The Blunt Pencil Tied To The Wall

The voting process has been completed yet again. The name has been highlighted on the list, a slip handed out, and the box crossed with the obligatory dull pencil tied to a wall. Another decision has been made, and another responsibility shifted on to the next people up the chain. Whatever the choice made, it's democracy in action, and that has to be better than all the other alternatives. It's not often that we see true democracy in action, mainly due to the electorate not having time or sometimes ability to examine problems in enough depth to make informed choice. Democracy, the governing of the people by the people, is almost unheard of. What we normally have are democratic republics (or the ever bizarre 'constitutional monarchy' in our case!): the selection of representatives of good character and judgement to make those decisions for us.

Note: Whenever people talk about electoral reform, you might consider the possibility that politics would be better if we examined those representatives we are choosing from in more detail than just the colour of their necktie or campaign button. Mightn't that help considerably?

Knowing what we do of our fellow voters, would anyone ever actually want a full democracy? It would be an incredibly dangerous experiment! How would it work, and what would become of the political class? Who would take and champion issues on both sides? Would there be a troop of trained debaters who would arbitrarily take sides or would citizen campaigners emerge on the two sides in each case? A string of citizens rising up to convince and argue on behalf of the issues they truly believe in? It's actually quite tempting, isn't it? It's also not far off being practical, if we could trust some centralised electronic voting system to not be corrupted almost immediately by the people who administrate it or break down at the worst moment. We can be funny about the blunt pencil tied to the wall as much as we want, but it's pretty hard to corrupt people physically counting pieces of paper under supervision. Paper voting would be pretty impractical and expensive in a true democracy, though. Good grief, how would the things to be voted on even be selected? Would that job have to be elected?

Yes, democracy has been foisted upon us once again, and now we can only wait to see what happens. The usual suspects will begin going on about electoral reform while missing the point at the very core of a republican system, whatever the result, and everyone else will go back to normal, happy at no longer having to agonize over affairs of state.

Never underestimate the power of that blunt pencil.

O.