Just like how all we had to do to shut down Guantanamo Bay was vote for President Obama, right? So glad that that worked out. By and large, our institutions are not democratic, in that they are not responsive to 'popular opinion'; while there are certain arenas where, for one reason or another, the will of the majority does sway the day (e.g. the influence of scandals on individual elected officials), by and large most things are decided by non-democratic factors like business interests and large donors, and the media just works to get people on-side with whatever comes out of that.

To quote a well-known study on the topic: “The preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”

(Gilens & Page, Perspectives in Politics)

Not sure if you are aware but we rarely directly get to vote on these things. You vote for a representative and hope they vote in a way that serves your interests. But now, we have omnibus bills. And it's 50/50 loaded with things we want and things we don't. The same bill that funds Pre-K will also have a section to fund a kitten shredding machine. But if you vote against it all voters will hear is how you don't want to fund education.

Who can I vote for that will stop flock cameras from being installed?

I don't think that's all we (assuming you're USA) had to do or need to do going forward. Voting is "necessary but not sufficient" as the quote goes.

Your voting system is shit. It results in a two party state. If one party fails to present a coherent offering and the other one is infiltrated by nut jobs then the system breaks down. After all, if it was such a good system, why didn’t you impose it on Germany and Japan when you won WW2? (This comment is politically neutral; who the incoherents and the nut jobs are are left to the reader’s discretion)

Unfortunately, studies undertaken by MIT over a decade ago show that when it comes to law writing and passing, voters have no statistically measurable input at the federal level. (Since citizens united)

It’s all just identity politics. I will say that Trump has proven the exception to this rule, enacting a whole lot of policy that circumvents the law and has real effects. (And is likely mostly unconstitutional if actually put to the test)

So while locally, voting can be powerful, it’s mostly bread and circuses at the federal level since regulatory capture is bipartisan.

Seconded. Democracy is the only transcendental political system: you can have any ideology you want (so be careful or you'll be voting only once). To survive, it depends on civic spirit - i.e. participation. Democracy always collapses into authoritarianism eventually. Then (if you want it bad enough), you have to claw it back, slowly and painfully. All just as Plato foresaw.

It really bothers me that so few people in the modern West understand just how lucky they are. If you didn't have the control you already have over your government, you'd be fighting for it.

"All we had to do to avoid this was to vote."

Every time I hear this I cringe, whether this subject or any other. The people did vote and this is what they got - not necessarily what they specifically voted for. Different people hold things in different importance. Flock security cameras (or similar) generally don't even get noticed by the people voting on taxes, guns, abortions, etc.

Voting doesn't work as well when there's billions of dollars being spent to influence the votes to make billionaires richer, while the working class that could vote against it is too busy working 3 part time jobs just to survive.

The US is a semi-democracy, notably due to its hyper-polarized two party system that completely forbids (in the 2020s) any crossing of party lines for compromise.

The single biggest improvement to American society would be to implement multi-member districts for legislature, OR to implement STAR voting - any kind of system that promotes the existence of more parties, more political candidates, to break the two party cycle.

Far too many people fail to vote or research candidates due to how shitty our democracy is. Far too few candidates exist as a blend of values, and we are stuck with "every liberal policy" vs. "every conservative policy".

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To that end, it seems the cities that are banning Flock for proper privacy reasons are all in liberal states and cities. Conservative/moderate areas seem a lot less engaged on the topic. "That's just how it goes, of course government is going to tread on us, what can be done about it".