Canadian Election
I've waited a while to write my thoughts on the election so that I wouldn't sound too angry. Needless to say I was really disappointed, both with the overall result and my riding result.
In my riding the Liberal candidate won by 18000 votes! The NDP got the best showing in the riding ever but the very fact that the riding with a huge gay population voted for the Liberals to me is a sign that people were voting against the Conservatives. This is because the Conservative agenda is just that "Conservative" as opposed to the Progressive Conservatives that had a more liberal approach to social policies.
As a young voter the question I used to try to answer for an election was: Who should I vote for? Then I got my chance to vote for the 1st time and I didn't answer that question I simply looked at the main party in my region, the Bloc, and looked at one item on their agenda, separation, and said what's my alternative. Now I should have looked at my alternatives but instead I wanted my vote to (hopefully) topple the front runner. So, I am ashamed to say, I voted Liberal (regardless, the Bloc won by a huge majority anyways). So what if I had never got into politics and read anymore about the parties and only heard and watched the news? I'd have probably voted Liberal again. Now I wonder how many people do the same thing, that is come into this complex world or party politics and in an attempt to participate they simply either go with the flow (vote for the ruling party) or vote against the flow without considering almost anything about the policies? From this they easily flow into the pattern of strategic voting, taking the lesser of two evils. To me it seems like a lot of people do this, judging from the election results.
Maybe part of the problem is the fact that it almost impossible to have a discussion about politics with people unless you are both leaning towards the same party. During canvassing many people where simply unwilling to talk about their political views. Why? I know that in the old days everything was censored, but now how is it people are soo quiet about their opinions about who spends their money. People aren't afraid to talk to you about their bank. So why their political party? From what I have gathered the only explanation is there decision is irrationally based and won't stand to questioning so they won't talk about it, such as, "it's what my grandfather, my father voted so now I vote the same way." though the best responses are, "I don't vote because...[something about disapproving of the system]". These people are so lazy they won't even vote for a party that disapproves of the system! (And yes there are a few.) In fact if all those disagreeing voters voted for one of these parties we'd be in a completely different system in 8 years!
Maybe we need to start "practicing" democracy. Open discussions should be more common than talk about what sports teams are doing. People should be ashamed of not being informed (not ashamed of not voting, some people shouldn't vote) not the contrary and most of all we should be "practicing" democracy more than once every few years (voting is not the only part of democracy, issues are raised all the time and people should know about them while they happen not when the next election comes up). Hard to believe people are dying (literally) to get the right to vote.
In my riding the Liberal candidate won by 18000 votes! The NDP got the best showing in the riding ever but the very fact that the riding with a huge gay population voted for the Liberals to me is a sign that people were voting against the Conservatives. This is because the Conservative agenda is just that "Conservative" as opposed to the Progressive Conservatives that had a more liberal approach to social policies.
As a young voter the question I used to try to answer for an election was: Who should I vote for? Then I got my chance to vote for the 1st time and I didn't answer that question I simply looked at the main party in my region, the Bloc, and looked at one item on their agenda, separation, and said what's my alternative. Now I should have looked at my alternatives but instead I wanted my vote to (hopefully) topple the front runner. So, I am ashamed to say, I voted Liberal (regardless, the Bloc won by a huge majority anyways). So what if I had never got into politics and read anymore about the parties and only heard and watched the news? I'd have probably voted Liberal again. Now I wonder how many people do the same thing, that is come into this complex world or party politics and in an attempt to participate they simply either go with the flow (vote for the ruling party) or vote against the flow without considering almost anything about the policies? From this they easily flow into the pattern of strategic voting, taking the lesser of two evils. To me it seems like a lot of people do this, judging from the election results.
Maybe part of the problem is the fact that it almost impossible to have a discussion about politics with people unless you are both leaning towards the same party. During canvassing many people where simply unwilling to talk about their political views. Why? I know that in the old days everything was censored, but now how is it people are soo quiet about their opinions about who spends their money. People aren't afraid to talk to you about their bank. So why their political party? From what I have gathered the only explanation is there decision is irrationally based and won't stand to questioning so they won't talk about it, such as, "it's what my grandfather, my father voted so now I vote the same way." though the best responses are, "I don't vote because...[something about disapproving of the system]". These people are so lazy they won't even vote for a party that disapproves of the system! (And yes there are a few.) In fact if all those disagreeing voters voted for one of these parties we'd be in a completely different system in 8 years!
Maybe we need to start "practicing" democracy. Open discussions should be more common than talk about what sports teams are doing. People should be ashamed of not being informed (not ashamed of not voting, some people shouldn't vote) not the contrary and most of all we should be "practicing" democracy more than once every few years (voting is not the only part of democracy, issues are raised all the time and people should know about them while they happen not when the next election comes up). Hard to believe people are dying (literally) to get the right to vote.
posted by Eddie | 1:11 AM
1 Comments:
I feel your pain! The problem with leaving voting to the people who *know* what they are talking about is basically going back to aristocrat days since it is mostly the rich who know what they are talking about since they are the educated. But when voting is optionial people tend to just vote the same way as always as if it's a habit. So there is the possibility of madatory voting (see other post). But the main issue, I think, is that once democracy leaves the immediate power away from the people (to a representative democracy) it's flaws show.
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