This is another of those posts that has a risk of becoming an essay.
Yet again someone has said to me that I'm not allowed to have an opinion on politics because I don't vote. That's one of the most ignorant and invalid statements that people make to me, since they haven't bothered to ask WHY I don't vote. The baseline truth for me is that not voting is my democratic right.
My decision not to vote is a decision I've reached through many years of observing politics over the years. My simple opinion on the matter hasn't changed in about 20 years. Politics is all about power and taking what you can get from the position. Very very few high-ranking politicians actually care about the "people". Local politicians do care for their constituents for the most part as far as I can tell (they've helped me in the past and been very effective, thank you very much) but once ensconced in the corridors of Westminster they seem to devolve into mindless, argumentative teenagers.
The "party" system doesn't work. Democracy is broken. No-one has a voice for the people any more. Look at the reaction to the riots recently: Cameron is banging on about "broken society" and trolling out the blame to the parents of these "mindless yobs" and crying that there's no discipline any more! Of course there's no fucking discipline any more, you goon - 10 years of "political correctness" has legislated away any disciplinary powers parents ever had!! Parents can't hit their kids. Parents can't criticise their kids. Parents can't call the police to give their kids a talking to. Even the police have no power over kids any more, because they're not allowed to do anything! One of the owners of the House of Reeves furniture store in Croydon mentioned that the police used to be able to throw a kid in prison for the night for throwing a stone at him. Clear lesson there. Now that same policeman can only hand over a leaflet. Pathetic.
Here's my five point plan for improving the "youth culture":
So there.
Seems simple to me. Politics just tries to keep everyone happy and it's NEVER going to work. Stop listening to the conservative (not the party) members of society - the treehugging, limp wristed bastards have wrecked any control that we ever had over the "criminal" element. Let's start getting some control back in our streets.
Me and Dave54 were talking yesterday about our planned coup. We're taking over Westminster and chucking out the trash.
Our "Fix Broken Politics" manifesto:
There's much more, but like I said, I want to avoid an essay. Christ, it would very easily become a "white paper"... Look, I know I don't know everything and there are probably HUGE holes in how I would do things, but my basic point is that IT'S NOT WORKING NOW, and no-one has suggested anything that would fix it. Hey, if you have ideas, please email me or something.
Anyway - our other policies.
Our Crime Manifesto:
It's all quite radical, isn't it. Lots of violence too. Well, people, we live in a violent society. Last week proved that. Christianity throughout history has painted Arab or Middle-eastern societies as being heathen barbarians. Thing is, when they rose up against the governments during Arab Spring, they targeted the GOVERNMENTS. In London, they destroyed shops and homes and set parts of the residential and commercial areas on fire. No government officials were ever in danger. Then other yobs in other cities jumped on the bandwagon and looted the businesses that supply them with food and clothes and stuff. Again, no governments were harmed in the making of this riot.
Who's the heathen barbarian now? People in Libya and Syria have DIED fighting for their freedom against oppressive governments. OK, maybe our government isn't rolling tanks down our streets, but Britain has been financially and socially oppressed since the 70s. But what do we do? We torch houses. British people have DIED defending their homes against gangs of youths. Not quite the same, is it?
And why are the police vilified for striking out against gangs or suspected villains? Because the government spokespeople always say "Oh that shouldn't have happened, it's very bad and our hearts go out to the families and we promise heads will roll". Rather than saying "OK, shame someone died, but let's look at it objectively please and find out the truth before we start making political statements". No. Politicians: shut the fuck up until you actually know what happened. Then leave the talking to the people who actually FOUND OUT what happened.
And that's maybe my biggest reason for not voting. Politicians know NOTHING. Does a politician have experience of a police investigation? No. Does a politician have experience of the financial market? No. Does a politician have experience of military strategy? No. They trust advisers, who in turn trust a committee. How many yes men does it take to create a committee? How many members of those committees are just interested in keeping their jobs?
This is the miasma of doubt that surrounds my political opinion. Politicians are only out for themselves and the people come (at best) second. Politicians are too far removed from the every day lives of those they serve, and unless they get a serious reality check then they never will. I do hope that the riots achieve something - maybe someone somewhere in Westminster will wonder about how easily this sparked off and wonder if there are other potential flashpoints and actually start to think about how to stop it happening again.