Clenching My Jaw For Democracy

These mountains along the David Thompson Highway are called Ex Coelis, "Out of the Clouds." They were named for the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion of the 3rd Brigade of the British 6th Airborne Division. These men jumped out of an airplane into a war zone so we could vote. I wonder how they'd feel knowing so many of us don't care?

Tuesday we take another trip to the ballot box to select our federal representatives for another few years.
I’m glad to do it. Too many people fought and died so I could take a few minutes to let the government know what I think of it.
Voting is a privilege and an obligation. It offends me how many of us are too lazy and too apathetic to care how we are governed.
I’ve have written in the past about how voting ought to be mandatory. I’ve given it a second thought. I am forced to clench my jaws and admit that as reprehensible as this is within the right to vote is the right to not vote.
We ignore the ballot at our peril, but we are free to do so.
I say to the non-voter that your choice is wrong. Apathy gives us the leadership we deserve.
You think your vote doesn’t count? If 40 percent of voters turn out, then it means that 60 per cent of us didn’t.
If those 60 percent made their mark, then the election would have a different outcome.
Maybe the governing party would be the same, but it might have a stronger majority. Or maybe the Opposition would be stronger and better equipped to keep the governing party in line.
Voter apathy disgusts me. It’s a slap in face to every man, woman, and child affected by the wars that were fought to ensure our right to cast a ballot for whomever we please.
Do you think you’re taking a stand by not voting?
You are not.
If we had mandatory voting and you refused, then you’d be making a statement. I could muster up some grudging respect for you.
As it is, all you’re doing is exercising your right in a free country to ignore how your country is run. You take no interest in it; therefore you have no right to complain.
I want nothing to do with you.
Non-voters disgust me.
No matter what the choices are in the voting booth, there is a choice. This is a democracy. Here’s what democracy means. I think many of us have forgotten.
The current government brought in a law calling for fixed election dates. Prime Minister Stephen Harper broke his own law to hold this election. He argued Parliament was stymied due to the antics of the Opposition.
I think he smelled blood in the water and proceeded to ensure matters stalled so he could call this election and win a majority.
If he’s willing to break his own law with a minority government, what fun will he have with a majority?
On Tuesday I will set my jaw, hold my nose, gird my loins, and mark my ballot for the party that’ll do the least damage to my country.
What will you do?

Let The Mainstreeting Begin

Main Street Rocky looking south to a green area.

We’ve been plunged into yet another tepid Canadian political campaign. Prime Minster Stephen Harper pulled the plug on his own government in a surprise move he’d been orchestrating for months. So they say anyway. I can’t prove it, but I suspect it’s true simply because he kept making votes matters of confidence and then daring the Opposition to make them fail.
He made sure the government couldn’t govern and then blamed the Opposition for being intractable.
He’s using an interesting approach. Harper has himself said he expects a Conservative minority again.
Then why would he go to all this trouble and expense to engineer an election?
I say the cold, calculating actuary (Seems to me that’s what he did for a living. He joked he didn’t have the personality to be an accountant.) is manipulating us into a good voter turnout. We’re sick of elections, especially federal ones. We were promised by Harper that he’d govern until October 2009 unless his government was defeated on a non-confidence vote. He wrote it into Canadian law by a fixing an election date of the third (I believe) Monday in October every four years.
By holding one early and breaking his own centerpiece law, and then galling us with predictions of a minority that could fall at any moment, he expects us to say: “No more!”
I say he’s banking on us being so disgusted that we’ll get out and vote in droves thus providing him with a smug majority.
Ewww. I hate being played. I’ll vote of course. It wrong and insulting not to. I think of people who walk for miles and risk their lives to be able to cast ballots. We can’t be bothered to cross the street.
Meanwhile, the mainstream parties are a wee bit scared of the Greens. The TV networks won’t let Green Party Leader Elizabeth May play when they have the leaders’ debates. The claim is some of the other leaders won’t debate if she’s there. These other leaders cry it isn’t fair because, they claim, she is essentially another Liberal.
Last time out the Green Party then- Leader Jim Harris wasn’t allowed to debate because his party had no sitting members in the House. Recently an Independent moved over to the Greens thus ensuring they had a seat and could be at the debate.
Now this reason is pulled out of a political butt and I call it desperation at its best.
The Liberals and Conservatives talk a good game about protecting the environment while it’s the Greens raison d’être.
They’re scared of looking bad, and they will if they have to take on the Green Party.
As to the other parties, well, Jack Layton, NDP, doesn’t have a hope in hell of forming a government. He does need to be kissed up to a bit so he can shore up a minority.
Gilles Duceppe of the Bloc Quebecois gets to debate even though his party is separatist and exists only in Quebec. He’s not a threat.
Even though the Greens are perceived as being practically Liberal themselves, and Liberal Leader Stephane Dion is all for having May at the debate, she’s still a threat. And Dion can say whatever he wants because he’s said he’d debate her. Since she’s already not allowed, this just makes him look good.
Meanwhile May is thinking of taking the matter to Court.
Perhaps this election won’t be so tepid after all.