They're not voting because...
- Despite having talked to hundreds of...
Despite having talked to hundreds of so-called educated people, none of them can tell me how voting for a pretty much random assemblage of people (who each have differing views) in a political party which has a generalised policy is the equivalent of presenting my unique view on hundreds or even thousands of issues, some of which fall into my field of expertise, some of which don't.
Or, indeed, how they believe that voting in Mr.X (or Mrs.X or even Miss X) will change things for the better without knowing who they are personally and all the issues extremely well.
Or why I should have to select between politicians who, as a group, have pretty much shown themselves to be generally inaccurate, misleading and sometimes downright liars.
No-one can explain how my 65-millionth of a vote for a specialled selected (but not by me) individual from a political party who do not (and cannot) represent all my views exactly will improve anything or, indeed, show where a particular political party has achieved a difference in anything without having to sacrifice something.
As further minor criticisms politics, and elections in particular, are solely about PR, marketing and (basically) salesmanship alone, a childish bad-mouthing of the opposition while trying to hide all the bad parts that your party know they are going to have to make happen.
Policies suddenly improve around election-time, a blatent PR attempt to "buy" your vote. In public, politicians speak of nothing but politics and how they would be better than the other side.
There are people that blindly vote for a party because they/their family/their neighbours/their flatmate's dog has always voted for them, there are people that believe every word out of a politician's mouth no matter how ludicrous and vote on that basis and both, along with the generally ignorant, mean that the elections basically turn into a popularity contest.
I've gleaned from other people that they feel forced to vote. I've actually been told several times that "people died for you to have a vote." which is a ridiculous notion when people died to give us freedom to choose. I choose not to vote for someone I don't know on issues I don't understand under an entire system that I disapprove of.
written 8th Apr 2005