Why I don’t vote, part four million
As if you need to search for a good reason to fear the (British, large-C) Conservatives, here’s another that certainly makes my blood run cold:
The Cameronites have made a crystal-clear promise to maintain the tax-and-spend levels of the current government and have even suggested that they may well decide to crank them up further. Add that abuse to the profusion of ‘green’ restrictions which Cameron has also pledged to inflict and it won’t be too long before a mutilated economy finally collapses in an exhausted, anaemic heap.
And who will get the blame for all resultant chaos and pain? Certainly Cameron and the Tories will and that’s just tickety-boo with me. But the trouble is that the turmoil will also be blamed on the alleged (and widely believed) Tory fealty to the “so-called free market” and so, as the Tory ship sinks like a scuttled frigate, it sucks our ideas down with it. That is the kind of damage that could set our cause back a generation or more (and we are struggling enough as it is). No, it is not fair or true but what have fairness or truth got to do with anything?
As ever with politics, the choice comes down to turd sandwich or turd milkshake. As ever with democracy, majority + 1 will decide the fate of majority - 1. And people wonder why I want nothing to do with such systems.
Filed under: Life
What is your suggested alternative? I would rather have our current system than a small minority deciding the fate of the majority.
That is so right. Real conservatives, not necessarily with a large C, are disenfranchised with no one to vote for except the UKIP or the BNP. I see Camoron as just another scot, covert anti-English and an exact carbon copy of Blair with the same instincts, lack of principle and the same agenda of spin and dishonesty. I am particularly sad to see Haigh and David Davis in the same hollowed out party.
Cameron may be leading in the polls since more Lib-Dims and Blairistas have voted for him, which hides the haemorrhage of Conservatives to the UKIP, BNP, and the “None of the above” party. But come the hard polling day and the new found friends will be elsewhere.
I shall vote UKIP as a protest vote only, but in truth I shall be a life member of the “none of the above” party
Heather: My system would place an emphasis on individual freedom, not systems, so the government would be reduced in size by about 99%. Making most parts of life do-not-touch areas for the state would require much less administration and fewer decisions to be made, and I suspect that quite a lot of this decision-making could be devolved to a more local (individual) level. Just thinking out loud.
Of course, anytime anyone suggests an alternative to the current system, people say, “Why, that would be bonkers! Things would not go smoothly!” As if what we have now is worth preserving.
I always thought you were a U.S. citizen.
I am.
> My system would place an emphasis on individual freedom, not systems, so the government would be reduced in size by about 99%. Making most parts of life do-not-touch areas for the state
That sounds great to me, but I think it should be a matter of policy, not structure. I’d vote for a party that promised to make most parts of life do-not-touch areas for the state, but I don’t think any government should be allowed to do so in a way that would bind future governments. Freedom of choice is important in a democracy. Right now, we have a choice between three slightly different flavours of Socialism, so we Libertarians feel disenfranchised. But permanently prohibiting the state from interfering in people’s lives would similarly disenfranchise Socialists.
As long as they don’t actually dismantle democracy, the government must be free to do whatever the hell the people want them to. Unfortunately, right now, the people want the government to be their mum. But that will change.
ST, I am not a libertarian, and certainly not a Libertarian. Now that I am in the US, where the American Libertarian Party has many views with which I do not wish to associate, it’s even more important to me that people know this.
What you’re saying is that you think democracy is sacrosanct. I thought I made it pretty clear in my original post that I disagree.
Well, OK, then: we Libertarians, libertarians, Conservatives, free-marketeers, and anyone else who doesn’t want the state interfering in every little aspect of our lives all feel disenfranchised in the UK right now. The point’s the same.
I don’t think democracy’s sacrosanct, and agree that it is in many ways bloody awful. But what’s great about it is the wider effect of genuine choice on populaces: democracies very rarely go to war against each other, and, internally, power gets passed on from one group of interfering nutters to the next without the need for a bloody revolution. Few people have a lower opinion of politicians than me, but I’d rather face a long line of elected awful busybodyish idiots none of whom can hold on to power for more than about ten years than a long line of awful busybodyish idiots who grab power for life by killing their predecessors and thousands of subjects.
I suspect that what causes this peaceful stability is choice rather than democracy per se, but I doubt there’s a better way of having choice of government than through democracy.
I swear I’m not trying to pick nits, but I have to say: None of the people I know who describes themselves as ‘conservative’ are very interested in small government.
True enough. That’s kind of my point: conservatives are so disenfranchised that they’re not even represented by conservatives any more.