What's Wrong with Democracy?? - 2008

What’s Wrong With Democracy??

We could call it pinnacle politics. That would be a good descriptive for the current practice, in the supposed free world, of electing a temporary King to make all decisions for us. In theory, we elect a group of regional representatives to collectively make decisions for the common good. But the observant will note that one person, with perhaps a handful of helpmates, drives a highly personalized agenda, and generally obligates the elected representatives to speak and vote the party line.

So why are we electing all these individually muzzled representatives? Generally, I believe, to simply maintain the illusion that we are participating in a democratic system. Those who know their history will note that the Greeks invented a system where the masses gathered to actually individually cast votes on the issues of the day. The voting jar was counted and the will of the majority implemented.

Somehow, over the passage of time and the evolution of political process, the reality has become that individuals cast their votes only to elect regional representatives, supposedly to study the issues, and cast their votes on behalf of the masses. If one person ostensibly drives the decision mechanisms, however, we might as well call that elected leader our temporary King or Queen and save the expense of all those invisible representatives.

Much has been made of low voter turnouts in recent elections. This is symptomatic, I believe, of a growing malaise within our current practice of democracy, manifest in the general disenfranchisement of the individual. Technology has returned us to the possibility of true democracy, which would permit the individual to cast a vote directly on the questions of the day. Such a question might be, ‘Should Canada support the U.S. in its colonial invasions of middle eastern countries?’

I’m sure the question might be framed in more accommodating language, but the result of such a vote would probably have kept Canada out of the U.S. folly over there. And saved us the expense and the body counts, both of our own and of the many more of theirs. Such a vote in the U.S. might have also saved the U.S. itself from that misguided and never-ending folly. And our planet might have maintained some of the free world characteristics now hopelessly lost in the iron-fisted strategies adopted to supposedly cure terrorism. Anything short of the real cure, which is to stop killing people and messing about in the internal politics of other places.

In our modern world, with instant information at the fingertips of everyone, it is a hard argument to make that an elected individual has more knowledge than the electorate on any issue. The internet, or the telephone even, would allow us all to vote very easily and directly on important policy decisions.

I’m reminded of the recent illegal actions of a certain provincial government, which shredded the legal contracts of hospital employees, reduced their pay, and, some years later, was summarily chastised by the courts for those illegal actions. Such an action to abuse those employees would never have been voted through on the will of the people.

And, at the risk of digressing, I must mention that those hospital employees, whose legal contracts were shredded, and whose pay was reduced, have not had those wage levels re-instated at all. Meaning that the abuses of that illegal activity were allowed to stand as a local testament to the imperial powers of our temporary King. The people would not allow it.

Oh, and did I mention that the King more recently decreed massive wage increases for his court, again not subject to a vote, or the will of the people. A quarter of a million in annual salary still not quite enough, while the ordinary worker sinks to poverty. The people would not have allowed it, if given the opportunity to have their say.

That brings us to another deeply engrained affliction of the pinnacle political process, in its masquerade as democracy, which serves to discourage intelligent individuals from even seeking office. And this is where the current system is really failing us. We used to cast votes for the intellectual cream of our society. Now we seem to have only a choice of the lesser of evils.

The reason is, I believe, that we all of us know, consciously or subconsciously, that this system of pushing a few individuals to the top of a pyramid, and giving them absolute power, is fatally flawed. And knowing this, we subtly resent their ascension to power, and extravagant efforts are made to discredit them and eventually remove them from their pompous place.

A phenomenon I call ‘assassination by the media’ commences the very minute the current King or Queen is anointed. Intelligent individuals, who might even be able to make this system work for the common good, realize they will be assassinated in minor to major degree, depending on their visibility, and, being intelligent, refuse to subject themselves. The result being that this sham of a democracy is now most commonly attracting only second flight intellects and the hopelessly egomaniacal. Evidence the recently outgone U.S. president.

The population generally grumbles but remains powerless and hopelessly disenfranchised. We are all of us, I believe, subconsciously pushing toward a system that will re-enfranchise us. The youth of our day are hopelessly disenchanted with their lack of voice. It is this malaise that manifests negatively and pervasively in our world.

I want to vote. Not for a representative. I want to directly vote on the issues. That is democracy. We can keep the representatives, as they can debate the issues preliminary to a direct vote of the people. Like they do now? But we shouldn’t pay them like royalty, which they are not. I’m reminded of a catchy phrase, ‘We the people’, which implies a little more equality in our reality.

The very sad news is, of course, that no change generally occurs in our world without a champion to initiate the concept, marshal support, and direct the transition. And just who, in our established political networks, will rise to champion this cause, ostensibly at the loss of the established individual power that said person presently possesses?