You Believe in the Power of Democracy and Your Vote? - How Cute

What is democracy? Are politicians a mirror image of their voters? What power do you really have? Should you be afraid of the “other guy” winning?

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“Mommy, they made me write about politics again?”

“Who did, baby?”

“The people on the internet and the voices in my head.”

There are so many screaming voices spewing nonsense everywhere

• “OMG, vote for Barack Obama, a black president. He’s going to change everything.” - He changed nothing.”

• “OMG, vote for Donald Trump. He’s going to drain the swamp.” Spoiler alert - the swamp wasn’t drained.

• “OMG, vote against Donald Trump. He’s literally Hitler, and you’re all going to jail if he’s elected.” - No one went to jail, but there were mean tweets.

• “OMG, vote for Joe Biden. He’ll stop Trump and make America a decent, civil country again, preventing further division.” - How’s that working out for you?”

I think Joe Biden’s presidency might have opened the eyes of many

A literal walking corpse with an occasional angry burst was allegedly leading the most powerful, conflicted, and complicated country in the world. Well, if he could do it, anyone could. And I do mean anyone.

A funny monkey with a hat, for instance. But in reality, he’s just a puppet and a frontman. The decision-making is done by others. It’s the same everywhere democracy rules unless it’s a pretend democracy or someone has managed to hijack it.

You have no real control - by design! 

Here’s a little secret “they” don’t want you to know:
Democracy is a game for the masses to keep them busy and give the people the illusion of control. 

If your vote made a difference, you wouldn’t be allowed to vote

If the people, the infamous “they” who control everything, the big money, the cooperations, the lobbies, the three letter agencies, and the international cabals or whoever they are, thought you could change how they run things, this cute little experiment of democracy would be over in a heartbeat. 

Have you noticed that those people don’t change? They never change. The puppets change, but the puppet masters remain the same.

What happens when somebody in power, say the president, wants to clean up and make some radical changes from within? Ask John F. Kennedy. Oh wait, you can’t. He got shot for even thinking that being the president makes you powerful and untouchable. 

The above is the Conspiracy Theory perspective, and it’s probably true, but the majority refuse to see it. That’s fine. It doesn’t matter anyway, as there is nothing you can do about it. But there is another aspect of democracy most never mention, and it’s a lot more indisputable. Ready?

If democracy worked, we’d all be in danger

We chose the political system of democracy to prevent dictators and autocrats from gaining too much power. The system is designed so that no person, president, party, or side can decisively win over the other. It’s a failsafe system that makes sure they can’t do too much damage, even if the people reelect another Hitler, which is good - very good!

But there is a problem:

The bad part is that no one you elect as your new savior can do a goddamn thing in this system! There can be no decisive change, and they can’t make any significant headway, even if they really should. The opposition and untouchable institutions make sure of that. A double-edged sword indeed.

So please, for your own sanity, stop worrying about this political nonsense! No matter who wins, what you think of them, or how brainwashed you are against them, it won’t make much of a difference to your practical life. Relax and enjoy the show.

This doesn’t mean that specific minor changes can’t be made. They need to make it appear as if they’re doing something and that your voice matters.

One party wins for a few years, and then the other side wins for a few years. Both undo the good their predecessor has done on principle, and around and around we go. Things seem to change all the time while they stay mostly the same.

Democracy is incredibly inefficient, and all other systems of governance work better

But here’s the problem. We don’t all agree on everything—hell, we don’t agree on most things. Therefore, we would never be happy, satisfied, or benefited if someone, whoever that person was, regardless of whether it was Hitler, Stalin, Trump, Gandhi, or Jesus Christ himself! It’s just not possible. 

Just look at the polling numbers. Half of any country anywhere sees and experiences the world in a diametrically opposite way than the other half. They literally perceive and believe in opposite things and “know” them as irrefutable facts.

They’re right, of course. All of them, because everything is about perspectives. What is good for one group is probably bad for another, and vice versa. There is no way around this, I’m afraid.

