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In a free, healthy society everybody has the right to vote but in my opinion with that right goes a responsibility as well. In other words yes, you should have the right to vote, but in order for your vote to be valid and help the society it needs to be an educated vote not just a random pick or based on how "nice" a certain politician looks. Otherwise won’t make much of a difference if your cat or dog casts an innocent vote as well (after all they live in our society as well). The more knowledgeable the votes are the better politicians we will get.
How can we do that? Well since most politicians in order to get elected relay heavy on propaganda/marketing campaigns we should probably educate the population to filter out that nice packaging and have a peak inside. Actually this sort of education should probably be part of the basic education in schools, especially when in our days marketing is so aggressive in selling us illusions. Enforcing a responsible vote might be the best way for immediate future. I know that many will argue that this is/could be seen as discrimination ... but I believe that a vote of someone who doesn’t have a clue what is voting or is just a victim of an well done marketing plan will elect exactly that. So, in order to enforce responsibility I think we should introduce a vote validation by means of a few points test for everyone to pass at the time they are casting their vote in order to be valid. And to not discriminate in any way I believe the test should be out of the political agenda of the candidate you are willing to vote. Is only fair that you should know what you are going vote. Look at the way politicians get elected in our days. Most if not all are elected on an elaborate campaign in which the key elements are marketing and propaganda. They all carefully pick their political agenda to give us the illusion that they hold the answer to our needs - when in reality they have no clue how or even if what they promise is doable at all. They use stylists, they hire a cheerful smile, arrange a show and gather a few "enthusiastic" people of their own to motivate a chain reaction. They spent 99.999% of their time to showoff and whatever is left to actually put together a real political strategy to solve the needs. And we need real people capable to solve real problems! That shiny image that got them elected or funny jokes or what ever strategy employed won’t be much help when it comes to actually do their real job - as for other stuff we have comedians, fashion models, etc. ... to entertain us ... Why we need politicians? What’s their job to do? We all pay taxes to hire an infrastructure to facilitate a better life - better then if we were to live by our own. Politicians are the leaders of this structure and we hire them not to showoff but in reality to fix it and improve it. They decide how our tax money will be spent and they are responsible for the security of our future. A politician should have vision as well as be well rooted in the reality. Being a sort of technocrat is not as important as it’s to have an open, dynamic and organized way of thinking and know how to use people (specialists), resources he has at his disposal. Written By: Larry Lart, 4th of July 2003 |