Voting is Pointless because I have a strong-interest in Democracy

[Idaho]

The political process as we have it, is designed by those who benefit from it. It's a closed shop. The political consensus and agenda is set by the politicians and the media. Both of whom are completely paid for by the same, ever narrowing group of corporate interests.

Yes, now and again a target is taken down by the media. It's a token sacrifice. Sometimes the media takes a bigger bite. But we haven't seen any significant political change because of the media. Just a reshuffling of the same deck.

Politicians have been consolidating and centralising their powers for decades. We are more spied on than ever before. There are more people in prison. The police have powers of incarceration way beyond those they have ever had before. All this against a backdrop of a far safer society (it could be argued that this was *because* of these suppressions - but that is a different thread again).

I fear that people don't really want democracy. We are a species prone mainly to two destructive forces, laziness and despotism. Most people are more than willing to defer their rights to the few motivated despots. Politicians are the worst of us. Pvc, you have faith in the tory candidate for Exeter. I wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire. Like all tories he is corruption waiting to happen.

Labour? They come from a more moral base, conceptually - to help poor people and not grind them into the ground. But they have sold out with Blair. Blair sold the party to the media and the corporations. He has his reward now. They are power and self justification waiting to happen.

Liberals are just incompetence and vanity waiting to happen. Useless twits.

Ukip are corruption, idiocy, vanity and power lust.

Green? Similar to liberals.

Left groups? Power and revenge fantasies.

The political process we have attracts the worst kind of person. Regardless of the political branding. We need to work on technology and philosophy that allows direct democracy and oversight without creating too much confusion and chaos. Our process is just a minor adaptation of that from the early victorian political compromise between the aristocracy and the rising industrial elite. Unfortunately this has now neatly fit into the requirements of the current economic elite.

I won't give my stamp of approval to this, nor will I try and join it. And I don't have the skill, motivation and economic strength to challenge it.

[HoreTore]

'Direct democracy'...? Could you explain what you refer to by that?

If it's an expanded swiss version(what 'direct democracy' usually refers to), I fail to see how binning compromise and turning every issue into a yes or no question improves our system.

As to being a candidate taking a lot of resources; it doesn't. Use a couple of your holiday weeks handing out stuff, and you're done. Do it by foot, and it's excellent exercise as well!

[Pannonian]

Idaho, I take it you're not interested in football. Or if you are, you're not familiar with the kind of thinking. Good times as well as bad. Support your team at all times. Do as much as you can to support them. You may lose, but the glory is found in the effort. There is even more glory to be found in making the effort when times were bad and hopeless.

I may not be able to make a difference individually (I'm not so much of an egomaniac to imagine that I matter more than 40 million other voters), but at least I'll make the effort. People better than me have struggled to gain the franchise for people like me. The least I can do in their memory is make use of it.

[Pannonian]

'Direct democracy'...? Could you explain what you refer to by that?

If it's an expanded swiss version(what 'direct democracy' usually refers to), I fail to see how binning compromise and turning every issue into a yes or no question improves our system.

As to being a candidate taking a lot of resources; it doesn't. Use a couple of your holiday weeks handing out stuff, and you're done. Do it by foot, and it's excellent exercise as well!

People who argue that their vote doesn't make a difference in the greater mass of things usually mean that they want their voice to have the decisive say. Basically direct exercisable power reflecting their thoughts, rather than an equal say to everyone who does care to have a say. They can't cope with the idea that their say does not necessarily prevail over others because they're saying it, but has to share consideration with others. Thus they dismiss everyone else as hopelessly tainted while their values are pure and untainted. That way they can get their say without having to face the responsibility of actually realising their arguments. Personally I admire all those past politicians who've made compromises with grubby reality to get their moral aims implemented. Lincoln is a wonderful film.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Idaho chooses not to vote because he already feels disenfranchised -- rendering the act of voting itself rather moot.

He is taxed by a government that does not spend all of those dollars on meaningful public works, but allows an inordinate portion of those taxes to fund programs that benefit a specific industry or segment of the polity without adding much to the greater good (or adding but only in the most indirect of fashions).

He is constrained by laws that criminalize personal vices which do no significant harm to any person simply because that criminalization conforms to the moral consensus prevalent half a century in the past. His personal freedom has be unfairly diminished without adding to the greater good.

