Why your vote, your protest and political action is meaningless
In this new age of political activism, politics are once again being injected into our lives whether we want it or not. In the media there is no shortage of political issues raised, politics is in our films and tv shows and often this new media elite is very eager to have us follow their example and become political ourselves. If you protest you could end up on their news mediums, they say you can even make a difference by uploading content onto their social media platforms for many people to hopefully like and agree with what you are saying. All of this makes us feel important, afterall is it nice to be recognised for your superior beliefs and viewpoints, it is nice to feel like you have power and can make a difference in the world, however sadly the reality is far from this illusion.
Firstly I would like to make an argument that your vote is meaningless and also why voting can lead to a negative lifestyle. A vote is simply a making of ink, inside another marking of ink on a piece of paper that signals a choice for a specific party or candidate. This piece of paper is shared between a vast number of people, Millions. If something is easily accessible to millions of people then by nature it is of little value.
Secondly do you think people who vote are qualified to make that decision? Imagine you are in a boardroom of a major corporation and you have a vote on who the new CEO will be of the company, do you think everyone inside that company should have a vote, all 2.1 million employees of walmart voting on the next CEO? I suppose with modern technology, a digital voting process could make it happen quickly with relatively low cost but more importantly are all those 2.1 million employees qualified to decide who should lead their company. Will they know what to look for in a new leader? It sounds good in principle and Its nice to think that an employee should have a say in who their leader is, however if they do not know anything about running a major corporation, it could result in disaster as the majority would tend to vote for someone who will lie to them and appeal to what they think they want.
This is similar to the case in the governments as politicians try to play to the crowd and whoever plays the best wins, then the people get upset with the empty promises and failures of that leader. The leaders themselves know they cannot deliver on what the people want, the leaders just want to lead, to be the top of the human hierarchy.
Going back to the corporation analogy, a good CEO would be someone who is good at making deals, highly organised and has initiative to adapt, modernise and make sure the company stays out of decline however people would rather vote for someone who could promise 50% growth in two years through a very risky plan and promise huge benefits to the majority of employees, also if the person is good looking and uses feelings rather than facts, it can make that leader much more appealing than those that would be better for both the company and the employees.
I am not saying it is not possible to give employees huge benefits and to get 50% growth in two years, a good leader could revolutionise the way in which the company operates, the way the profits are divided and it could work much better. I personally agree with the notion of having a population with a small wealth disparity, the huge and ever increasing wealth gap is partly due to this belief that with each time the majority votes, things get better when more often than not, things get worse. Just as you would not let anyone be a judge for the olympic gymnasts, I argue one should leave matters of the economy to economic specialists as humans are incredibly diverse creatures with a huge variety of specialisations and simply running a major company or country is not something the majority of people have a specialty in and it is counter-productive to think they ever will.
Voting is seen to many as doing their part for society, it gives people a sense of power yet people should ask themselves, “am I putting my hopes, dreams and ambitions into the hands of someone I have never met and would not trust personally?”. Voting tends to stop people from seeking to improve themselves and rather it leads them seeking to improve the system which they were born into. People put so much energy into studying politics and political action yet if they put that energy elsewhere, they could already be living the life they are wanting their politicians to provide for them. An example would be if someone who spent a lot of time thinking about politics and putting their resources into political activity and instead decided to put all their effort and resources into making a company or organisation. That person could then treat people the way they want to be treated, that person would have more power to bring about the change they wanted than if they went about trying to convince people to vote like them.
I do not say this to inspire inaction from anyone reading this, I believe knowing that you have no power and where you are in the human hierarchy will hopefully help you to direct your energy at more fruitful endeavors. I am not saying we should get rid of democracy but rather I simply disagree with the religion of democracy, it is not worth dying for and if it is the best system we currently have, it is certainly not a very good system and we should never cease striving for something better.
