Sometimes it was democratic, sometimes it was not. Most often it never was democracy, because there was always an almighty leader following his own vision which no one could agree with. I say “his”, because it is less often a woman who would act so blindly against everyone else’s will. For that alone, I am willing to only vote for women in the future, but I have met many bitches in position of power within my lifetime, and so, we can never be sure or safe. It is really a question of transparency about who we do elect to power. Who are they truly deep down, do we even get to really know, considering all the lies we are being fed all the time?
I have never read Karl Marx or anything about communism or socialism, for some reason when they came to my universities to recruit new fresh minds, I never got on the boat. After my observations, I took several courses in the philosophy of politics in University, and I guess I must have read then about socialism, somehow it didn’t stick, I can’t remember anything about it. I remember The Social Contract of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Hobbes and Locke and most especially The Prince of Machiavelli.
Now that this is out of the way, that you know that I am no expert on the topic, like neither anyone in politics if I may add, let’s see what I think of it. From an early age I always thought politics didn’t work. For some reason, even though the process looked entirely democratic, we always ended up voting for parties instead of people, and hence, we always seemed to elect the wrong people. It has been my observation that it is quite rare that someone in power will actually do what people actually want. It always ends up in disaster, and sometimes, we even re-elect the same horrible people, and no one can understand why.
I’m not going to talk here about pettiness, like should we separate Canada in two or not, or should we go to war with the rest of the world for no apparent good justification. Or what about those terrorists, should we not destroy a few countries and kill a few million people, for those 20 guys who attacked us on a Monday morning years ago? I will also avoid talking about rigged vote, fake elections, though I feel it is a growing concern and I stop short of saying that I believe democracy is truly dead at the time I’m writing these lines.
I simply want to talk about politics at its most basic function and structure, because this is what I feel does not work and ultimately fails us all. This is what can give the power to anyone to suddenly create a world war or destroy an entire economy for the wrong reasons.
When I was a teenager, I always thought that one day I would write a book about the philosophy of politics, and my classes at university re-enforced my need to do so. However, up until now I didn’t feel I had all the answers yet, in fact, I’m not sure if I have any at all. It is certainly not the easiest topic to address. I have however come to a few conclusions.
The idea of political parties needs to go. It is the most outdated and impractical concept there ever was in politics. More so because in this day and age, the line is so blurred between party lines, there is not much difference if you vote for one or the other. The only difference is a few main big ideas like being against gays, against abortion, against women’s rights (should they remain at home and pop out babies into existence as their sole social role), should we give more money to big corporations or not, should we give more money to the poor, and finally, the big argument that cannot fail to win you an election: should we lower the taxes (as if this was a question to ask anyone already paying 60% of their salary in taxes and on anything they will spend their money on).
Now, these few main big ideas, which truly have nothing to do with any political party, as for most of the time that they will be in power, this will be completely at the back of their mind and they will most probably do nothing or very little about it, does not have to be the reasons why you vote for a political party. These can be debated anyway by all the elected representatives in the assembly, if you paid more attention to the personal beliefs and ideas of your local representatives instead of the political party you will vote for, you would know if the person you’re about to elect will be a little tyrant and alienate you completely or not. That little group of local politicians is really all you need to study in order to vote, nothing else. By electing a political party, you most likely vote for the representative of that party without knowing anything about who that person truly is and what that person can truly do for you. Most of the time these people are so powerless anyway, their elections are more like a formality for a party to get into power, and the Prime Minister and his Cabinet, or the President and his few allies, take over the show. So in essence, you will be ruled by a very small group of people, and even your local representatives, you will know very little about, and they will be powerless anyway. You see the problem?
By getting rid of political parties and coming back to basics, we will also eliminate another growing concern in actual politics. Now parties are spending so much money on their elections, it goes into the millions if not billions. What does this tells you? That only rich bastards can now get into power. Where do they get the money? This invites bribery, corruption, conflict of interests, and now we’re destroying Iraq to take over their natural resources, because who paid for the American Elections? Petroleum companies. No one can now compete freely in the political arena. If I were to present myself tomorrow as an independent, I will most certainly lose. If I were the representative somehow of a political party, I could win, but all for the wrong reasons. And even so, how would I go, myself, right now, to represent a political party in an election? I have no clue, I would probably not be accepted, they wouldn’t want me, they probably have already a clique of hungry and greedy little friends who have been in politics since forever, that will most likely be their representatives in my own county when they probably don’t even live in my county.
So first, eliminate political parties. Second, eliminate the right to publicise in any way thinkable political ideas and representatives. No one should ever be allowed to accept money from anyone or any corporation for a political campaign. No one should be able to win an election simply by injecting millions and billions into a PR and publicity machine. It is too unfair. As soon as you hear one guy on the radio or the TV talking about this or that, no matter what he talks about, you are probably very likely going to vote for him, because you will recognise his name on the election ballot, when the others will seem not to even exist. What’s a name after all?
So now that we have gotten rid of the political parties which elect the wrong type of people, and that we have finally gotten rid of the big brainwashing publicity machine that will most assuredly influence everyone to vote for this or that, all for the wrong reasons, whilst preventing anyone without the money to be heard, and so speaking destroying democracy, what do we do? Simple. Who pays for the publicity campaign? The government, meaning, and we forget it all the time, the people pay for it. A few pages about each candidate distributed locally to everyone, so we can find out about these people we’re about to elect outside of party lines, and hopefully with the thought that they can think for themselves, that they can be heard and that they can make a difference. An hour here and there on local TV and radio, for each of them, space available in local newspapers, all paid by the people. Cheaply done, no more millions and billions spent on politics and publicity machines. It must remain at a local level, never national. As soon as a political election is national, it defies democracy, it elects the wrong people.
So now that the elections are over, and that people have won for the right reasons, without being a drain on the economy, without bribes and corruption, who’s gonna be the leader? It has always been the leader of the political party who took ultimate power, and the leader of the opposition being the leader of the second most popular party.
This needs new thinking. Well, you have elected the people you most trusted, let them decide between them who will be the temporary leader and who will speak for the opposition, even though, I feel, the opposition should be everyone else in the assembly. It would be a nice change for once if the people you elected locally were to decide who would become the Prime Minister or the President, based on their own personal judgement of who is the most apt person for the post. I know you feel they already do when they decide who will be the leader of their party, however this is decided before an election, and ultimately too many people will win a seat based on that one man or woman alone. That is again winning for the wrong reasons.
In the end, there should never be a strong leader in charge of any country or any other government or council, or else, it eliminates the voice of everyone else, and so, your voice. It cancels the idea of an election and of democracy. Only after, should it be decided who is the leader, and that leadership should never be permanent for the whole mandate, it should change every so often.This should not stop there. The ministers or whatever they are called in the US, should not be decided by the leader. They should also be voted by the whole of the assembly based on merits and who they feel should be in charge of certain departments. Or else it is too easy for the leader to get all his little friends there in power, and then it becomes dangerous, because the leader can do whatever he or she likes without fear of being stopped.
I suppose I have not thought about all this as much as would be required, really. But with my full time job I have no time to study politics and develop my own philosophy of it. It will have to wait until I retire, assuming I won’t die from cancer at an early age. However, my little suggestions might just give us a better representation of what people truly want. It will be more likely that the wrong people will not find themselves in power that easily. It could get rid of corruption, bring back democracy, and avoid costly elections.
Overall, my few pages might just do the trick. If that doesn’t work, we’ll have to re-assess the situation then. In the meantime, it would certainly solve a few of the biggest problems I witnessed in politics today.
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