Is Democracy Exhausting?

After watching Question Time last night and catching a debate on the Wright Stuff this morning (fuck you Carole Malone! Fuck you to hell !!), the consensus is that having to wander down to the end of your street to vote is too tiring for most people. The energy required to spare a couple of minutes to play their part in a democratic process, which people have gone to war to protect, is just too much.

This isn’t just Millennials, but the gammon faced, middle aged, chattering classes too.

What has gone wrong with society that we won’t stand up and fight to be heard ?

Everybody has an opinion. Talking to mates or down the pub (or on here) changes nothing.
Voting is having an opinion which counts. It may not change anything, that’s democracy, but it has a better chance for affecting change than drunkenly shouting at somebody over a pint or smashing up a keyboard.

Am I alone in my despair ?

image

http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-8060%23fullreport

Don’t know about exhausting. Exhausted, perhaps.

FPP doesn’t seem to deliver a government that can or will be responsive to the wishes of the population.

Even when a referendum is held (and I didn’t like the outcome) it so far seems that the change a majority voted for is being delayed by obfuscation & mendacity. No wonder a large number of people have lost faith in the process.

We need Kim Jong-un :+1:

2 Likes

At least FPP tends to put a government in place which can implement its policies, if not those that the population wants. The process is simple and gets itself out of the way pretty quickly. More representative systems tend to be more complex and more time is then wasted on that process (essentially negotiating coalitions and then every detail of individual policies) rather than getting on with the job. The model of efficiency and progress which is the Italian government is perhaps the best example of this. Others include Belgium where in 2010-11 they went without an elected government for 589 days https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010–11_Belgian_government_formation. It seems they didn’t miss it, I guess because the business of coalition governments is process - endless bickering - not actually doing anything.

VB

I have always voted, people have died for me to have the right too.

I find people who don’t vote and then moan very annoying and disappointing.

3 Likes

I have to drive 5 miles, take a 25 minute ferry and then drive 2 miles to get to our voting station.

:grin:

Still worth it though.

3 Likes

My polling station is literally in the building next door. I have to walk perhaps 40yds (including the bit inside the building).

VB

1 Like

I always vote and always will.

The fact that every government, of every flavour, governs only for self gain makes me wonder why I bother, though.

So, I can see why those with even less of a stake don’t bother. The entire political system in this country is corrupt and fucked.

3 Likes

The problem is that those that want to be in power shouldn’t be, and those that are clever enough and right to be in power don’t won’t to be because they are clever enough not to be!

3 Likes

Is that actually a good thing?

1 Like

You okay hon’?

3 Likes

This, this and more this ^^^^^^^^^^^^

1 Like

Im fummin

2 Likes

I’ll FB you later :kissing_heart:

1 Like

There’s no simple answer to that question. But I’d be pretty disappointed if I’d built an electoral system which delivered one paralysed ineffectual bickering government after another. The long term impact of not letting politicians do stuff is that the profession (?) will end up attracting even more hopeless second-raters than it does now.

VB

7 Likes

I guess that the issue for me is that politicians should generally be making subtle changes - a soft hand on the rudder of a supertanker, say. As soon as they make dramatic changes then it all fucks up, because the scale of the task is grossly underestimated.

So I quite like coalitions that take months to set up, as we should get a fairly centrist view.

The electoral system and how govt operates should be on the school curriculum. Voting should be law for everyone 18 or over, no exceptions - but not prisoners.

We don’t have complete freedom, there’s lots we have to do and can’t do; adding voting is no big deal.

But the most important change would be to have a none of the above as an option. You can choose not to vote for any candidate but you actively register that preference rather than fucking off to the pub or whatever.

1 Like

In Oz voting is compulsory. Politics is a part of life, from school to the grave. I never had an issue with being “forced” to listen, absorb and then have an informed opinion.
State, and Federal elections every 3 years. Senate every 5. Elections often called when issues arose such as; blocked supply, internal squabbles, political salience.

If you didn’t vote, you were fined.

If you objected to ALL the parties, then you spoiled your ballot paper. This is collated and seen as a protest vote. % of spoiled ballots is small. But certainly higher when politicians are seen to be behaving like cunts.

It never seemed too much of an imposition to me.

5 Likes