IN THIS COLUMN A FEW WEEKS AGO, I wrote about a proposed regulation that would force homeowners to upgrade their fireplaces upon the sale of their homes. This column generated more reader feedback than most. I typically stay as far away as possible from political discussions, but one reader’s comment has stuck with me and I feel compelled to share my thoughts.

To paraphrase, the reader commented that it didn’t make any difference whether the public took a stand against government regulation because the government was going to do whatever it wanted regardless of how we the people felt about it.

As I thought about this, I began to think about the 80/20 rule. The 80/20 rule states that in many organizations 20 percent of people do most of the work. You see this in churches: If you have a congregation of 1,000, you can bet there are about 200 devoted volunteers. And you see it in sales forces, where 80 percent of company sales come from 20 percent of employees.

We have this same concept going on in our country. The “silent majority” sits back and complains about everything the “vocal minority” is doing. Elections are won and nobody seems happy with the results; laws are legislated and everyone complains. Health care reform has been a hot-button issue for decades, so President Obama pushed legislation in an effort to solve the problem. Yet it seems only a very small number of people are happy with the result.

The general sense of apathy among Americans is a real tragedy. We are so disgusted with our elected leaders that we no longer believe we have the power to do anything about the complete lack of statesmanship among the leaders we elect to govern us. The situation has become so bad that the majority of eligible citizens don’t even vote.

A recent voting trend study by Projectvote.org found that only 71.20 percent of eligible Americans were registered to vote in the 2012 presidential election — and only 61.8 percent actually voted. California’s citizens are some of the most inactive voters in the country, ranking 45th with just 65.6 percent of eligible citizens registered and only 57.5 percent actually voting in the 2012 presidential election.

Since presidential elections typically have the higher turnouts, it is safe to assume that few, if any, of our elected leaders actually received anything close to approval by vote from the majority of citizens. And we wonder why we are in such a mess.

The problem is that we have marginalized the people. Politicians know that only a portion of citizens vote. They don’t need to do what is best for the country; they only need to do what’s best for the loyal group of followers they know will continue voting them into office.

The biggest problem with our country today is us. But the solution to our problems also lies in us. America is a country that was founded on the principle of democracy. Somewhere along the way we have lost sight of the fact that for democracy to work, we the people must do one very important thing — vote.

Guy Benjamin (CAL BRE License #01014834, NMLS 887909) writes a weekly column for The Herald, offering general information on real estate matters. As it is impossible to address all possibilities and variations, he will try to answer individual questions by readers who contact him at 707-246-0949 or guyb@fairwaymc.com.

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