The current choices for governance appear to be limited to parties who are either ineffectual, self-defeatingly reactionary, or (for the mainstream) whose primary concern is the maintenance of their own political power -- even at the expense or curtailment of the moral and intellectual goals that form the "spiritual" focus of that party's founding -- that they have discarded, effectively, their own raisons d'etre.

In short, he views the current UK politiculture as being divorced from relevance and either unconcerned with, and sometimes actively detrimental to, the greater good of the polity. The trappings, traditions, and procedures enacted by those in power (whether enacted by design or through the unthinking assumption that this modus vivendi was as it should be) serve only to reify the current state of affairs. He has been rendered politically mute -- disenfranchised.

Since he is unwilling to simply decerebrate himself with Entertainment Tonight or Access Hollywood (supply local equivalent as needed), he finds himself trapped betwixt and between. He is not uncaring or dulled enough to cease caring nor is he willing to blithely support the current state of affairs. The answer is a small personal "vote" for civil disobedience -- an announced active choice to not participate.



I do not think that maintaining such a stance is psychologically healthy. In the long run Idaho will have to:

1) conform, support whichever party has enough of a vestige of "greater good" attached to it in his eyes to make it the least unpalatable.

2) become a candidate himself, publicly voicing his assessment of the state of affairs as is and establishing his candidacy on a return to true support of the greater good as he defines it (can work, but most such efforts become quixotic)

3) numb himself with media, religion, poetry, drink or what have you (this was Baudelaire's answer: "One should always be drunk...")

4) opt out of the current environment entirely and move to a English-speaking quasi-frontier where politics is as close to functionally irrelevant as possible (small town Alaska, the Montana hills, Canadian NW, or.... [cannot resist, too delicious]...northern Idaho)

[Idaho]

@Pannonian - Heh. There is an element of that.

[Pannonian]

In my memory, there have been at least 2 independent MPs elected in England, one standing against corruption, one to highlight the NHS's issues, particularly hospitals in the candidate's constituency. If there are other pressing issues, no doubt other candidates independent of the main parties can be elected as well.

[Idaho]

In my memory, there have been at least 2 independent MPs elected in England, one standing against corruption, one to highlight the NHS's issues, particularly hospitals in the candidate's constituency. If there are other pressing issues, no doubt other candidates independent of the main parties can be elected as well.

The anti corruption candidate wasn't some average Joe. He was the senior political correspondent for one of the main tv channels.

The other was a doctor fighting an unpopular incumbent on a single issue platform of stopping the closure of the local hospital.

[Idaho]

Thanks @Seamus Fermanagh for support more eloquent and comprehensive than I deserve.

[Pannonian]

The anti corruption candidate wasn't some average Joe. He was the senior political correspondent for one of the main tv channels.

The other was a doctor fighting an unpopular incumbent on a single issue platform of stopping the closure of the local hospital.

They were without the party political machines of the main parties, yet gave their time to stand and were elected. IIRC some lady stood against Blair in 2005 as an independent and got several thousand votes, which gave her second place standing against an incumbent who was the PM of the country.

[Idaho]

The doctor was certainly a bottom up, hard-work-wins story deserving of praise. The anti corruption media insider media circus, much less so.

[Pannonian]

I remembered some details wrong, but not the salient ones. Reg Keys got over 4000 votes standing as an independent for the Sedgefield constituency in the 2005 election. Blair was elected with 24,000 votes, but Keys ran the Tory and Lib Dem candidates close. As a comparison, the UKIP candidate got 646 votes compared with Keys's 4252 votes.

[Fragony]

You either vote, or you run for election yourself.

Those are your only two moral options. All other choices makes you a lazy couch-warrior.



And before you all accuse me of hypocrisy; yes, I have done both.

That, or you come to terms with every ballet having figurants. Fix it First, it's too broken.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Thanks @Seamus Fermanagh for support more eloquent and comprehensive than I deserve.

I don't have to agree with you to "get" your point and to give it credit. Everyone deserves to be heard, and listened to.

In addition, your posts in the past have made it abundantly clear that -- however differently you may conceive the "proper" answers to be than I -- you really do care. Kudos sir.

[Beskar]

Whilst you may not agree with their policies. Both UKIP and the Tea Party are reactionary forces working within their respective political systems which is being backed by many non-typical voters and thus rendering respective change within their systems.

Democracy in process?