What is a good day for a spider, is the end of the world for a fly. What is the lucky ability to feed her lion cubs for a lioness is a terrible tragedy for an antelope. It always has been and always will be.

Democracy has been designed so that no one ever gets what they really want. No one ever really wins, not decisively or for long, unless they capture the vast majority of the population’s opinion. Even then, the system is designed to pull the plug with term limits! 

While it may be woefully inefficient - by design, it is the safest route for all

Just look at what happens when one party or person is allowed to capture all the power in any country. Dictators, communists, socialists, kings, revolutionaries… There’s a reason we transitioned to democracy and why it has prevailed. Those were by far worse options despite being incomparably more efficient.

The problem was that only one part of the population got what they wanted and believed, while the other was forced into submission and suffered terribly throughout history.

A winner-takes-all approach is a terrifying proposition in politics, even though it’s the only thing that actually works everywhere else.

Imagine a divided democratic system of leadership in a company, military, or family unit. It’s absolute chaos! Someone has to be in charge, wear the proverbial pants, and make the big decisions, albeit preferably with the thoughtful input of others and the wisdom to find the best path forward.

Would direct democracy be an even better political system?

People often believe that an even more direct democracy is the way forward. Imagine everyone having a voting app and being mandated to participate in making government decisions. 

What a brilliant idea! While the direct democracy system would best translate the will of the people and force the hands of their representatives to execute per their will, it has a few flaws.

What the hell do most people know about complicated issues?

I consider myself well-read, knowledgeable about most topics, and willing to do research when I don’t know something, but I always end up with the same conclusion, no matter the topic:

I know nothing and can’t know everything, so my deductions will always be flawed. I have limited sources of information, and these sources are always questionable. Since I can’t verify anything directly, I’m forced to trust them.

The problem is that all the sources have been proven false, wrong, deliberately deceiving, and incentivized to tell a story that has nothing to do with the truth on many occasions. There are no exceptions to this rule. 

The only thing I can count on while doing my research is that all my information will be flawed, biased, and most likely wrong. If not wrong, it will be lacking in objectivity and tainted by the perspective of the one gathering and distributing it.

The above holds true for those savvy enough and willing to do their own thinking and research.

How many people do you think do their own thinking?

I assure you, almost no one does. Just look around. Everybody is simply repeating talking points from the media, their preferred political party, influencers, or circle of friends. People aren’t used to critical thinking and coming up with their own conclusions. 

Most would just find someone they trust and listen to them, with no way or interest in verifying what they’re saying. This effectively makes the outcome as predictable as today.

Nothing would change on most issues, but I’m sure there are those where the people would overturn lobbies, for example, which would only lead to an even more intense war for attention, brainwashing, and propaganda.

Experts would probably have an even lesser impact on policymaking, and your grandma would end up deciding whether to develop nuclear plants or not in your state. You’ll effectively be getting less professional and knowledgeable decision-making. Sounds like a disaster to me.

We all have different interests and will want them represented

The end result will be the same—a divided nation. About half the population will still lose, even if they directly influence the policy decisions. In a democracy, the majority wins. That majority is often only a few percent ahead of the other side. It is incredibly rare to see a population agree in the 80-100% range on anything.

Statistically speaking, you would need to survey approximately 1% of the population to get a representative sample with a 95% confidence level and a ±3% margin of error. In large populations, like whole countries, it has been established that surveying about 1,000 people (if the sample is well thought-out) is enough, within a reasonable margin of error.

What does this mean? Getting everyone to vote anyway will most likely make little to no difference.

Instead of two large pools of forced opinions, we would now have to deal with dozens of ideas and suggestions on any topic and an overwhelming system prone to errors, abuse, and hacking.

Democracy is a compromise - we all lose, and it’s for the best

When we try to please and hear everyone, no one is pleased. When we try to satisfy one group, the other suffers.

