I always assumed that I would become an armed guerrilla, if I ever found myself living in a non-democratic country.   However, during recent years, we have been in three countries ruled by dictators — China, Cuba and Egypt.  To our surprise, we never saw any resistance nor any desire to resist their dictators.  We never heard an unkind word about their dictators.  Indeed, the people seemed relatively serene.

At first, we suspected they were motivated by fear, but they seemed too serene and pleasant for that.

Then, we suspected they liked being ruled by a murderous person, but that’s inconsistent with our understanding of people.

Then, we remembered Stalin’s comment that people don’t care about voting, as long as they have jobs and the trains run on time.

Then, we remembered Stockholm in 1973, when captives actually developed empathy and defended their bad-guy captors.

If we have jobs, businesses are doing well, and life is good, do we even care who our President is?

If we have jobs, businesses are doing well, and life is good, do we still need to vote?