Democracy - Is this the best we have to offer?
I will be writing on this in the coming weeks as there's a lot in me which I need to get out.
I follow the news a lot - maybe more than what is considered healthy. Call me mental but I do increasingly get disturbed by most of it. I know shit happens all over the world and there's unfortunately, not much you can do about it. What worries me though, is not some gang rape in India for eg - they've got most of the population living in rural areas following centuries old traditions and customs so you can expect this shit to happen.
What worries me more, is when it is our 'civilised' western countries who lead the rest of the world when it comes to murders, rapes, and crime in general.
We vote our governments in and then allow them to massacre thousands of innocent civilians, women and children in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. We support terrorist like Ariel Sharon in his country's illegal occupation of Palestenian lands. Our governments can literally do whatever they want, against majority public opinion, and get away with it, in style. This is really starting to piss me off.
I've lost all faith in this form of government. Surely there must be something better we can come up with? I would really appreciate if you could leave your comments saying what you think is the solution, why do our democratically elected governments continue to fail us, what is wrong with our societies in general?
I follow the news a lot - maybe more than what is considered healthy. Call me mental but I do increasingly get disturbed by most of it. I know shit happens all over the world and there's unfortunately, not much you can do about it. What worries me though, is not some gang rape in India for eg - they've got most of the population living in rural areas following centuries old traditions and customs so you can expect this shit to happen.
What worries me more, is when it is our 'civilised' western countries who lead the rest of the world when it comes to murders, rapes, and crime in general.
We vote our governments in and then allow them to massacre thousands of innocent civilians, women and children in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. We support terrorist like Ariel Sharon in his country's illegal occupation of Palestenian lands. Our governments can literally do whatever they want, against majority public opinion, and get away with it, in style. This is really starting to piss me off.
I've lost all faith in this form of government. Surely there must be something better we can come up with? I would really appreciate if you could leave your comments saying what you think is the solution, why do our democratically elected governments continue to fail us, what is wrong with our societies in general?
posted by Dirty Dan at 11:02 PM
8 Comments:
i think its pathetic that americans and britishers vote such dickheads in. at least in pakiland, we don't really have much choice - there is such a lack of education that one really can't expect the majority to take a sensible decision regarding their governments. even so, i'd say the paki or indian governments are ten times better than the american one and thats just fucking shameful.
both these countries are full of fairly well educated citizens, almost all of whom need to wake up and realize that they have a responsibility to the WHOLE WORLD when they go in to vote, so they should really choose carefully and wisely. thats really not an exagerration since USA can go in and wage war whenever and on whomever it feels like and that DOES affect the whole world.
i know thats not much of a solution but this isn't really an issue that can be solved that easily.
and whats wrong with our societies? its easy to pin the blame there but every society is made up of individuals, almost all of whom are short sighted, selfish, materialistic and too busy chasing their own dream (generally fed to them by the media - "money will make you happy, we promise").
sorry for ranting like a maniac but i feel pretty strongly about these issues too...
Problem is the electorate! At the moment in UK you have about 15-20% of the electorate voting in the government of the day! Which is not democracy in any stretch of the imagination.
Persoanlly I would go the Ozzie way and make voting compulsory. Sure you can object by spoiling your vote if you want, but you may encourage some people to get interested. The risk then is ill informed people voting! Well then:
A posibly even more radical idea to get intelligent people voting in decent govenment would be to include a small test on the ballot on where some the candidates stand on certain issues or on current economic/political issues of the day. Then their vote gets weighted the more interest the voter obviously shows!
We need to start with getting informed people voting, and as many as possible!
My 2cents worth!
I must say the use of the term "terrorist" and "illegal occupation" in such hap-hazard ways can only be damaging to your point.
Coming across as a biased lunatic won't do you any favours.
Anon.
I do appreciate you taking the time to comment on here
I suggest you look at the meaning of 'terrorist' in a dictionary, and then have a look at Sharon's history and some of the massacres committed by the israeli 'defence' forces.
My point of view has always been that, killing innocent civilians, whether its in London, NY, Israel, Palestine, Iraq of afghanistan, is WRONG - whether it is carried out by muslims or jews or christians.
I don't see how that makes me biased.
and next time, please do leave you name.
Everyone else, thanks for the interesting comments, will be talking about them in my next post on the subject which will be more than a rant.
Some valid points there Dirty Dan. Unfortunately, it's a rare politician who 1) truly represents the views of the people and 2) is able to do anything about said views. Members of parliament etc, living in their mansions in leafy suburbs down south are totally out of touch with what the general public want and believe. The no-show during elections reflects this - there's no one they want to vote for, so they don't bother turning up! Sorry, I don't have a solution, just thought I'd comment! :)
Guess most of you had represented my views more or less in your rants, so I'll not rehash any old ideas
However, I feel that the Isrealites should get a land for their own. Regarding size/location, I don't know/don't care. But I feel they should have a decent-sized land which they can call their own. Maybe they can buy some using all their $$ =D
Call it sympathy or compassionate or weak-minded....but its just something I feel, not neccessarily logically or whatsoever
^^^forgot to leave my name
Btw, I know of those cases where the Isrealites did some terrible things, but they do some good things in their turn as well. A gruff group of people, but they can be incredibly friendly/warm
Anyway, even if you look at other countries, most of them are two-faced hypocrites at one time or another, so I guess its all fair in the end.
Sean - what good is a form of government that isn't representing the wishes of majority of its people and can get away with so much? Its ironic that by cracking down on civil liberties we are erasing the very thing we're supposed to be fighting to save.
I havent seen gangs of newyork yet - i'll make a note
Weenie - you're right. Its a shame really isn't it?
Leumas - The israel / palestenian issue is extremely complicated - Even if israel did go back to the pre-war borders and two states were created side by side which is how i believe it should be, where would jerusalem go? as neither side is prepared to compromise on it, realistically speaking.
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