Politics
There is a bad joke about many fleas here, but I’ll avoid it
for the betterment of everyone, because what I really want to talk about is the
recent glut of posts that have been cropping up on my Facebook feed.
Now normally I try and turn a blind eye to such things and
not get involved, but there have been so many recently that I feel I must say
something.
This is the problem with democracy – people feel that they
can and should speak up about their own political feelings in public forums.
This is both good and highly annoying. I’ll say it up front and try not to
colour this article too much with my views - but I am a National supporter.
Most people, however, will notice the absence of political posts that I put up,
and this is because of a belief that I have that says if I want to change the
political system, the best way to do it is with my vote, or to contact my
represented directly. However, many people seem to believe that the best way to
change things is to post repeatedly to their Facebook wall and try and cast
dispersions over whatever governing body happens to be ruling at the given
time.
Now don’t get me wrong; the media has a lot to answer for
here: picking up the tiniest things and making a huge story from it all in the
name of ratings. But what real good does it do? What changes do we see from it?
An MP fired at most? OK, so they lose the cushy chair, they still get the free
flights, and paid for the rest of their life. But let’s think about this. Who
put them there? We did, so who is responsible for their actions? U. Now at this
point, I anticipate that there will be people that say, “Well, I didn’t vote
for them so I’m not responsible.” Yes and no. Fine, you voted for someone else,
but what else did you do? In this day and age we all get to see the media polls,
and they are usually not too far off
the mark, so if your candidate of choice was falling behind in the polls, what
do you do to change it: Street signs? Actually talking to people? No? Well, then
you are at least partially responsible for the other guy getting in.
Of course this is a democracy, so if you don’t like the way
things are going, you could always run for office yourself, and if you really
don’t like it you could start your own political party and reform the whole
thing. But here is where the problem lies: everyone wants a change but nobody
wants to leave a comfy job or go in for that much media scrutiny; so we get
left with the people who DO take the chance and the risk and so are left with a
limited choice.
But there is another problem. Because we ask, nay, demand
certain things of our positions, the politicians feel compelled to comply, or
at least say that they will comply in order to win our support. So they pledge
to uphold those ideals. And yet, after demanding such things as our leaders to
have basically Christian values, our MPs to be largely upstanding and law
abiding, and to uphold those same values that we claim to have and aspire towards,
yet ignore when we decide we don’t like them and, oh, that girl looks very pretty. But we expect everyone in
political office to hold and adhere to these values and never to slip up.
Now I don’t know about you; perhaps you have cracked it,
perhaps you are the perfect person and can hold your own values all of the time
and never once stray even from that, but as for me, I haven’t got there yet. On
occasion I have stolen the odd pen, I have even sped once or twice in my car.
But think about how that would play in the media if put under close scrutiny. “Rowan
races roads with rage.” OK, so perhaps not that
extreme, but you get the idea. How would your
life stand up?
So my point is that we should lay off the politicians a bit
– I mean in this day and age, what does it matter who is sleeping with whom or
who spends their money on what? If you don’t want an odd comment that you said
to a friend over drinks taken out of context, then why worry about what anyone else
says? At the end of the day, they are just normal people trying to make our
country a better place.
Conversely, If you don’t like what they are doing, then run
for office, get involved, and at the very least VOTE, but keep your complaints
to yourself. Don’t post them on Facebook, contact the person directly. Call,
E-mail, text, Fax, write a letter, tweet, I can just about guarantee that the representative
in question has all of these options available. Mostly just don’t complain to
everyone but the person at whom your complaint is actually directed.
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