What Canadians Want

Another federal election.  Although I should welcome the opportunity to influence who runs the confederation, like most Canadians I don't.  There's just no one to vote for.

Just how is it that a political system that is supposed to be of the "commons" can produce such political politicians?  Let me be clear, the last thing I want is for someone beholden to irrationality, psychopathy or some sort of aversion to "elites" to be given the political power to propose and vote on legislation to govern the society I live in.  There's no guarantee in any political system that you wouldn't end up being governed by such individuals, however, so it's possible I'm being obtuse in even hoping for something better.  The systems of democratic representative governments, though, shouldn't be producing the breed of politician that it seems to always produce.

I guess that ultimately, this is my problem.  Politics has little to do with competent governing.  It has evolved into another form of marketing, where organizations use the "science" (don't get me started...) of psychology, which seems to be very effective specifically in the study of the behaviours of groups, to manipulate enough of the population to avoid exercising their faculties or their franchise to gain the power to enrich their patrons and themselves.  All of this comes under the rubric of "what Canadians want".

The leaders and the representatives of each party are sure to invoke their knowledge of what Canadians want to justify being given the votes of citizens.  Since there is no way to justify the ability to "know what Canadians want" in any way, shape or form, every time I hear a politician speak the phrase it reminds me of the absolute poverty of our political system.  Political parties employ people whose entire professional life is dedicated to finding ways to shape the opinions and beliefs of enough individuals that they can lay claim to the power they so greatly desire.

It strikes me specifically that the same groups who hammered the Liberals for their "corruption" in the Quebec advertising scandal are very quiet on the "corruption" of the Conservatives over the G20 meeting in Toronto, or the acquisition of fighter jets for our armed forces, or the lying to Parliament.  It seems that their concern was not about the behaviour of our politicians or their party but about something else.  I can only assume that this "something else" was an idea that people felt a majority of voters wouldn't agree with or would find unpalatable since they have no qualms about hypocrisy in the exercising of the little political power they possess.

Don't get me wrong.  I am not stumping for any political party nor am I trying to influence which party any individual votes for.  I'm merely observing that politicians feel free to lie to the population of the country in order to secure power or influence and the voters of this country are either unable, or unwilling, to be honest as well.

I'm also not suggesting that anyone not vote in any election.  I feel very strongly that using the little influence you have is a right that ALL should definitely exercise.  I just can't help believing that democracy would work better if it worked the way it is philosophically supposed to.  If the electorate was educated and informed, if ideologues were easily identified and their agendas obvious, if people understood how organizations can use group psychology to manipulate and did their best to guard against being manipulated, that just perhaps democracy wouldn't be as poor as system of governance as it is.

I'm sure I'd be informed that I ask too much of people, and that may be correct, but the illusion of democracy is an evil we need to be freed from if we are ever going to actually have a society of equals.  As long as fears and desires can be manipulated with impunity, as long as lying as a strategy is effective and as long as people will cast their vote (those that actually do) for politicians who claim to know What Canadians Want then we will continue to tack a course that will probably never actually bring us closer to the goal of egalitarian society.

Or maybe that's not the goal of democratic representation at all, and I'm just being obtuse.