To Vote or Not To
To Vote or Not To.
The English are becoming an alienated people. This alienation is heightened by the attempt of insensitive muslim religious believers to promote stanisation into the UK and the surreptitious self adoption of attitudes that are undermining traditional terms. In the cause of political correctness the country is now overly anxious not to upset the recent Islamic immigrants by avoiding any doubtful critical comments or to change anything that might conceivable upset them. For example Christmas is now a “winter festival”, or “winter holiday”, some schools are trying to phase Christmas carol / celebrations out, the English (unlike the Scots, Welsh, Irish) are frowned upon to not fly the English or Union flag, some ethnics have been allowed wide liberty to express death threats on a recent protestant march, known illigals and criminals are impossible to deport, any literature, art music or jokes must avoid any caricature reference to Islamist, muslims or Mohamed et al. In all this some local authorities are leading the charge in the pervers name of equality and integration. Criticism of any sort is virulently opposed by these militant people with fatwa’s and death threats. Such attitudes are not actively counted by the state in the prime assumption that in ignoring these undermining social threads it preserves the multi culturism of everything, but at the expense of Englishness.
As each year goes by, and this may by just an age thing, I am becoming increasing perturbed at the pace of discordant change in this country in that is seems it has become a nation of cowed over sensitive apologetic non independent, narrow minded, live for today, pusillanimous citizens cowed by insidious pc creep. This fortunately is largely over ridden by the many (under threat) better aspects, so the good base nature of the culture still holds sway, just, supported by the sense (and I think there still is a sense) of lawful justice, equanimity, generosity and fair play, this is not shared by militant immigrants / economic miscreants due to the instability of the countries they escape from and whom no doubt see the UK as a soft touch. Although Britain / England is a beautiful and largely peaceful place, it is in danger of becoming not so beautiful driven by the creeping perverse political cultural change, and the miss guided belief in the so called benefits of multi culturism and high intake of economic migrants into what is a small land mass. Numbers of migrants are now so noticeable in some areas that it is affecting our social structure and adding to looming economic problems. The government tries to points to the economic benefits that large immigration brings to England (using their own calculation) even though there is no irrefutable proof for this, yet with one study using all the cost associated with immigrant, the opposite has been shown but none of this promotes a change in pc. People are concerned at the perceptive power block that unassimilated immigration has caused but the mood is ignored and not allowed to be discussed, do so and one is labelled a racist. All politicians are wary of driving a debate about immigration, seeming impassive to any pronouncements that conflict with the adopted line that immigration is good; it is left to the BNP to garner alternative opinions.
The above is an example of the disconnection between what politicians want and the practicalities of the populace that labour under the civil impact of fractured policies. Despite the obvious dissatisfaction, we have a political system that has become more unresponsive to democracy and corrupt. Corrupt because in only 1 day in 5 years do the people get to indicate which one of the 3 main parties we have in play to choose from and which policies they would prefer to have to lead the country. Unfortunately as some 40% of the electorate do not vote, this means that we often have a government that does not represent the majority of the people either numerical or by right. This might be our own fault as many are deciding not to exercise a vote due to apathy, although I prefer to think that it is a sign that many people do not like any of the parties or manifesto choices presented to them and so exercise an ineffective non-vote. As our voting system is a first past the post process, is non compulsory, does not have a no confidence element, (other than not voting) it is a political process that suits the wining party. The wining party then eventually panders to its own political whims under the illusion of a democratic mandate. In this we have had incidents in which politicians have been coerced and in ‘discrete’ cases forced to enact erroneous policies that had more to do with adhering to political ideology rather than having any measure of being for the greater good or resembling the result of common sense discussions. Rampant immigration, the Iraq debacle, id cards, creeping security strangle hold that erodes ‘rights’, genetic modified food stuffs and road pricing are current examples of issue that have not had good public input, nor are they likely to have, so long as there is a minority democratic system generating corrosive policies.
