The Political Thread

[Frank]

The BNP won no seats at yesterday's local authority elections. I don't think Griffin can afford to lose so many deposits:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/events/vote2014/england-council-election-results

[Jim_Campbell]

The BNP won no seats at yesterday's local authority elections.

This news, at least, pleases me.

Cheers

Jim

[Proudhuff]

I'm finding it hard to find turnout numbers for these elections, normally they are highly advertised, i did hear a turnout of 36%, if that is the case then the UKIP groundswell is hardly that, 17% of 36%?

Nicely illustrating Jim's point above!



The big question they all should be asking is why the other 64% didn't vote?

[ZenArcade]

As pointed out before: utter disconnect. The difficulty is the agendaised 35% are calling the shots. The 65% by not voting are empowering people with a vested interest in keeping the 65% in or near the poorhouse.

[The Legendary Shark]

Maybe people are beginning to realise that it's like voting for your favourite disease - why bother?

[M.I.K.]

Maybe people are beginning to realise that it's like voting for your favourite disease - why bother?

Because voting for the common cold means you're less likely to end up with the Ebola virus.

[ZenArcade]

Shark, because when you don't, you can gurantee someone (probably not with your best interests at heart) is voting. As the system is constituted, they then by proxy have the whip hand. I guess if voter participation fell below 25% there would be an issue of legitimacy, which would have to be seriously addressed...possibly. But sheer apathy/inertia seems a poor way of effecting positive change?Z

[Frank]

The big question they all should be asking is why the other 64% didn't vote?

Because no-one has a clue who their MEP is and they never hear a single report of what their MEP and their pals have been up to in Brussels/Strasbourg from one year to another. You could argue that's because it's all so big and far away, but the same probably applies to their local councillor too.

Nick Robinson and his lot often leave the studio to do vox pops in shopping centres where they show members of the public a photograph of the leader of an opposition party and ask them if they know who they are. When hardly anyone can name them, the political correspondent grimly opines that said leader clearly has more work to do getting his name and his message out to UK voters, but when they do the same with Dave Cameron's picture the results aren't much better.

You remember how everyone slagged off that girl who tweeted something about Baracko Barma (sic) being leader of the country? That's because they thought she'd posted a picture of Andy Peters by mistake.

[Professor Bear]

You vote when you're very young and angry, and you vote when you're very old and angry at how immigrants have made you a failure in life, but in between is the apathy years where you get jaded and have better things to do than vote.  For a laugh, I think one year we should have an election via social media - buggered if I know how that'll turn out, but I'm betting the country will at least be eventful for a few years.

In other news, Northern Irish intellectuals engaged head-on with the subject of multiculturalism in a polarised society: https://audioboo.fm/boos/2186646-nolan-clashes-with-caller-over-muslims

[Theblazeuk]

What is the worse that happens if you vote for the best available option in your opinion? Even if you don't believe that any of those options will do anything more than sustain a broken system, it's not as though any of us have a choice in that system - we are in it one way or another, no matter how vehement an opposition we have towards it.

At the very least, you could vote for the Greens, who are the only ones proposing anything different from varying shades of callousness towards Business As Usual. Or if possible the Monster Raving Loony Party who if they could stand across the nation, would make a very good candidate for a protest vote.

As pointed out before: utter disconnect. The difficulty is the agendaised 35% are calling the shots. The 65% by not voting are empowering people with a vested interest in keeping the 65% in or near the poorhouse.

Agreed! Though I would trade any turnout at MEP election for a better turnout at the general election. One doesn't matter much without the other.

[Professor Bear]

Instead of swearing off politics if you don't agree with your MP, why not try changing their minds on issues in their manifesto that concern you?  They work for you, after all, and they don't have the luxury of long-term intransigence and must constantly modify their views to better represent the changing times we live in - even the Tories have grasped that much, and their whole deal is that they think it's still the middle ages.  You can't just pick someone and stand back and let them have at it, because you will never find someone who is in agreement with you on all matters: you must engage.  Opting out merely lets the worst possible candidates have a clear run at legitimacy.

[The Legendary Shark]

And what if I wish to commit the Cardinal Sin of  running my own life under Common Law? Entering into the contracts I want to enter into and refusing those I believe to be unethical or against my conscience?
.
If I vote to be infected with the common cold it makes absolutely no difference if the majority votes for AIDS or cancer.
.
The government, in my opinion, is there to govern things like the infrastructure of the country in order to keep it running for the benefit of all - no matter their personal political views - and not to rule every aspect of our lives like some elected tyrant.
.
Our government is no longer fit for purpose, it has been hijacked by corporate interests who are using it as a money-hoover to enrich and empower themselves by making it "law" that we all must work ever harder and ever longer to support these Fascist institutions.
.
Dissent is controlled and misdirected through "parties" like the BNP, UKIP, Greens and Monster Raving Loonies which are designed to water down disagreement by picking one or two emotive issues apiece, forcing us to choose whichever we feel most strongly about. This ensures only a fragmented and weak range of "one size fits all" politics which confuses myriad issues and condenses them into pointless and corrosive factions, keeping us all at one another's throats like little more than football hooligans fighting for our "teams" no matter how well they're playing.
.
Human beings are tribal animals who enjoy, and may even be genetically predisposed to, belonging to groups - just like being a Squaxx and belonging to this 2000ADonline group. How many of us, though, belong to just one group? Every human being is unique and has a wide range of (often contradictory) opinions, experiences and beliefs yet our politicians offer only very limited options from which we are forced to choose as if Freedom of Choice is the only Freedom we are entitled to.
.
Well, I choose not to choose. It's David Cameron's job to make sure my sewers work, my water is clean and my roads are in good repair. It is not his job to tell me how to live and who to pay for my existence on this Earth.
.
We need, as a matter of some urgency, to rescue our governments all over the world and put them to work FOR EVERYONE, not just the same old elites who control us by controlling the "political agenda". In my view, the government should be neutral and help everyone by leaving us alone until we, individually, need impartial and lawful assistance.
.
The only vote I have any right to cast is for whomever I wish to rule my own life - and the only person with any right to rule my life is me just as the only person with any right to rule your life is you - and so long as I/you don't infringe on the lives of others against their will then where's the harm?
.
The power is yours, the sovereignty is yours, the country is yours, the future is yours - don't give it all away to these greedy, self-serving muppets who think they know what's best for you - because, just like the rest of us, they only know (or think they know) what's best for themselves.
.
Every time you vote you betray yourself,  sacrifice your own freedoms and abdicate your own responsibilities.

[Professor Bear]

I feel compelled to point out that the guy I voted for lives three doors down and I've known him all my life.  Our street is a shithole, so he's not exactly the rich, distant fatcat of political lore.

[The Legendary Shark]

And does this guy know how you should live your life better than you do? Does he know how you should raise your children better than you do? Does he know what you should believe, how you should behave and how much you can afford to pay better than you do?
.
If the answer is yes, then by all means vote for him and let him tell you what to do. If the answer is no, well, I suppose you might as well vote for him and let him tell you what to do anyway.
.

[ZenArcade]

Vernor Vinge et al would love you Shark, you are espousing a libertarian view of society, where individual freedom is promoted to the maximum. I really am not too sure if this concept is workable in a complex industrial/post industrial society. It might do if information technology were utilised to the full by an educated, informed population, with a roughly even distribution of resources. This is unrealisable as things stand now and frankly, as ever they will stand.
We are realistically stuck with some form of representative system. The difficulty now is this system whether by accident or, in my estimation, by design, is simply not delivering anywhere near the service to the commonweal that it is capable of. Z