For 13 years, President Slobodan Milosevic strangled Yugoslavia. Convicted of "crimes against humanity," Milosevic had plunged Serbia into four civil wars that resulted in the burial of thousands of his own people in mass graves. Because of his misdirected leadership, his country was decimated by NATO bombing. And on Sept. 24, this tyrant was up for re-election.

Slobe-dogg thought he had this election in the bag. Forget about his control of the armies and the police. The man held the reigns of the major Serbian television networks in his tight grip. And there's nothing more powerful than television in elections, right?

Well, from the looks of the series of events catalyzed by the Sept. 24 election, there is one thing moderately more powerful than television. Can you guess what?

Give yourself seven points if you said millions of dissatisfied Serbs. They made Slobey come tumbling down.

Let me sum up the Serbian saga: Slobey officially lost the election to Democratic Party of Serbia candidate Vojislav Kostunica.

Slobe-dogg didn't take the news well and demanded that a second election be held. Kostunica said, "No way." The people said, "No way." They put their "No way"-money where their mouths were by taking to the streets en masse.

Nearly half a million citizens crowded the capital city of Belgrade and hundreds of thousands more crowded streets in cities all across Serbia. Television stations were stormed; the parliament building in Belgrade was set on fire. By the afternoon of Oct. 5, power had been wrested from Slobe-dogg's bloodstained hands. Serbia had been liberated.

Whew! That, my friends, is what I call an election. The Serbs had at last done what we Americans did so many years ago. They cast off tyranny and proclaimed democracy as the way to lead their nation to prosperity.

(Cue patriotic music.) Soon they will enjoy freedom like us. Soon they will enjoy liberty like us.

Soon they will enjoy a 49 percent voter turnout like us. (Patriotic music comes to a screeching halt.)

Only a 49-percent voter turnout you ask? I'm sighing and nodding my head yes. In the 1996 presidential election, We the People of the United States of America allowed only 49 percent of eligible voters to determine who would lead our country. Ninety-six million determined who would be the Head of State for almost 270 million citizens. Doesn't seem much like democracy. Seems more like "don't care-cracy."

As I watched CNN as the events unfolded in Serbia last week, I felt a bit embarrassed. Those Serbs really seem to care about democracy, I thought to myself. Look at the passion! Didn't we once have that sort of love for democracy?

It does seem like we had that passion at one point. According to that Mel Gibson movie from this summer, I'm pretty sure we went to war with the British over democracy a couple of centuries ago. And according to that movie Tom Hanks was in two summers ago, didn't the world go to war over tyranny only 50 years ago?

We Americans claim to love democracy. We will go to war over it, and many of us will die over it. So why then will so few of us participate in it? How can we be so painfully apathetic about participating in something that we claim to hold so dear?

What the hell is going on?

A friend of mine told me that he might not vote in the upcoming election, because no matter who gets elected, his life would not be affected. Booyah! I said. I found the source of the apathy!

The people of Serbia acted with such passion because they saw their choice as being one between a tyrant and the people. We see our choice as one between a guy who wears a red tie and a slightly taller guy who wears a red tie, neither one of whom will take away our rights to watch Nash Bridges, buy Pokémon products, or in any other way hinder our individual pursuit of happiness.

We feel that the American democratic process works so well, we can switch on the autopilot, lean back and take a nap.

Since the process seems to take care of itself, we feel that we can afford the apathy. The system won't crumble even though the majority of us don't care or aren't excessively involved with it. A quirky type of democracy, but it's working for the time being, right?

For the time being, yes, it is working. But we're napping on a slippery slope. As voter turnout wanes with each successive election, fewer and fewer of us are electing our president. As we continue to nap, voter turnout will eventually be so low that radical fringe candidates could be able to come in and nab the presidency with minimal popular consent.

In light of the recent paucity of voter turnout, the most important issue of the upcoming election may not be Medicare reform, prescription drugs or tax cuts, but rather whether anyone actually shows up at the polls.

So let's take a cue from the revolution in Serbia and realize that it is possible to get excited about democracy, and not only in a "MATH IS FUN!" sort of way.

Or else we'll wake up from our nap only to find that we've elected our very own American Slobe-dogg.