Over time the wrongness of some policies might eventually be turned around with the residual damage being financial or social. However the errors do have an impact on people perception that politicians cannot be trusted, often lie and are just in the game for them selves. Of course through this disenchantment, disillusionment with the electoral process is exacerbated. It is not hard to see that if this process continues we will fall into the land of practical dictatorship rather than the fabulous (as in fable) ‘democratic’ one we have now.
England is a small county that has always tried to punch above its weight and on a world platform it cost us a lot. Our continuous involvement in world affairs is derived from a largely historic heritage, whether we should continue to try to influence world events is debatable, as we no longer have the actual global reach of times gone by but we still retain some moral impact. The mantle of England being a world super power has long pasts, with the USA having now inherited the position and in this some concerns are raised.
With the main USA election well over and the ‘right’ person having gained the job, at least according to the majority of the people that voted, all be it with the help of ‘hanging chads’, discounted blacks, family connection and friendly judge. That the right person is in position is always open to debate especially when there is no overwhelming majority and no way of really making an impact on erroneous policies without the safety of inbuilt actionable referendums but time will tell. That this was discussed as a most important election period for decades, is a result of prime issues that concerned the worlds leading countries. At least it seem to be, with countries that are in a position to shape future events, for better or worse, polarising around social comfort factors, economy, environment, conflicts and the over played security scares.
In political terms, all political parties have to establish positions that are superficially acceptable and meet the best needs and appeal to the populace, enough to make them want to get out and vote!.
Yet the current main influential players seems to be moving to an isolated individual position of an enemy behind every door, focusing on the security mania closely followed by the foolish far right wing supporters, corporate machinations who wish is to gain ever greater economic control and ignoring the reasoned evidential arguments of none contending states and countries.
Some commentators suggest that this individualistic movement is something to be concerned about and it probably is but it is a transient concern. The individualistic isolationist stance cannot be totally ignored but since the abnormal cultural psychosis that feed this stance has to be worked through, it has to play out before a balanced renaissance is propagated. This is something that the other balanced social states must closely observe, as much as they may wish to promote their own views, there is little by way of presenting alternative opinions that could effect a change of course when minority governments hold so much proscriptive power. The problem with such deviant political ideas is in not knowing the depth and scope of the pain of the inevitable transition leading to a paradigm shift in political, cultural and corporate enlightenment. Even though there are some known actionable factors to work with, that point to mitigating obvious pressure points, some narrow political self serving interest may choose to ignore them.
It may always seem that it is the large news events that grip the headlines that are the most important,(like Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, muslim terrorist, environment etc) supported by the opportunistic politicking of those events to suit republic, democratic or sovereign needs. These conflated events are used to play to the expected outcomes that form the future political agendas. With a pre-emptive agenda built on the high profiled events, it would appear that these are the most important issue to be contended with, this is not the case. Usually it is the surreptitious little things that creep in that shape the controllable events of men, not the big bangers. With directive power residing in too few hands gained by minority politics a broader consensus is not encouraged, this limits the ability to achieve a real powerful majority or to see the direction from where clandestine developments derive from.
Great Britain has obviously had a long association and links with Europe and in many ways the social structures are comparable. Despite our lassitude in playing a European game, we more often than not, do see eye to eye even though there is a underlying uncertainty of direction in what is best for the UK, however we are geographical married to the future of Europe and are forced to develop much closer ties to it. This creates a dilemma. In many ways Great Britain has more in common with the USA than Europe and even less with Asian / African extracts. USA is the home of our American cousins, we have the same language, consider ourselves to be trustworthy allies and have a ‘kinship’ that is not yet matched with our European neighbours nor particularly supported when it gets to a point of a conflict.
So to the point of this missive, of particular interest just now is the beginning of a new race for ‘Number 10’ and the ‘White House’. It has been said that the past election were the most important of recent history with so much hanging on the out come for both countries, the forthcoming ones are now even more so. If this is the case, the judgment to be made is who is going to do the best job, in truth no one really knows but we make a best guess. Behind this guess has to be some element of desire for personal betterment and if this matches a need to have a better world – then good. I would suggest though that in making such a guess there is the perhaps unspoken desire to have a political structure that attempts to promote fairness and to help, rather than turn away, when we know others suffer.
