This is the wrong attitude as well. Civics does not end at the ballot box. The most visible example in the past year is all the online protests against SOPA and

This is the wrong attitude as well. Civics does not end at the ballot box. The most visible example in the past year is all the online protests against SOPA and PIPA that resulted in both pieces of proposed legislation being shelved. If anything, that should give you hope that we can still effect change if we work hard to do it. Our Constitution codifies how we will give consent to the system to rule over us and how that system will rule. The Bill of Rights gives us the right to complain about anything that anyone does.