Do We Really Get The Government We Deserve?

Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
- George Bernard Shaw

Shaw was a negative person much of the time and his sarcasm shines brightly with this quote.
What he is saying is that if voters are ignorant of the issues, if a majority of them don't vote and if the ones who do vote do so based on advertising parties have paid hugely for an advertising agency to create, then we shouldn't be surprised at the results of the people who get elected.

Who is to blame? Eligible voters who don't find out about the issues? In the highly charged political atmosphere that exists in many countries today, it may be nearly impossible to get a balanced set of information on any given issue from most media.

The ones who don't vote? These people may not be apathetic so much as they don't want to vote for one lackey over another. "They're all the same," many claim. These people don't want to admit that they are totally ignorant about the issues of the election.

People who vote for the most popular candidate? These people are sincere enough to want to do their civic duty. They simply don't have enough information at their disposal on which to make informed choices.

Despite appearances to the contrary, it is likely that most people want to vote, want to make an informed choice and want to know that the candidate of their choice knows about the issues that interest them. The problem is that no official mechanisms are in place to inform citizens in an unbiased manner about legislation that will affect their lives.

The media have staked out their territory, with the heavily biased ones prepared to inundate citizens with the highly editorialized versions of the party policies of their choice, while the others stay away from politics as much as possible.

We need some of the non-committed local newspapers or radio stations to devote some of their space or time to giving people the information they need.

As it is now, most people have access only to heavily biased outlets or others that do not cover political news.

It sounds ironic, but some of the media need to start delivering the facts. We need to ask them to do it.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to throw a rope of hope to desperate voters.
Learn more at http://billallin.com