The west is on the cusp of some dramatic changes, environmental, economic, social, population shifts and competitive geological resources. In this we are not isolated from the rest of the world. Decisions made now, for overly selfish reasons may have repercussions that we may regret when the range of diverse choice seemed so clear. What is needed is a person with a breath of experience and a vision of direction that can be adopted by the country that is clear, unambiguous and honest. So in choosing a new political ‘leader’ the best that can be done is to look behind the man or woman that is presented as a front runner, look at who are the people at their shoulder, consider what they have done and said, make a judgment call on their manifesto bearing in mind that it will be vapid and not gospel. Preferably go for the one that clearly believes and supports democracy hopefully with the possibility of public referendums or ‘soundings’ on key issues as a way to make democracy stronger or certainly make it compulsory with the ability to direct a no confidence vote.
The democratic principle is based on the freedom to vote or not, one man one vote, the trend unfortunately is for more not to vote. It is debatable if this lax position is sustainable as too many important issues are left in the hands of fewer people to dictate a direction. Democracy could well fail due to lack of interest!
For the time being it is therefore important to exercise a right to vote, with consideration for the sort of future one would want for ones self and the next generation.
It has been noted elsewhere that Great Britain has the best democracy that apathy allows and the USA the best that money can buy. I do not think that is good enough and it has to change. We start by making our vote count and to count we have to call it. The recent past presidential & prime minister elections in the USA and GB show just how wrong the political process has got and the subsequent damaged that can be done when the electorate give too much latitude to political authority and how difficult it is to hold them to task.
The USA, as the world’s current superpower, has to know that what it does can also have an effect far beyond its own borders, whether the effect will be to push the limits of economic, environmental and security to a more balanced level with higher moral fairness or propagate more uncertainty, can only be assessed in a few years. This point is important for super powers do not last and if a good example is shown, the next super power might be expected to behave in a similar manner?
Therefore the essence of this note is to encourage all pay attention to what is going on and when the time comes, vote, in the hope of obtaining a better future for us all.
131004
© Renot 2006
The English are becoming an alienated people. This alienation is heightened by the attempt of insensitive muslim religious believers to promote stanisation into the UK and the surreptitious self adoption of attitudes that are undermining traditional terms. In the cause of political correctness the country is now overly anxious not to upset the recent Islamic immigrants by avoiding any doubtful critical comments or to change anything that might conceivable upset them. For example Christmas is now a “winter festival”, or “winter holiday”, some schools are trying to phase Christmas carol / celebrations out, the English (unlike the Scots, Welsh, Irish) are frowned upon to not fly the English or Union flag, some ethnics have been allowed wide liberty to express death threats on a recent protestant march, known illigals and criminals are impossible to deport, any literature, art music or jokes must avoid any caricature reference to Islamist, muslims or Mohamed et al. In all this some local authorities are leading the charge in the pervers name of equality and integration. Criticism of any sort is virulently opposed by these militant people with fatwa’s and death threats. Such attitudes are not actively counted by the state in the prime assumption that in ignoring these undermining social threads it preserves the multi culturism of everything, but at the expense of Englishness.
As each year goes by, and this may by just an age thing, I am becoming increasing perturbed at the pace of discordant change in this country in that is seems it has become a nation of cowed over sensitive apologetic non independent, narrow minded, live for today, pusillanimous citizens cowed by insidious pc creep. This fortunately is largely over ridden by the many (under threat) better aspects, so the good base nature of the culture still holds sway, just, supported by the sense (and I think there still is a sense) of lawful justice, equanimity, generosity and fair play, this is not shared by militant immigrants / economic miscreants due to the instability of the countries they escape from and whom no doubt see the UK as a soft touch. Although Britain / England is a beautiful and largely peaceful place, it is in danger of becoming not so beautiful driven by the creeping perverse political cultural change, and the miss guided belief in the so called benefits of multi culturism and high intake of economic migrants into what is a small land mass. Numbers of migrants are now so noticeable in some areas that it is affecting our social structure and adding to looming economic problems. The government tries to points to the economic benefits that large immigration brings to England (using their own calculation) even though there is no irrefutable proof for this, yet with one study using all the cost associated with immigrant, the opposite has been shown but none of this promotes a change in pc. People are concerned at the perceptive power block that unassimilated immigration has caused but the mood is ignored and not allowed to be discussed, do so and one is labelled a racist. All politicians are wary of driving a debate about immigration, seeming impassive to any pronouncements that conflict with the adopted line that immigration is good; it is left to the BNP to garner alternative opinions.