When we try to push one extreme of some policy, democracy is here to stop that from happening. We flip-flop from one issue to another. Tug right, tug left. Tug up, tug down. We’re eternally stuck in place chasing our own tales, and that is all we deserve!

We had to opt for democracy because we’re humans

Since the dawn of time, one tribe has been killing another, stealing from them, competing for resources and power. We’ve proven we’re unable to govern ourselves in a fair and efficient way, so this is the second-best thing. Fair and inefficient for everyone. 

In theory, of course. As we know, lobbies and corporations with obscene amounts of money have completely taken over the process from the inside out. No one is loyal to their people anymore. If they are, they find themselves removed from office post haste, usually with a ruined reputation, false accusations, and sometimes, an escort to an early grave.

Life isn’t equally fair for everyone, and those with money, connections, and power will always get their way. So what else is new? No, socialism and communism don’t solve this problem; they just impoverish everyone, and only a handful have all the power in the end.

Democracy was designed to avoid hostile takeovers of individual interests or extreme ideologies by involving everyone in the decision-making process. It has failed miserably yet done better than all previous systems.

Shut up, ZZ - I believe in democracy

If you disagree, which you are free to do, of course, and believe wholeheartedly that your voice and will matter in this democratic system, answer me this:

• How’s that working for you when your candidate, political party, or personal interests aren’t on the winning side?

• How much power and control do you have over your elected leaders if they go against what you believe?

• Do you really not see how money in the background decides what your political champions push forward?

• Do you have any say in the money-printing decisions of your government that severely impact your purchasing power and savings, foreign policies that risk your children going to war, and security concerns you may have when you feel unsafe in your own country?

• How many elected officials, especially presidents, have ever done all they promised in their campaign, which is presumably why you voted for them? (the answer is none, never)

• What can you do about it? Nothing. Next time, you can vote for someone else. There is no accountability, and incentives are horribly misaligned.

Most of us realize how helpless we are. We also recognize that the best we can do is cast that vote, spread some information on social media, and hope the majority agrees with us.

Democracy is, after all, the rule of the majority over the minority - even when there’s a less than 1% difference. Is that still the majority?

The vail is dropping

I don’t know what is or is not going on with politics around the world. I see an insane amount of inconsistencies, but I have little definitive proof of anything. 

• It is entirely possible that the WEF is indeed infiltrating our governments to spread their ideas.

• It is entirely possible that we’re being lied to about everything. 

• It is entirely possible that the assassination attempt of Donald Trump was an inside job, a conspiracy, and not just a random mess of incredible, earth-shattering incompetence. 

• It is entirely possible that the West pushed Putin over the end and forced his hand. It is also entirely possible that he would have taken a chunk of Ukraine regardless because he dreams of the USSR’s former glory with his daily Vodka.

• It is entirely possible that Joe Biden has been a puppet of the alien overlords from behind the scenes, hehe. The same lizard people who drink the blood of infants at their annual meetings.

Anything is possible at any time—these are the words I live by.

I can’t know what the truth is, but I do have my opinions about everything. The difference is that I realize they are nothing more than opinions, while most people believe their opinions to be the absolutely objective truth.

In the last couple of years, politicians have become comically incapable, stupid, and blatantly corrupt. I suspect they were always this way. The only ones who don’t see it are either NPCs (non-playing characters) or are trying ridiculously hard not to see it. You know, like that domestic violence next door, where you pretend the wife walked into a door and now looks like she’s a UFC fighter on the losing end. 

What has changed is that we can all see it now

Perhaps they got sloppy. Maybe it’s because of the internet and social media when things are harder to hide and easier to manufacture (fake news). Whatever it is, it’s all laid out in front of us.

This has shocked some of you, but it's nothing new for those who have been following the game played behind the curtains. They just got clumsy and careless in their execution. It’s been a long time since a proper war broke out and a long time since the streets punished their leaders for their incompetence or betrayal of trust. Maybe they feel invincible and untouchable. Are they?