As for franchisement, you only get it when you work for it. When the women didn't have the vote, did they continue twiddling their thumbs? No, they got off their rears and campaigned for it, showing they were worthy and entitled to have their voices heard.

Whilst you dress it up eloquently, Seamus, it can paraphrased simply as: 'I don't feel like I am heard so I don't bother'. The solution to this is to make yourself heard. Therefore, the whole situation is a spiral, circular-logic. "I am not being heard, therefore I don't vote, I don't vote therefore I am not being heard", how does this cycle get broken? By making yourself heard and by voting, which makes government hear you.

Pannonian does touch on a common-trend called "Millennial Entitlement" but that is a different topic, in regards that it actually exists or not too.

[Montmorency]

Myself, I can only see two lasting possibilities in reform:

1. Compartmentalized hierarchy through anarcho-type decentralization (i.e. top-heavy and bottom-heavy)

2. Post-humanistic pure collectivism (i.e. collapse to a single level)

Voting as we conceive of it would only seem to figure in the first.

[Pannonian]

Myself, I can only see two lasting possibilities in reform:

1. Compartmentalized hierarchy through anarcho-type decentralization (i.e. top-heavy and bottom-heavy)

2. Post-humanistic pure collectivism (i.e. collapse to a single level)

Voting as we conceive of it would only seem to figure in the first.

What on earth does that mean?

If Idaho is disgusted by the disconnect between parliamentary parties and the general population, he can get involved in local government, where there is a shortage of willing candidates, and where just about everyone who wants to get involved can do so. It's also the shortest route between involvement and tangible results, with feedback being almost immediate. You want something done? Go and d it. The only limit is how much you can be bothered to do.

[HoreTore]

Fix it First

Then get off your lazy bum and fix it.

[Montmorency]

What on earth does that mean?

If Idaho is disgusted by the disconnect between parliamentary parties and the general population, he can get involved in local government, where there is a shortage of willing candidates, and where just about everyone who wants to get involved can do so. It's also the shortest route between involvement and tangible results, with feedback being almost immediate. You want something done? Go and d it. The only limit is how much you can be bothered to do.

So, isn't that PVC's position?

But what I was getting at in the last post was logical future possibilities for the structure of governance and the role voting might play in them.

Obviously, there are several assumptions, most importantly that no apocalyptic scenarios come about, and that things don't stay approximately the same as they are now.

[Pannonian]

So, isn't that PVC's position?

But what I was getting at in the last post was logical future possibilities for the structure of governance and the role voting might play in them.

Obviously, there are several assumptions, most importantly that no apocalyptic scenarios come about, and that things don't stay approximately the same as they are now.

At the lowest level of local government, you don't even need a single vote to get to participate in governance. All you need to do is turn up reliably so that you can get tasks assigned to you which you do, as well as discuss what gets done. Heck, they'd probably be happy if you just turn up occasionally and talk. I'm not such a contributive member of society, which is why I'm so grateful to those who are. I do read the local government's newsletters, so as to remind me of the good work they do. To not do anything relating to any level of government, then to pretend that's some kind of higher moral position, is an insult to those who work selflessly for the community.

[HopAlongBunny]

wrong topic

[a completely inoffensive name]

The political process as we have it, is designed by those who benefit from it. It's a closed shop. The political consensus and agenda is set by the politicians and the media. Both of whom are completely paid for by the same, ever narrowing group of corporate interests.

That is how it was for the US during the late 1800s, early 1900s and yet the Progressives managed to change it around through voting and government participation. During WW1 the US government locked up political leaders that spoke out against the war, I don't seem to recall that happening in the UK or US for the Iraq War. As I have said before, this response is a failure of the individual towards government and society in general because this whole mentality is not only that you can't make a difference but that people in general can not make a difference either (because they don't really want democracy amiright), which is a very unfair stance to hold. It just seems to be a stance that at its core is arrogant.

Cynicism is not wisdom, don't know what else to say.

[Montmorency]

Cynicism is not wisdom, don't know what else to say.

Cynicism purports to be the opposite of wisdom - that's the point.

[Rhyfelwyr]

I see a lot of rather speculative character attacks (laziness, arrogance, etc), but very little in the way of actually addressing what Idaho or myself have said. An example of missing the point in this way can be seen below:

Whilst you dress it up eloquently, Seamus, it can paraphrased simply as: 'I don't feel like I am heard so I don't bother'. The solution to this is to make yourself heard.