The above is an example of the disconnection between what politicians want and the practicalities of the populace that labour under the civil impact of fractured policies. Despite the obvious dissatisfaction, we have a political system that has become more unresponsive to democracy and corrupt. Corrupt because in only 1 day in 5 years do the people get to indicate which one of the 3 main parties we have in play to choose from and which policies they would prefer to have to lead the country. Unfortunately as some 40% of the electorate do not vote, this means that we often have a government that does not represent the majority of the people either numerical or by right. This might be our own fault as many are deciding not to exercise a vote due to apathy, although I prefer to think that it is a sign that many people do not like any of the parties or manifesto choices presented to them and so exercise an ineffective non-vote. As our voting system is a first past the post process, is non compulsory, does not have a no confidence element, (other than not voting) it is a political process that suits the wining party. The wining party then eventually panders to its own political whims under the illusion of a democratic mandate. In this we have had incidents in which politicians have been coerced and in ‘discrete’ cases forced to enact erroneous policies that had more to do with adhering to political ideology rather than having any measure of being for the greater good or resembling the result of common sense discussions. Rampant immigration, the Iraq debacle, id cards, creeping security strangle hold that erodes ‘rights’, genetic modified food stuffs and road pricing are current examples of issue that have not had good public input, nor are they likely to have, so long as there is a minority democratic system generating corrosive policies.
Over time the wrongness of some policies might eventually be turned around with the residual damage being financial or social. However the errors do have an impact on people perception that politicians cannot be trusted, often lie and are just in the game for them selves. Of course through this disenchantment, disillusionment with the electoral process is exacerbated. It is not hard to see that if this process continues we will fall into the land of practical dictatorship rather than the fabulous (as in fable) ‘democratic’ one we have now.
England is a small county that has always tried to punch above its weight and on a world platform it cost us a lot. Our continuous involvement in world affairs is derived from a largely historic heritage, whether we should continue to try to influence world events is debatable, as we no longer have the actual global reach of times gone by but we still retain some moral impact. The mantle of England being a world super power has long pasts, with the USA having now inherited the position and in this some concerns are raised.
With the main USA election well over and the ‘right’ person having gained the job, at least according to the majority of the people that voted, all be it with the help of ‘hanging chads’, discounted blacks, family connection and friendly judge. That the right person is in position is always open to debate especially when there is no overwhelming majority and no way of really making an impact on erroneous policies without the safety of inbuilt actionable referendums but time will tell. That this was discussed as a most important election period for decades, is a result of prime issues that concerned the worlds leading countries. At least it seem to be, with countries that are in a position to shape future events, for better or worse, polarising around social comfort factors, economy, environment, conflicts and the over played security scares.
In political terms, all political parties have to establish positions that are superficially acceptable and meet the best needs and appeal to the populace, enough to make them want to get out and vote!.
Yet the current main influential players seems to be moving to an isolated individual position of an enemy behind every door, focusing on the security mania closely followed by the foolish far right wing supporters, corporate machinations who wish is to gain ever greater economic control and ignoring the reasoned evidential arguments of none contending states and countries.
Some commentators suggest that this individualistic movement is something to be concerned about and it probably is but it is a transient concern. The individualistic isolationist stance cannot be totally ignored but since the abnormal cultural psychosis that feed this stance has to be worked through, it has to play out before a balanced renaissance is propagated. This is something that the other balanced social states must closely observe, as much as they may wish to promote their own views, there is little by way of presenting alternative opinions that could effect a change of course when minority governments hold so much proscriptive power. The problem with such deviant political ideas is in not knowing the depth and scope of the pain of the inevitable transition leading to a paradigm shift in political, cultural and corporate enlightenment. Even though there are some known actionable factors to work with, that point to mitigating obvious pressure points, some narrow political self serving interest may choose to ignore them.
