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28 December, 2005
If you don't vote, you're an idiot

I hope none of you are looking for a light-hearted, festive, meaningless column full of year-end cheer. What's so cheery about the end of the year? The days are short, the weather is cold, and we've all just gained weight and spent a month's salary on garbage. One good thing is that it can't get any worse. That's worth celebrating, I guess.

No cheer from me here. In fact, last month something stirred my ire more than it's been stirred in a long time. And I plan to write about it.

When a federal election was called in late November, a local television news program sent someone onto the streets to ask "the public" what they thought about it.

The dominant sentiment in this segment was that politics are not worth one's attention, because no matter what one does, everything stays the same. That is perhaps the most ignorant, arrogant, immature, disrespectful thing I've ever heard.

It must be embarrassing to publicly state that politics never changed anything. I challenge people who feel that way to speak to those who wait in line for medical procedures, pay income tax, pay GST, engage in international trade, dislike cigarette smoke, receive unemployment cheques, value clean water, or have relatives in the armed forces. To claim that politics are irrelevant to life is as idiotic as saying that diet is unrelated to health. And months after the death of Rosa Park, it's really just shameful.

These people should also speak with residents of non-democratic nations. Can you fathom the arrogance of saying to such a person, "I'm really sorry that the unending efforts of your people still have not resulted in a free society. It's funny, because in Canada, we have democracy no matter what we do, even if we sit at home and watch American television all the time. Too bad about your country, though."

It's obvious that these people are spoiled, immature brats. Most of them were older than me, but they're clearly spoiled. They need some good old-fashioned slave chains around their necks to teach them the value of the right to vote. Maybe then that hockey game wouldn't seem more important than checking a ballot.

The real shocker, though, is that these people willingly made these comments on television for everyone to see, less than three weeks after remembrance day on the Year of the Veteran. Astonishing! Did they even notice Remembrance Day? Is this what our veterans fought for? To see puerile yuppies complain that politics don't matter? If Germany's National Socialist party had won World War II, I doubt anyone would be saying such atrocities. Not least because they would not have the right to speak on television.

My point is that if you don't vote, you should be ashamed. If you complain about politics not changing anything, you're just stupid.

Now, if you complain that you feel your vote is wasted in our current electoral system, then you're on to something. If you're in a system with half-a-dozen political parties to vote for, but your vote only counts if you choose from two of those parties, doesn't that sound like fascism? You and hundreds of thousands of others choose Party X, but you get no representation? That's not democracy.

Canada has a flawed winner-take-all voting system. What this nation needs is a proportional system. For more information see http://www.fairvotecanada.org. If you think you don't matter to politics, stop embarrassing yourself by snivelling and read up on this.

Finally, behalf of all Canadian whiners, I apologize to veterans and those lacking democracy.

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