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by MonSTeR
(quotes)

I agree about that completely. Personally I'd be in favour of some sort of voting licence where in order to vote you'd have to prove you know what you were voting for. I think it's very very worrying that a tabloid paper can just say "vote for Mr X" and thousands of people do so, without knowing why or what they're voting for and thus impact upon the country like that.

It might seem very controlling but I think it's only sensible to let folks who understand what they're doing have a hand in these sorts of decision. Afterall, you'd not be happy if the Sun printed a guide to brainsurgery and that was all that was needed to allow folks to work as a surgeon!!!

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Though I might have found the idea at least a little tempting after most rides in a London taxi , I could see the dangers far outweighing the benefits. Basically I'd be a lot more worried about letting a government decide who can vote than I would of people taking tabloid opinions into the ballot box. The current system might be incredibly crude, but at least the people in power can't selectively disenfranchise their enemies. Look how even something simple like disenfranchising convicted felons was abused in certain American states.

I love politics. I find it incredibly interesting & stressful. I get annoyed by the various parties. I mostly understand it from doing a Politics module in Sociology A-level.

What's not too understand?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be patronising. I know not everyone thinks they understand politics, and it's not an issue of intelligence. The problem isn't politics, but some of the prats who try to dominate it. They swamp it in arcane terms and traditions. Try to use exclusive jargonistic (and deliberately obtuse) language. Because they don't want you to get involved. They just want to have their own exclusive club.

And the problem is that, if you leave to 'those who get politics', then you get a country run for their benefit. And not yours.

See, politics is what time you have to drink up. It's whether you're employer can get away with paying you peanuts while soaking up the profits sat on their multi-million pound yacht. It's whether they can sack you because your skirt is too long. Or too short. It's how your children (or relatives, or you) are educated and what type of country you want to live in. It's what bands are allowed to record and distribute their music, and thus that precious top 40. It isn't overgrown boys in wigs making barnyard noises and petty one-up-manship in front of the cameras.

Thing is we let them get away with it. Rather than cut through the manure we just don't bother to vote. Or let the tabloids lead our hands on the voting slip. It is exactly because we don't bother to take them to task, because we don't look into what our government does or even bother to ask 'Is this right?', that we get these prancing ninnies, and frankly the government we all deserve: especially those who don't vote at all.

But sure, we can all get on with our day-to-day lives. We can all watch what we want on the telly, buy the music we want and party like we just don't care. Until someone you love gets shot because they looked like a terrorist. Or sacked so the boss can cut overheads and afford that holiday in Hawaii. Or loses their right to vote because they say the wrong things. Or even deported for not looking quite right. Apathy is a luxury affordable by the majority at the expense of minorities.

Sorry to sound harsh, I still love you all, but it's the truth. Or my truth at least...

[edited for the usual silliness - think/thing, throw/through and skirt/shirt - weirdly]

(Edited by Jayjay 24/11/2005 18:21)

JayJay, that was great.

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by Jayjay
What's not too understand?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be patronising. I know not everyone thinks they understand politics, and it's not an issue of intelligence. The problem isn't politics, but some of the prats who try to dominate it. They swamp it in arcane terms and traditions. Try to use exclusive jargonistic (and deliberately obtuse) language. Because they don't want you to get involved. They just want to have their own exclusive club.

And the problem is that, if you leave to 'those who get politics', then you get a country run for their benefit. And not yours.

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I used to be all for making politics acessible. Even flirted with the old anarchy for a time. But after witnessing the population's eagerness to abandon their own liberties of late, I'm fast coming to the belief what the majority wants wouldn't be to their own benefit. Should something that's popular be automatically implemented, no matter how flawed?

Politics is more accessible than some people might think. Many seem to think that Parliament and the House of Lords deal with very dry stuff, legislation that 'says nothing to me about my life', but it doesn't take a lot to start shouting '******* t****r!' at the radio everytime Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is on it talking about anything, be it climate change, Iraq, 90 day detention, drinking laws... That inverse snobbery thing does come up a lot when people opine that the police should be armed and 'cop killers' should be hanged, while saying they're not really interested in politics, as if to suggest that their opinions should count for more because they're somehow above the partisan left-right wrangling. Getting them to admit that supporting the death penalty is a rightwing position is like pulling teeth.

But yeah, getting to know more about politics isn't hard to do. I started by picking up a broadsheet paper because I wanted a more indepth account of an event. Sadly, it was Charles and Di's wedding, but it got me there. I started reading the Guardian regularly, then one day, the newsagent was out of that paper, so I got the Independent instead, and I've never looked back (well, once or twice, but the Grauniad just seemed so hopelessly two-dimensional by comparison. The tabloids, by comparison, barely rate one dimension). At first, the great wodges of text can seem quite off-putting, but after a short time, you will wonder how you could have settled for a crude snap shot of crucial social issues. Even if you only read the parliamentary sketch, which uses humour to make the reporting of parliamentary discussions more palatable, that's a start.

Then there's 'Question Time' (followed by 'This Week') on BBC1, and the radio original 'Any Questions?' (followed by 'Any Answers?', where listeners get to phone in to give their opinions of what the panelists had to say. Until you actually take the time to view/listen to these programmes, they probably will seem dull, but they are far from it (well, most of the time). Hearing a string of listeners decalring that the police should all carry guns after the recent shooting of a police officer, without stopping to consider if this will boost the chances of criminals carrying guns too, increasing the risk to everyone, is just one issue. The shortage of flu jabs affect everyone too. I really could go on, but enough people will have been put off by the length of this post anyway. Put it this way, in a country where I, a keen socialist, am tempted to join the Conservative Party because it needs to be dragged on to it's feet to do the job of opposing 'New Labour', politics is too important to be ignored.

Edited because I assumed the strong words would be filtered out...

(Edited by The_Host 23/11/2005 04:24)

Thanks Sandia, that's very kind.

Byron, that path leads to authoritarianism, and then onto either Communism or Conservatism. Neither ends happily. While I sympathise, we just have to remember that the most vocal are not the majority, and that if we can't win the argument through debate then maybe we're arguing the wrong point.

The Host, completely agree with all of the above. Thouhg for those shy of buly newspapers (even if the Independent has dumped down and shrunk a bit) there's shed loads on the net. It's free, you won't hit anyone turning a page and there's a world out there to save. Seriously, that's not hype.

Just remember y'all, if we don't care, if we don't act, then evil sods like Blair and Howard will be free to do literally whatever they want. And believe me, none of us want that...

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by Jayjay
Byron, that path leads to authoritarianism, and then onto either Communism or Conservatism. Neither ends happily. While I sympathise, we just have to remember that the most vocal are not the majority, and that if we can't win the argument through debate then maybe we're arguing the wrong point.

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Or maybe that point doesn't translate so well into a single-sentence soundbite.

Problem is most people don't enter into rational debate, carefully weigh up the pros and cons of a particular position, and arrive at one they agree with. They listen for two minutes, grab the simplest-sounding solution and pull down the shutters. You're debating at them, not with them. Demands the powerful strip away our own liberties didn't come from the most vocal; they came from representative opinion polls of the whole nation. It's a comforting leftie myth that there's some decent, silent majority out there who secretly agree with us, but I no longer believe it. People follow the simplest solution, regardless of its merits, and they always will, because that's simply how most people are made.

Depressing stuff, but it's time the left accepted it instead of letting the right win all the time. Not because they have the better arguments, but because they acknowledge the object is manipulation, not enlightenment. If the left doesn't drop its fantasy of converting people through rational debate, ahead lies conservatism by default.