The thing is that we don't reckon that engaging in the democratic process is the way to be heard. The problem isn't so much with the principle of democracy, as it is with the underlying social (and by extension, political) situation in this country. Since society is made up of competing interest groups who gain only from the loss of the other, a government can only really work for one such interest group, it can't represent or act on behalf of all society at once. Look at the 70's/80's - all the government on the left or right did was effectively wage a class war against the losing side from the most recent elections. Nothing has changed today, all that has happened is that the right now has free reign to do what it wants.

Recognizing that the problems with our democracy are systematic and thus choosing not to take part in it does not make my lazy or arrogant. As I said earlier, for my part I prefer engaging in civil society at a more grassroots level - far less combatitive and much clearer results.

[Idaho]

Next to each candidate on the ballot paper should be the words "and the status quo". The very act of voting is giving approval to the process and structure of our political system.

Am I just bitter because my voice isn't heard? Joking aside, no. I am a middle aged, middle class white man who earns well over the average salary. I am catered for very well by the status quo. I am not some downtrodden minority.

The technology of our political system is the problem. We could develop greater democracy. We could be innovative. But this would threaten the professional political class and creates uncertainty for their economic backers. Any change faces resistance of this most powerful alliance.

But the world is ours! It is not the elite's!

[Husar]

So it's all about Britain not having a pirate party?

As for the "technology", mayhaps, but apart from monetary concerns there are also downsides to more direct democracy such as lynch mobs and other guilty until proven innocent ideas being very popular.

Take our non-nuclear route for example, that one was not based on corporate interest of the elites, it was only decided after a lot of people demonstrated and demanded it. In fact Merkel had originally promised that the reactors could run for another decade or so and then turned around in the face of public opinion. The energy companies were not happy about that at all, but had to swallow it. It might have even cost some jobs in that sector, although the whole renewables sector also creates many jobs. Either way, at least here I do not really believe that the people have no power, they just have to make use of it.
We have one state where the greens have a majority IIRC, so even the two "established" parties are not all that established and can be challenged at the voting booth. And IMO that should happen more often as it is a wake up call for them to listen more to the people. However, if all the people who do not like the established parties do not vote at all, this becomes far less likely to happen.

And that is why I find it relatively important to vote, to bring more dynamic into the political system, to show politicians that the people will not tolerate corruption etc. and will vote for another party or a completely new one if the established parties keep selling out. However, that only works if the people are actually educated (I was in a publich school and certainly not brainwashed by the government there) and put in at least a little bit of effort to change things. The worst voters are the ones who vote for parties out of habit or don't vote at all. They both contribute to the status quo.

And this is also why I do not like FPTP, because it is stacked against all the smaller parties as can be seen in the USA. Here it makes sense to vote for them as they might at least get into a coalition or in the worst case prevent a government formation if the established parties refuse to work with them. But either way we have the means to show that we do not like what is currently happening in the government while the citizens of the USA can only vote for two sides of the same coin. The requirement of course is that we actually make use of that power.

Of course living in a nation state also means that you may not agree with the majority but I heard nation states are the greatest thing ever, so we can't change that.

[Pannonian]

Next to each candidate on the ballot paper should be the words "and the status quo". The very act of voting is giving approval to the process and structure of our political system.

Am I just bitter because my voice isn't heard? Joking aside, no. I am a middle aged, middle class white man who earns well over the average salary. I am catered for very well by the status quo. I am not some downtrodden minority.

The technology of our political system is the problem. We could develop greater democracy. We could be innovative. But this would threaten the professional political class and creates uncertainty for their economic backers. Any change faces resistance of this most powerful alliance.

But the world is ours! It is not the elite's!

So hop over to your local council's meetings and give of your time and effort to improve things at a local level. You won't be deciding on where this million or that million of tax money will be spent, but you can help make £100 or so be used more efficiently, saving a few pennies on each person affected so that the money can be spread to help that one or two people more. When they hold fetes and the like, do your bit to make them work and to help people enjoy them. I greatly admire the Woman's Institutes for the efforts they've made to build their Jerusalem on England's green and pleasant land, and I take their attitude as one to aspire to.

[Pannonian]

And this is also why I do not like FPTP, because it is stacked against all the smaller parties as can be seen in the USA. Here it makes sense to vote for them as they might at least get into a coalition or in the worst case prevent a government formation if the established parties refuse to work with them. But either way we have the means to show that we do not like what is currently happening in the government while the citizens of the USA can only vote for two sides of the same coin. The requirement of course is that we actually make use of that power.

