Somhairle Kelly (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mirrorshard) wrote2010-05-06 01:32 am
mirrorshard) wrote2010-05-06 01:32 am
Entry tags:
Vote!
If you have a vote in the General Election, you'd better use it.
I'd like to say I don't mind who you vote for, but that's only true if it isn't one of the barking-mad lunatic fringe parties who want to drag the UK back into an imagined lily-white 1950s utopia. So: no BNP, UKIP, or Conservative votes, please.
I have good friends with Conservative beliefs; I don't have any issues with those, and share some of them. It's the character, habits, and values of the overwhelming mass of the parliamentary Tory party that I abhor. It's their endless paternalistic sense of hierarchy and entitlement, their disdain for the poor based on an illusory sense of proof-of-ability, less a meritocracy than an inheritocracy. And their dithering incompetence at even tasks that should have been trivially easy, like hammering Gordon Brown down to 2% in the polls by now.
But mostly, I want you to take the damn vote seriously. It's yours; your ancestors (well, someone's ancestors) fought and died so you could have it, and so that it could mean even the little it does right now.
If I made the rules, not using your vote (and spoiling your ballot paper, by writing "no to safe seats", "no to illegal wars", "no to bankers' bonuses", "no to expenses", or anything else you want to protest about on it, is a very good vote) would get it taken away and given to someone in Iraq or Afghanistan who'd be properly grateful for it. Casting your vote ironically, on the other hand, would mean you'd have small children throwing stones at you in the street, and little old ladies pinning copies of Amanda Palmer singles to your lapel. Seriously, that's the grade of "irony" this is. And yes, I've heard it suggested, though thankfully not by anyone I know.
I'd like to say I don't mind who you vote for, but that's only true if it isn't one of the barking-mad lunatic fringe parties who want to drag the UK back into an imagined lily-white 1950s utopia. So: no BNP, UKIP, or Conservative votes, please.
I have good friends with Conservative beliefs; I don't have any issues with those, and share some of them. It's the character, habits, and values of the overwhelming mass of the parliamentary Tory party that I abhor. It's their endless paternalistic sense of hierarchy and entitlement, their disdain for the poor based on an illusory sense of proof-of-ability, less a meritocracy than an inheritocracy. And their dithering incompetence at even tasks that should have been trivially easy, like hammering Gordon Brown down to 2% in the polls by now.
But mostly, I want you to take the damn vote seriously. It's yours; your ancestors (well, someone's ancestors) fought and died so you could have it, and so that it could mean even the little it does right now.
If I made the rules, not using your vote (and spoiling your ballot paper, by writing "no to safe seats", "no to illegal wars", "no to bankers' bonuses", "no to expenses", or anything else you want to protest about on it, is a very good vote) would get it taken away and given to someone in Iraq or Afghanistan who'd be properly grateful for it. Casting your vote ironically, on the other hand, would mean you'd have small children throwing stones at you in the street, and little old ladies pinning copies of Amanda Palmer singles to your lapel. Seriously, that's the grade of "irony" this is. And yes, I've heard it suggested, though thankfully not by anyone I know.
no subject
As for people getting themselves killed, the dying is not the point. I'd rather compare it to (say) battlefield ambulance drivers than loony murder-suicide pacts. I also don't see any contradiction with pacifism; putting yourself at a considered risk, eg. by a hunger strike or a nonviolent protest against violent authorities, has nothing at all to do with harming other people.
As for why I posted this, I think of it as a broken-windows thing: I don't want it to go unremarked or to risk being taken for granted.
no subject
I sympathise, but I honestly don't think there's much risk of that. Everyone's at it.
I'd rather compare it to (say) battlefield ambulance drivers than loony murder-suicide pacts. I also don't see any contradiction with pacifism; putting yourself at a considered risk, eg. by a hunger strike or a nonviolent protest against violent authorities, has nothing at all to do with harming other people.
Sure, but the fact that that was the case doesn't in any way make the cause more worthwhile, just as the fact that pacifists chose to drive battlefield ambulances doesn't mean the First World War was a good idea. My point is that the worthiness of any cause should be examined on its particular merits, not by the amount of kerfuffle it caused.