The Illusion of Democracy

If we wanted to change the world, would voting for the next President/Prime Minister/Premier be the way to do it?

I don't think so and I'll tell you why.

All the parties and opposition parties may well have different rationalisations for their policies but the final chapter in the book of politics will be written by the winner, from a position of great power and great wealth, and its title will be 'How to keep the gravy train running without the populace finding out about it.'

It seems that whoever you place in power by exercising your 'democratic right' to vote, they all basically do the same thing.

Remove your finances and freedom, almost imperceptibly, one bit at a time.

It's easy to be cynical, I know, but politics (and not the sham that is the American Presidential Race) does interest me and—a bit like a room with a living person, a dead person and a smoking gun—it's difficult to look at the situation without forming an opinion of it.

While I'm sure that politicians do have a very difficult job, it seems to me that their time must be spent at least as much suppressing the opposition as tending to the health of their societies.

I think Douglas Adams hit a nail (one of many) on the head with his philosophers vs Deep Thought argument. Imagine Deep Thought as democracy to its 'practitioners' and I'll share a moment of this wonderful monologue with you:

"Everyone's going to have their own theories about what answer I'm eventually going to come up with, and who better to capitalize on that media market than you yourselves? So long as you can keep disagreeing with each other violently enough and slagging each other off in the popular press, you can keep yourself on the gravy train for life. How does that sound?"

This monologue could apply to a number of institutions. Here, Deep Thought was placating the philosophers, but he could have been speaking to a priest, an economist, a football manager or even a politician.

The illusion is that, no matter who we vote for, they will end up doing everything they can to sustain 'democracy' because it's keeping them rich and the rest of us ignorant.

25 million records. Lost...

What are we to think from this? Of course, the Conservatives are all over it like a rash, but I do think there are bigger issues at stake.

While it's true that the current government are still trying to get ID cards legislated into existence, and that a similar 'accident' with the records for such a system is also very possible, I reckon — even assuming that this kind of mishap never happens again — that these particular bits of plastic would be better off as crisp packets, SD cards, cheaper Blu-Ray movies, anything other than ID cards.

The reason is quite simple. Despite what we're told about this system's security, the database and the people who work with that database are still fallible. It's all well and good having 'procedures in place', but people are inventive things, which is why they're so good at everything.

If someone can find an easier way to do something, like update a record in a database, he or she will do it. Even if this is at — perhaps microscopic — risk to security. To that person, it's really not a big deal. I bet you've done it yourself to get the kettle on earlier or make a meeting on time. Not to mention that the whole process relies on the ID card being in the possession of the person to whom it is administered. The whole system is a mockery of the intelligence of the people it is pretending to protect, and if we're not careful, Mr Orwell's futuristic vision will begin to look like the good old days.

DNA archiving for the purposes of solving crimes is another example of a misguided project. The best way to remove oneself from suspicion of a crime or from mistaken identity — indeed to protect one's identity — is simply not to take part in it. The more people there are on such a database, and the more people that are employed to maintain and to administer it, the greater chance of error. That is the most basic assumption anyone should ever make about any system and is self-evident. Anyone who says that their system is foolproof, or that they have every eventuality covered, is a person to whom one should never trust the responsibility.

There has to come a point where the balance fundamentally shifts and the system starts to work at the expense of the individual, rather than for the individual.

I have to say that if this government carries on shifting the balance, I for one will be changing my vote at the next election, although I'm not even sure that that will change anything these days.

Seems to me that in a Democratic society, 'I' am always in a minority...