Don't vote

I really dislike those sayings that start off with, “There are two types of people in this world…..” There are obviously many types of people in this world. Having said that, there is one of these phrases that I do agree with. Here it is. “There are two types of people in the world, those who just want to be left alone and those who just won’t leave you alone. Politicians are of the latter.

Photo: Contributed

On May 14th the masses will scurry to the voting booths thinking that they are doing their civil duty and are actually participating in the governance of this great province. Nothing could be further from the truth. Don’t get me wrong, hope for a better future and a healthier world is a desirable goal. However it will never be achieved through the political process. After all the motivation of a politician and political party is to simply survive through the next election. How do you do this? Easy, look out for your own best interests and that of the party, and make dirty deals with those in business to keep you alive. Most importantly, do anything it takes to stay politically alive. To think that politicians have your best interests at heart is the absolute definition of naivety. They don’t care about you. They never have. They never will.

Let’s run through just a snippet of BC political history:

• Fantasy Gardens: improper sale of property and influence-peddling by Premier Bill Vander Zalm in connection with Asian Gambling lord. (Social Credit Party)
• Stephen Rogers (Social Credit Party) – resigns as environment minister after a conflict of interest due to owning shares in a company.
• Cliff Michael (Social Credit Party) – resigns from cabinet due to conflict of interest over the sale of some land.
• FastCat Fiasco (NDP) cost the people of BC $430 million.
• BC Legislature Raids- raids on offices of senior political aides in the legislature connected to everything from grow-ops to questions concerning the sale of BC Rail to Canadian National.
• Gordon Campbell (Liberals) – arrested in Hawaii for DUI. However, continues on as Premier.

And believe me; this does not even scratch the surface of the documented scandals in BC political history, never mind that of the entire nation.

Here’s a fun fact; I contacted Elections BC and they told me that there is no minimum percentage of the voting population required for an election to be considered valid. Hmmm… so if 99.9% of the population were so disgusted with the political process that they refused to vote, the election would still be considered legitimate. This screams to me that there are no checks and balances to ensure the validity of the candidates or parties.

I completely agree with the concept of a very small entity (many times smaller than present government) that is elected to deal with issues that the rest of us do not want to deal with. I believe these servants should be elected, 100% accountable to the people, punishable by criminal law and have no ties to political parties. If that were the case, I could get in line to cast a vote. But given what we have today, there’s no chance in Hades that you will ever catch me in a voting booth.

Now, people will accuse me of being unpatriotic and disrespectful to those who fought and died for our right to vote. To those charges I reply, “I know my history.” My great uncles and grandfathers stood ready on the shores of Scotland and fought the German forces throughout Europe. They fought against oppression and tyranny. They did not fight for the corrupt and rotten arena that we call politics today. They would most likely be disgusted at what we call political practice and political leaders today. Moreover, people tell me that if I don’t vote then I have no right to complain. Personally, I think they have this all backwards. I choose not to elect these idiots. I didn’t line up at the voting booth to put the next round of criminals into power. The people who vote are responsible for this. Therefore, they don’t have the right to complain because it was their actions that put these politicians into power; not me. So I think between voters and non-voters, the non-voters have all the right in the world to complain.

Every year the political system taxes us more and takes away increasing levels of our freedom. Politicians get more breaks, larger salaries and we the people are subjected to more ridiculous laws, decreased freedom and less wealth. On May 14th you won’t catch me anywhere near a voting booth: I choose to actually do something productive with my time.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.