Bothered by democracy
It's just past midnight on Sunday, September 12th, and in less than forty-two hours I'll have to do my civic duty and hand in my vote to ensure that we have the right people running the country for the next four years.
Tough.
This may not be as well-articulated and consistent as I would like it to be, since I'm rather tired at 2am and would probably have been better off sleeping. But what the heck, I feel like typing this up now rather than later.
So, anyway.
Looking at USA we see a prime example of "democracy" gone horribly wrong (this is of course only my own opinion, but I still hold it to be true). Looking at Norway you'll find a prime example of democracy that's just barely limping along on crutches due to its nature in terms of mathematics, vague political statements, and public indecision.
An effective government is one that can make up its mind, take a stand, and carry out what it thinks is right. Ours is not such a government. Regardless of who wins the election, and if the last umpteen years are anything to go by this will be the case again, they will end up with less than 50% of the votes. Certainly they will have more votes than any other political party (we have about twenty of them, I think), but they won't be the majority. The parliament will be set up by one leading party with, say, about 30-35% of the chairs, and the remaining seats, 65-70%, will be holding the opposition.
Now, political debates in these last days leading up to the election are full of politicians pointing fingers at each other, insisting that each party that has been in power since ages ago – well, I don't quite remember when we last had a majority government in Norway, but it was long before I was born – hasn't done a good job at all, and have all failed in keeping the promises they gave during their election campaigns.
So what? There's simple mathematics to explain that. Each elected party has had to fight an opposition bigger than themselves, which will disagree and vote against them, and logically that means that they must surrender more than half their goals. As long as we have a minority government, we're going to get nowhere at any real speed.
What we'd need is a majority government. I don't care which, any one will do. If the first one makes a mess of things we'll elect another the next time around.
During the recent campaigns, as far as I can tell every political party says more or less the same. They have the same goals, and the same methods. They just use different words. Wherever and whenever numbers are used, they will at best lead to no change at all, or at worst to the worse. The common denominator is that the rich will get more, and the less rich and more needing – we're not supposed to have actual poor people – will get less. Nothing's new in that department. There's no distinction between them. So who the hell do I want to vote for?
Regardless of what I do and who I vote for, we will end up with yet another sad case of minority government, and the stupidity of it all will just go on and on.
Thank goodness our politicians are just stupid, not dangerous.
Tough.
This may not be as well-articulated and consistent as I would like it to be, since I'm rather tired at 2am and would probably have been better off sleeping. But what the heck, I feel like typing this up now rather than later.
So, anyway.
Looking at USA we see a prime example of "democracy" gone horribly wrong (this is of course only my own opinion, but I still hold it to be true). Looking at Norway you'll find a prime example of democracy that's just barely limping along on crutches due to its nature in terms of mathematics, vague political statements, and public indecision.
An effective government is one that can make up its mind, take a stand, and carry out what it thinks is right. Ours is not such a government. Regardless of who wins the election, and if the last umpteen years are anything to go by this will be the case again, they will end up with less than 50% of the votes. Certainly they will have more votes than any other political party (we have about twenty of them, I think), but they won't be the majority. The parliament will be set up by one leading party with, say, about 30-35% of the chairs, and the remaining seats, 65-70%, will be holding the opposition.
Now, political debates in these last days leading up to the election are full of politicians pointing fingers at each other, insisting that each party that has been in power since ages ago – well, I don't quite remember when we last had a majority government in Norway, but it was long before I was born – hasn't done a good job at all, and have all failed in keeping the promises they gave during their election campaigns.
So what? There's simple mathematics to explain that. Each elected party has had to fight an opposition bigger than themselves, which will disagree and vote against them, and logically that means that they must surrender more than half their goals. As long as we have a minority government, we're going to get nowhere at any real speed.
What we'd need is a majority government. I don't care which, any one will do. If the first one makes a mess of things we'll elect another the next time around.
During the recent campaigns, as far as I can tell every political party says more or less the same. They have the same goals, and the same methods. They just use different words. Wherever and whenever numbers are used, they will at best lead to no change at all, or at worst to the worse. The common denominator is that the rich will get more, and the less rich and more needing – we're not supposed to have actual poor people – will get less. Nothing's new in that department. There's no distinction between them. So who the hell do I want to vote for?
Regardless of what I do and who I vote for, we will end up with yet another sad case of minority government, and the stupidity of it all will just go on and on.
Thank goodness our politicians are just stupid, not dangerous.
posted by inShadowz at 11:13 PM
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