Saturday 24 May 2014

Voting Schmoting

These days, citizens of EU countries have the opportunity to decide the composition of the EU Parliament for the next five years. Typically, there are hundreds of candidates to choose from. EU citizens are evidently expected to acquaint themselves with all of them, their character, their most cherished issues and whatever else is a criterion for whether a politico might have one's vote (and there is both theory and evidence to suggest that it does not matter for whom one votes anyway).

How does anyone have time for this? After jobs and hobbies, family and friends, why spend time sifting through the popinjays and the charlatans searching for someone whose views might correspond to one's own? I suspect only very few people do this, yet very many people actually do vote and look down their noses at people who abstain.

For the vast majority of good, decent folks, to vote intelligently is not to vote at all.

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