Politician misdiagnoses problem shocker
A follow-up to my ‘all politicians are the same’ post of the other day. Apologies to those who come to soilman.net for, you know, gardening (what is wrong with you guys?).
I laughed out loud at this today. McNicol is at least smart enough to spot the problem – namely, that increasingly UK voters think all politicians are the same.
But as usual, he misses the main point. Rather than moaning about folks complaining that there’s no point in voting (and desperately casting around for ways to ‘engage with them’ better), he fails to ask the most obvious question, viz:
WHY do we feel there’s no point in voting? What on earth would put that foolish idea into the heads of the benighted, moronic, lumpen proletariat?
Well, McNicol, I’ll tell you (even though you’re not asking): Because there is no point in voting. Demonstrably. Provably. Evidentially.
Doesn’t matter whom we elect. We get basically the same-ish policies, the same-ish social arrangements, the same-ish direction of travel. Any differences are trivial. Parties try to sell them as significant, but they’re piffling and irrelevant (50p tax rate, anyone?).
Government in the 21st century, it turns out, is the art of tinkering feebly and pointlessly around the edges. Better education and better communication merely reveal this fact to the electorate in starker and starker detail.
The only thing that will ‘reinvigorate’ politics and ‘re-engage’ voters is the moment when politicians stop telling us they’re so important and start acknowledging the opposite: that they’re not. That most things are out of their control. That what we want is very different from what they, politicians, can realistically deliver. That events dictate policies, not vice versa.
That Jerusalem will never and can never be builded here. Actually.
And that if we ever want to see some real, radical change – something that WOULD make political debate relevant again (like debating, in detail, how we’re going to deal with the end of oil) – then we need to ditch this stupid consensus bullshit that encourages politicians to lie about their intentions, then renege on them in office to pursue the path of least resistance and lilly-livered lying.
so when we run out of of oil and presumably have to buy a horse cow and pig each the loss of revenue from fuel duty and vat is going to be massive.
what is the leading target to fill the gap ? income tax? horse poo tax?
May 17th, 2012 at 6:03 pm
Well this is it, Weasel. The coming energy crisis is going to redefine everything about our lives. It’s sadly unimaginable for most people. They literally cannot believe that everything they’ve taken for granted for five generations is going to disappear (I’m assuming here, of course, that power from controlled nuclear fusion will always remain an unrealised dream for humanity).
May 17th, 2012 at 9:24 pm
I don’t think calling out that the “end is nigh” puts you on the side of the angels.
I think we’ll make in tact.
May 17th, 2012 at 10:04 pm
Who said it does, Tom?
I’m not arguing for doommongers and naysayers. I’m arguing for proper, grown-up debate about how we respond – with tangible, in-yer-face changes to our lives – to the real challenges of our time: the end of oil, the rise of China (and the consequent erosion of western living standards), the problem of finite Earth resources v growing human population, global warming (anthropogenic or not).
Let’s stop dicking around with 50p tax rates and playground arguments about whose fault the recession is.
May 17th, 2012 at 10:35 pm
I think there should be more investment and research into biomass fuels and perhaps even rationing petrol or one car per household. I bet nobody would vote for that?
May 18th, 2012 at 10:10 am
This is the problem, Northsider; obv nobody will vote for it while there is a single other politician and/or party pretending it’s not necessary.
The lies must, eventually, stop.
May 18th, 2012 at 8:37 pm
every problem boils down to overpopulation and so far only the chinese are getting a grip on it and in the west only prince charles and soilman (lol) have dared to even mention it.problem is how do u do it? current govts only seem to be able to think of one strategy for anything namely taxing it to discourage. so if they go down that route then the rich will simply pay more tax and have as many kids as they want and the rest of us will have to toe the line.
that said a surprising amount of couples of my generation havent children and dont plan to have any.seems to be a growing trend atm.
May 18th, 2012 at 2:20 pm