Why I Don’t Like Democracy

I spent a good chunk of time watching the Canadian debate between the political leaders. This post may be completely mis-informed and may only seem to highlight my ignorance to politics, especially in my own country but here it goes anyway. I don’t like democracy. I don’t find it very productive nor beneficial to progressing the way that we should. Dave pointed to a good post by Matthew good summarizing the debate and giving it a review here.

Tonight I watched while four leaders all gained up on the one leader that was in charge. They ripped into almost every policy and action that his government took. They called him ignorant, stupid and said his actions were unhealthy. Most of the time in the debate was spent trying to convince the viewer (me) not that a specific party was better than another but rather that the party in charge shouldn’t be there anymore. What ends up happening is that I am forced to choose who debates the best and who I agree with the most.

I don’t really understand this very much. There is no sense of community or team amongst each of the leaders arguing. None of them are really there to support each other in hopes our nation will get better rather make all the right arguments and say all the write things to convince everyone else will remove one from power and replace them with another. It’s such a power grab (or hold on to) from every party. I full understand and sympathize with the conversations that are happening about not voting.

I can appreciate a good debate like the rest of them, but I don’t understand it when everyone is more concerned about proving failures rather than working to what’s right. Our country can have different parties in power over and over again and we are still going to fight and still spend much of our time pulling one party out while putting on party in with another party hanging in behind ready for a sneak attack.

The debate last night aside, whether we like it or not, democracy, like communism is based (or at least ends up at) on who’s in charge and how they use their power. Power is at the heart of them both now in a realistic world. There has got to be a better system out there to run a country than to have different powerful parties all competing for spots to make decisions. Anyone have any ideas ;)

This all is just showing me more and more that change can’t come from the top. Change can’t come from those who want power. Change can’t come from those that think they deserve power. Change can’t come in forms of systems where ideals replace faces. This is what has been happening though. Instead, change needs to come from real people living real lives and offering a bigger picture for people to be part of. Fancy words and persuasive arguments convince me of nothing. When I see someone make a decision for the sake of someone else though and not themselves, then you got me thinking. When I see someone make a decision that’s harder because they know its right, I know that I’m on the right track.

To me, democracy is nothing more than a system to satisfy our desire for a king that will take all the blame and be responsible for all our individual decisions. At the core of who we are we really believe that the government is our religion. If we can change the government to function the way we believe than we’ll be ok. How easy would it be if the government believed exactly what I did? So we all vote trying to get our own way to make our own lives easier. If the government is providing for the poor, then that means I don’t have to.

Lately, I feel that if I’m going to benefit from democracy than it will be because democracy gives me the freedom to not care or be affected by who’s in power. I can still live the way that I choose to live no matter who is oppressing me or supporting me. Can we even under the oppression of opposing beliefs live out our calling? I certainly hope so, cause if not we better be prepared to fall on our sword for the sake of some political party of whose leader we’ve never met.