[quote=Rtron]
Fair enough. But you can vote for the person who you think will either support your views the most or you think will screw you over the least. You want more gun control? Vote for whoever supports that. You feel abortion should be legal in all 50 states? Vote for whoever supports that. And so on so forth. As for the people around you, yeah, you can affect local decisions easily. To affect federal decisions, however little, you need to vote.
[/quote]

Currently true. In a primal USA, the early constitution set it up so that you voted for your local reps, and *they* picked your senators. That was changed in the 17th amendment. Which is a mistake, because like you said, that isolates all your participation in DC to simply voting each November -- rather than being able to effect changes locally which will later impact federal representation.