Vote
You know, democracy is awesome. Us normal folks get the chance to help decide what direction our country will go. And yet, I am constantly reminded by those close to me that the whole thing is a sham, we have no real choice, our vote is meaningless, that they don’t count the votes, basically that we do not have democracy.
And these people of course will not vote.
Not participating in the electoral process is the most destructive thing to democracy. Not corporations or crappy politicians or anything else, not participating is the worst thing.
Why is that? Because if you don’t participate, then you allow our system to degrade to what you describe, when people do not express themselves the incompetent, the evil-minded and the just plain greedy step up to the plate and take what they want, because there is nobody to stop them.
So vote. Even if you do not support any of the parties, even if you think we have no choice, you have to take part, if you don’t make your voice heard, the chances of actually losing that voice will increase.
A lot of people disregard my favorite voting option: spoiling your ballot.
This is a valid way of participating in democracy. If, as you say, our system is broken, compromised by interest groups and incompetence, you have to LET THEM KNOW. Not voting shows you just don’t care, and lets these idiots keep doing what they do, the rationale is “they (you) didn’t complain, so they must not care, which means we can proceed.”
If you spoil your vote, it will get counted, they have a tally of spoiled ballots. A high number of spoiled ballots sends a powerful message to politicians that they had better shape up or soon they will have no support. No matter how much influence a specific group has, or how skewed the ridings are, in a democracy, you still have to get votes in order to advance your agenda. The power ultimately does rest with the people, we just don’t get to exercise this power all that much.
Why forego the opportunity, what have you got to lose?