It may always seem that it is the large news events that grip the headlines that are the most important,(like Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, muslim terrorist, environment etc) supported by the opportunistic politicking of those events to suit republic, democratic or sovereign needs. These conflated events are used to play to the expected outcomes that form the future political agendas. With a pre-emptive agenda built on the high profiled events, it would appear that these are the most important issue to be contended with, this is not the case. Usually it is the surreptitious little things that creep in that shape the controllable events of men, not the big bangers. With directive power residing in too few hands gained by minority politics a broader consensus is not encouraged, this limits the ability to achieve a real powerful majority or to see the direction from where clandestine developments derive from.
Great Britain has obviously had a long association and links with Europe and in many ways the social structures are comparable. Despite our lassitude in playing a European game, we more often than not, do see eye to eye even though there is a underlying uncertainty of direction in what is best for the UK, however we are geographical married to the future of Europe and are forced to develop much closer ties to it. This creates a dilemma. In many ways Great Britain has more in common with the USA than Europe and even less with Asian / African extracts. USA is the home of our American cousins, we have the same language, consider ourselves to be trustworthy allies and have a ‘kinship’ that is not yet matched with our European neighbours nor particularly supported when it gets to a point of a conflict.
So to the point of this missive, of particular interest just now is the beginning of a new race for ‘Number 10’ and the ‘White House’. It has been said that the past election were the most important of recent history with so much hanging on the out come for both countries, the forthcoming ones are now even more so. If this is the case, the judgment to be made is who is going to do the best job, in truth no one really knows but we make a best guess. Behind this guess has to be some element of desire for personal betterment and if this matches a need to have a better world – then good. I would suggest though that in making such a guess there is the perhaps unspoken desire to have a political structure that attempts to promote fairness and to help, rather than turn away, when we know others suffer.
The west is on the cusp of some dramatic changes, environmental, economic, social, population shifts and competitive geological resources. In this we are not isolated from the rest of the world. Decisions made now, for overly selfish reasons may have repercussions that we may regret when the range of diverse choice seemed so clear. What is needed is a person with a breath of experience and a vision of direction that can be adopted by the country that is clear, unambiguous and honest. So in choosing a new political ‘leader’ the best that can be done is to look behind the man or woman that is presented as a front runner, look at who are the people at their shoulder, consider what they have done and said, make a judgment call on their manifesto bearing in mind that it will be vapid and not gospel. Preferably go for the one that clearly believes and supports democracy hopefully with the possibility of public referendums or ‘soundings’ on key issues as a way to make democracy stronger or certainly make it compulsory with the ability to direct a no confidence vote.
The democratic principle is based on the freedom to vote or not, one man one vote, the trend unfortunately is for more not to vote. It is debatable if this lax position is sustainable as too many important issues are left in the hands of fewer people to dictate a direction. Democracy could well fail due to lack of interest!
For the time being it is therefore important to exercise a right to vote, with consideration for the sort of future one would want for ones self and the next generation.
It has been noted elsewhere that Great Britain has the best democracy that apathy allows and the USA the best that money can buy. I do not think that is good enough and it has to change. We start by making our vote count and to count we have to call it. The recent past presidential & prime minister elections in the USA and GB show just how wrong the political process has got and the subsequent damaged that can be done when the electorate give too much latitude to political authority and how difficult it is to hold them to task.
The USA, as the world’s current superpower, has to know that what it does can also have an effect far beyond its own borders, whether the effect will be to push the limits of economic, environmental and security to a more balanced level with higher moral fairness or propagate more uncertainty, can only be assessed in a few years. This point is important for super powers do not last and if a good example is shown, the next super power might be expected to behave in a similar manner?
Therefore the essence of this note is to encourage all pay attention to what is going on and when the time comes, vote, in the hope of obtaining a better future for us all.
131004
© Renot 2006
posted by Renot at 6:31 am
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