Decisions, decisions

LegacyUser

Should I really have the right to vote? Yes, me.

In order to get through to me, political parties have to spend vast sums on simplistic advertising, which I still don't even understand. At the end of the day, the only thing I am capable of grasping is a big picture with somebody's name underneath it. If I like the colours, I vote for whoever is on the picture. And where are the politicians going to get the money for these stupid campaigns? Who is going to give a politician money to help him out in this area? Surprise! Businessmen who hope to get some kind of advantage out of it later.

In any rational organisation, people at the bottom of the food chain are completely excluded from the decision-making process. Even though there are always some talented, smart people at this level, they still have to prove themselves worthy of being allowed to participate in it, and are gradually given greater autonomy the more they display good judgment. Likewise, the more they display poor judgment, the further they find themselves from the trough.

To take a recent example, a large part of the reason for the Lisbon treay being voted down was because the plain people of Ireland didn't understand it. And, like superstitious peasants everywhere, we were afraid of what we couldn't understand, and wanted to hand out punishments to a world that forced us to confront our inability to grasp and evaluate ideas.

So this is the question. Should a people, who freely admit to being unable to understand certain issues, not have to provide evidence of their ability to understand other issues before being allowed to offer their opinions on them, and have them taken into account?

If someone at CERN asked me to give a Yes or No answer to a question to do with the large hadron collider I would refuse to give an opinion, on the grounds that I am hopelessly unqualified to. I would be astonished if they asked me, and would have to question their sanity, and their commitment to running the project properly, if they were prepared to take my input on board.

So why should the political process any different?

dudara

Not a Personal Issue.

Moved to Humanities

dudara