I think we’re all just battered by all the lies, false flags, propaganda, and blatant lies paraded as truth. When perpetrators are caught, they don’t even bother issuing an apology.

I think we sort of gave up. But then I open up social media, and lo and behold: “Vote for this person, or the world is going to end! If he’s the president, I’m leaving the country. We have to fight this evil of the other side, or we will perish. We must get everyone to vote, or we’re doomed!” You beautiful, naive, simple minds. I love you all!

You deserve the politicians you get

No one wants to hear this, but politicians are like mirrors of their population. They wouldn’t be elected, stay in power, or be allowed to do what they do if they were not “one of you,” in more ways than you would like to admit.

After all, the majority is in control, and these are their chosen champions, representing the best and the brightest of them. What a terrifying thought.

• The depravity of Biden’s freakshow at the top directly represents the depravity of the people they lead. No decent, rational society would put up with that insulting nonsense, not to mention blatant attempts at changing scientific truths to pander to these morons. 

• Putin is the perfect representation of the Russian majority. They value tradition, are religious, and primarily seek strength in their leaders, even when they dispose of their enemies by throwing them out the windows. It was a draft, don’t you know? These things happen, la la la.

• Zelenski is a perfect representation of the Ukrainian people. A comedian actor who acts like a cool president, manufacturing more special effects and fake video releases than the whole of Hollywood combined, represents people who pretend to share European values while being, in every possible way, more Russian than they’re willing to admit. No to mention that joke of an election they orchestrated with their American friends, lol.

• I don’t even want to insinuate what choosing Trudeau as president says about Canadians. It’s not looking good, braw!

• Scholz reflected the emotional castration of Germany, which now allows the whole world to walk all over it and does everything against its interests, in fear of being condemned for the “you know who and what.”

• Hamas, the terrorist organization, is the elected party of Palestine in Gaza. They got there because the Palestinian people shared their hatred toward Israel. This is not a coincidence, and it represents who their people are. 

• Netanyahu is also the leader of Israel because the people there mostly share his beliefs and ideology. Otherwise, they would have removed him long ago. Whether they share it out of existential threat or a sense of supremacy over their arab brothers is another topic altogether.

• Xi Jinping is a strong communist with an economic outlook. He’s the embodiment of China today. Communism didn’t just happen there. Before communism took over, China was politically fragmented, plagued by warlordism and internal conflicts. People craved someone to clean it up and unite them. Maybe the only way to do this was with a hard hand, so to speak.

Something similar happened in communist countries as well, not only in democracies

They were reactions to what the people were going through and what they believed, and most people of the era supported them. The inequality of capitalism in the West is awakening those same inclinations in people today, who are already calling for socialism and a revolution. Unfortunately, these usually go horribly wrong, but who still reads history books, right?

Yes, Hitler, too, was a perfect representation of his people in that particular era

Defeated, hungry, and desperate, forced to their knees by the international community, they needed a hero to once again give them something to believe in, free them from apathy, and give them hope. He gave them an enemy and promised them jobs and prosperity, and they regained pride in who they were. We can trace all “elected” leaders in a similar context. 

Hitler wasn’t a one-man army. He wasn’t the only one with those Aryan race ideas. He didn’t just wake up one day and decide to kill twelve million people! No. Hitler was a direct result of the situation Germany and the Germans found themselves in after the First World War.

If it wasn’t him, it would be someone else. The people would demand it, one way or another. Desperate times and desperate people crave strong and usually insane leaders in whom to believe.

Let me reverse this with a provocative thought

Imagine that Jesus Christ, the saintliest of saints, a being without flaw, love incarnate, was on the ballot to be elected in the USA, for example. How do you think he’d do?

• First, no party would stand behind him, as they have nothing in common, nor would they be able to count on those favors manifesting money in their pockets after the win.

• Secondly, the people would laugh at his naive ideas, and since I presume he wouldn’t stoop down to fighting malicious media wars with his opposition, he would probably end up in jail, or at the very least, he would be so utterly ridiculed no one would take him seriously.

