sheep being led over a cliff.

Answer 4

Making it personal, in my opinion, is always the best way.