Reg Keys, General Election 2005, Sedgefield

An independent candidate does not get elected, but he gets his say on election day as does every other candidate, and every other candidate has to stand there and listen to him have his say.

[Montmorency]

The requirement of course is that we actually make use of that power.

We might speak of the "potential energy" of a mobilized public, but the problem is that mobilization is of a typically highly-diffuse group that shares as its only uniting factor common citizenship in a certain state, and is almost always fueled by rage or panic, toward short-term (and perhaps short-sighted) solutions, is probably not as noble a goal as it might seem.

Reflexive reactions associated with anger or fear are of course evolutionarily advantageous, engaging us to swerve out of oncoming traffic or avoid a falling object, at this point in our history we must acknowledge that its usefulness has run out. We must, if possible, modify our physiology in such a way as to change this response, such that immediate danger can be recognized accurately and quickly, but without the concomitant sensitization, sensory neglect, and contextual collapse/convergence. This will make our actions what could be called "better-considered" for longer periods of time during stressful situations. The downside would likely be considerably-increased metabolic expense, but at this point I think a few more humans starving to death under extreme conditions would be a small price to pay for cognitive efficiency.

But the world is ours! It is not the elite's!

I'm not sure I like this story of some generic masses being compartmentalized away from "the elites". To be extreme, we might consider the "masses" to be their own guards at a free-range labor camp.

Elites are not distinct from the masses, then, but rather hold concentrated resources of various sorts that make them relatively influential within the camp. What you seek is to homogenize their influence, but it's difficult to see how this could be achieved without homogenizing individual resources, presumably every single day or every few hours, and that's a pretty huge and well-known can of worms.

Ultimately though, any moralistic - or morally-grounded - argument for a particular sort of governance is doomed to be short-lived and inconsistent with itself. My stance on the inadequacy of current power politics and wealth politics is simply that "elites" are still large and diffuse as a group, in some ways even more diffuse than the masses (really, as pointed out, Masses - Elites), and yet bent toward a narrower set of goals and priorities, leading to ineffective and uncoordinated governance of any sort.

What must be done, I believe, is for an absolute technocracy to assume power over all governance in the entire world, to establish and affirm certain overarching goals and priorities as part of this governance, and oversee the fruition of its own meta-goal (e.g. post-humanism). The one way I can think of to safeguard such an arrangement - never mind reaching the point in the first place - would be to fund the development of an army of robotic overseers, which for the duration of the process toward the meta-goal would ensure that the technocrats, being individually replaced from time to time as all humans must be, "stay on task", so to speak.

Now, the problem of reaching the opening of this stage: perhaps voting has its part to play in the process, in which a short-term swing towards the left-wing (so we must work to manage any nascent transition from rightist hegemony to leftist hegemony) will allow the democratic instantiation of an ever-more centralized state, in which the new leftist governments would allow the appropriate technocrats scope and resources to operate.

Yes, it seems a conspiracy would be necessary at some point, but hopefully the interval outside relative openness should be short enough - a few years - that the program could not be stopped if and once discovered.

[Pannonian]

I'm wondering how to square this:

I have told Idaho several times that if he stands, I will run his campaign - I will go door to door and ask people to vote for him - I will run a campaign persuading people to register in the city to vote...

Idaho pointed out he can't afford the fee to enter as a candidate - that's a valid point but it's seperate from his main objection.

with this:

Am I just bitter because my voice isn't heard? Joking aside, no. I am a middle aged, middle class white man who earns well over the average salary. I am catered for very well by the status quo. I am not some downtrodden minority.

The deposit for standing for Parliament is £500. If Idaho earns well over the average salary, that shouldn't be too much of a stretch, and I'd imagine that he spends well over that for a holiday. There needn't be much in the way of running costs, as PVC has volunteered to run the campaign for him, and in any case all valid candidates are given some resources to help with their campaigns.

"In order to become a 'validly nominated' candidate, which means your name will appear on a ballot paper, you need to submit a completed set of nomination forms together with a deposit of £500 to the (Acting) Returning Officer before 4pm on the deadline day for nominations.

As a 'validly nominated' candidate you will be entitled to free postage for one election communication to electors in your constituency, as well as the use of certain rooms to hold public meetings."