• If, by some divine intervention, he was actually elected, how long would you give him? A few weeks, maybe months, before the hyenas from the background would find a way to get rid of him, one way or another.

There are good reasons why no decent, peace-loving, compassionate person ever wants to be in politics. It’s a dog-eat-dog world filled with extortion, back-rubbing deals, and psychological warfare, and they’d just get eaten.

If one is to fight monsters and hope to win, he must often become a monster himself—a bigger, badder monster or a more corrupt, conniving, scheming, and ruthless politician. 

What is the solution, then?

I like certain ideas exploring decentralized governance, ideas of forming societies and governments not based on land borders but on ideological, philosophical, and practical common grounds.

Why must a border unify or differentiate us? Clearly, that isn’t working. We don’t share values, beliefs, and ideals based on where we live, and with all the immigration, that will become an even more obvious problem.

The USA is in a unique position: It is one large country but still able to create a fairly diverse political, economic, and cultural environment within its smaller entities. I’m guessing they’re going to either have to go a hell of a lot smaller and make moving to where you want to live easier, or they’ll have to figure out a different approach to governance.

For the USA to survive, and this is just my humble opinion as an outsider, the key will be allowing the governors the ability to listen to their voters and do things their way. Forcing them on the same page seems like a disaster waiting to happen. Allow people to make more choices and enable them to move around, but remain one people in the big picture. A brilliant concept, indeed.

Europe tried that. It’s called the European Union. It was great, but then more and more laws and obligatory decisions were made by unelected officials in Brussels, with whom many disagree while having no choice but to comply or pay a hefty price for wanting to decide what is best for their own country. The more the EU wants to throw us in the same bucket, the closer to its own demise it comes. We’re barely holding on, as it is.

A union of many countries or peoples is only sustainable if they are allowed to keep their sovereignty in most decisions. As soon as you take that away, forcing people to be the same, even though we are clearly not, you’ve got a problem on your hands.

That, then, is my suggestion

We are all brothers and sisters, unique but equal, and should be allowed to live as we please within reason and without imposing our will onto others. As soon as we try forcing our opinions and beliefs onto others, we cause division, anger, and resentment. This will never ever work!

We are not the same, and that is okay. All we have to do is learn to live and let live, but we have yet to figure out how. We form groups all the time and it works just fine. Why is it so hard to translate this to governance on a larger scale? Because we keep forcing everyone to follow the same rules and believe the same things, just because they live within the same borders.

The winner will be a system that enables us to feel as one country, one people, one family, without forcing us to live the same way and believe in the same things. Politics are similar to religions. You can believe and worship what you want, and that’s fine as long as you don’t shove it up other people’s throats.

If you want to have a happy family, you’re going to have to stop controlling them, expecting them to live your way, and forcing them to adhere to your beliefs. Just love and accept them, and they will love and accept you back. That’s it. It’s not that hard (in theory). Now, how do we scale this philosophy?

The only permanent solution I can think of is that we collectively change

When we, as a people, evolve, so will our leaders and the political systems.  I’m afraid it doesn’t work the other way around. As we can see throughout history, we evolve, and then society, politics, and the economy evolve with us. 

Will that ever happen? I believe it will. We’ve made a huge step forward in certain parts of the world and if you don’t believe that, you should travel more.

Half the world is still mentally and culturally trapped hundreds of years in the past, raping women en mass, burning unbelievers alive, stoning fornicators to death, shitting everywhere, and dropping garbage wherever it may fall, police extorting in broad daylight, women and minorities having no rights, etc. If you live in the West, you might live in a bit of a paradise, even though you can’t see it.

Overall, I think we’re doing just fine. Yes, we overcorrect on every single thing, which leads from one nonsense and suffering to another, but generally, we’re on the right path. A few hundred years and we’ll be unrecognizable, I think. Shame I won’t get to see it.