Is there a point in voting?
Today’s polling day. What to do?
Personally I think all (and I mean all) politicians are putrid sores on the bloated and spotty backside of society (granted, I haven’t met them all, but I’ve met enough) but what is my vote actually worth?
To a policitian: it’s a ticket to free money for pushing people about and doing what the hell they like.
To a political party: it’s an “I told we were better” slap in the face to the other parties.
To the general populace: I’m going to be at odds with the opinions of most people, so perhaps something to laugh at from their red-brick castles.
To me… well I’m not sure. Yet.
I appreciate that some people might take voting as a something that people fought - and died - for, and shouldn’t be taken for granted (remember suffrage?) I appreciate this, but one has to remember that this was a long time ago, society has changed (somewhat) for the better, and equality — where it counts — is a lot better than it was in “the good old days”.
But my point of view is this: which of the candidates do I believe best represents my interests? In my opinion, and from my (albeit limited) knowledge and interest in politics, there are some candidates that represent a few individual facets of my opinion and social outlook, but there isn’t one that shares even half of my values. They’re all social leeches, just in different colours, sizes and flavours.
One of the problems with democracy (oh yes, it’s not perfect!) is that there’s no way to divorce oneself from it. I can’t, for example, place a vote of ‘no confidence’ for any of the candidates, which I would very likely do if I were to vote at all. If I spoil my paper it’s not counted, in which case I might as well not vote at all.
I could, of course, run for office myself - but I know that my personal outlook doesn’t reflect that of the great unwashed to any great degree, so is this really a viable solution? No. And how do I know this? Simple: I live here and I see British “culture” everyday. Tabloid newspapers and populist TV channels proclaiming that some vapid celebrity had his end-away with a tart in the back of a limosine, some football player - paid hundreds of thousands of pounds a year to kick a sack of air about - is upset because his team lost, some poor sod does something a little bit stupid and he’s now the Britain’s Most Vilified, some pointless and talentless pop tart gets her tits out on a beach in St Tropez and isn’t it amazing/shocking/how dare she.
Ad-fucking-nauseam.
This country isn’t going to the dogs; it’s already there. It’s just a case of seeing which of the slack-jawed dribbly mastiffs we choose as the leader(s) of the pack(s).
I think I may just go into the polling station, tear up my paper and crush it underfoot in front of the candidates (they’ll probably be there - it’s a huge ego boost for them to see people voting for them) to let them know what I think of them.