Politics: The Party System

Good morning my friends around the world. No matter where it is you call home, no doubt you have some complaints about the way your government is run; the way it is elected; and an overall discontent for how they run your country. Now of course, there are some of you who believe in the system; who believe in your representatives or leaders; who believe in their government. I am not here to criticize you. No, I am here to talk a little about the Canadian political party system.

Let me start off by explaining a little bit about how the party system works here in Canada. For starters we do not directly vote for our Prime Minister (head of state); we vote for his or her party. For example, if John Doe is a Liberal candidate who is running for PM and I would like to see him in that position then I must vote for the Liberal candidate running in my riding. Do you see the flaw here? In order to not have a paragraph that runs on for an eternity, we're going to break up the explanation and the flaw inside of it.

What is the flaw? Well, bear with me, let's look at it this way. Please understand this is an explanation and not a statement or insinuation of which party I may or may not support. For the record: none of them; I support people, not parties. Moving on. Jane Doe is a brilliant leader and a Conservative. John Doe has a history of corruption and is a Liberal. The Liberal representative in your riding will do much to improve your community. The Conservative representative has little concern for the needs of your community. Who do you vote for? Vote Conservative, get a great leader but a representative who does nothing for you? Or do you vote Liberal, get a corrupt leader but have a representative that will work hard for you? Let's make it more interesting: what if the only competent representative in your riding is running under the front of the Green Party? Or how about the NDP? As neither party has ever had a minority or majority government (federally) here in Canada? You'd have no chance.

That is only one problem I have with the Party System. It very seriously limits your choices and puts you in a position to choose between the lesser of two evils. When it comes to evil, there are no degrees; small or large, it is still evil. On top of that you have the problem of a Party itself. What is that problem? It creates an environment where running candidates no longer have to think for themselves. When you join any one of the political parties you no longer have to think for yourself. You can hide behind the beliefs, ideologies and platforms of the party. You are no longer required to have an opinion; it is provided for you. You don't need to know the plan; it has already been designed for you. You never have to think again; someone has already done that for you and published it into a nice little pamphlet. In all honesty, do we really have any idea about what our candidates really believe? What they really think? What they really know? We don't.

What is the solution? Try not to get yourself too worked up here my Canadian friends (or my International friends), I have given this much thought. The solution is to adopt more of the American political system. Now before you go clicking the close browser window button, hear me out. What I am speaking of specifically is how they vote for candidates. In Canada, if the NDP won a majority election, an NDP must be the head of state. In the USA, if the Republicans win a majority, a Democrat can still be President. You see the difference? They still maintain the party system to identify the ideologies of the candidates but the people get to vote for the actual candidate and not necessarily a party. This system, however, is still flawed to me because it is still founded on the principle of a party system. And, as you may have guessed, I am opposed to the party system.

The real solution is to eliminate the party system. Make all people who wish to run as candidates to become government representatives do so as independents. Let them share their ideas; their beliefs; their plans and not the general ones of an organization. Let a person tell the people what their vision is; not a pamphlet or ad campaign. If you force people to think for themselves and take away the party ideology to hide behind, you create a system where only the honest and trustworthy will be able to find themselves elected to office. After all, if you aren't able to think for yourself and convince yourself; who will you convince?

A political system based on the party ideology is very dangerous. Why? Because you are segregating the people. You are forcing a wedge between them; forcing to pick the right, the left or something else in between. Collective's are essential, however, running a collective by a collective is a very dangerous situation. You risk the smaller one allowing it's own personal beliefs to creep in and overtake that of the larger collective. With an independent run government, there are no parties to let this happen. There are only people and an individual can not corrupt the entire government and country through their beliefs; there are too many other individuals to keep them in check. This is one of the importances of the individual within the collective. The individual is always the one who questions the collective.

As Canadian politics evolve, party ideas begin to become more and more similar to one another. They, of course, have their few major differences of opinions, however the core ideologies seem to be coming closer and closer together. When the time comes when one party's platform is no different than the next, that will be when the right to vote will mean nothing as all those smaller, party collectives will have become one (maybe not outwardly, but in secret) and which party is in charge will be of no consequence (kind of like the USA). They'll be working together regardless of the symbol they hide behind.

I live in a free country they tell me. I have choices they tell me. I am privileged to have a voice, a vote they tell me. Tell me then, where is my vote when I have no options? Where are my choices when political parties ideologies become closer and closer together? How am I free when I am chained to a fraudulent system that hides behind images and ideas? You may think you have choice; you do not, or at least very few remaining. For now there is enough in the way of political ideological differences that opposition parties still fight against the tyranny of the current Harper government; how long it lasts is anyone's guess. 

Wake up Canada! You have been fooled into believing this system works; you have been tricked into believing you had a choice; you have been misled to believe your vote counts; these are all lies. How can the system work when it is based on someone else's ideas other than the person running it? How can you have a choice when your options are fictional entities comprised of men and women who no longer have to think for themselves? How can you have a vote, a voice, if you have no choice? It is time that we the people stop and take a real, long look at how, why and who WE are permitting to dictate how OUR towns, provinces, country and world are run? Canada, the planet itself, belongs one to us all. Let us decide to KNOW those who would make decisions on its future, our future and that of future generations.