The people of New Zealand can’t win in a country controlled by politics.
In this system, people vote for people not issues. They empower another person to have all their voting power. That person can then act “on their behalf” in all matters.
The person that handed over the vote is now relatively powerless and the person that received the votes is now relatively powerful if they get the most votes.
So who gets all these votes?
People get votes when people vote for them. Firstly, people do that because they believe there’s no other choice. They do it because that’s how the system is. They’ve come to believe that if they want a solution to a problem they vote for someone else.
People who get votes spend time becoming known. They do this one of several ways… sometimes they present an argument to people, sometimes they simply meet and exchange pleasantries, sometimes it’s a marketing effort such as a billboard.
In each of these situations, they are selling themselves and in only one are they selling a solution to a problem.
Unless someone attends a political meeting, they never hear that argument. Only about 1% of people attend political meetings to hear usually only one side of an argument.
Everything else involving a political discussion is seen in the media and most people see only a few lines of an argument at best, usually presented how the media wishes it to be portrayed.
They present one or more solutions to people. Against the context of a situation the solution sounds good since generally there’s no counter argument.
It’s not long before facts make way for ego and personality.
People are left deciding who to give their power to based on a few fleeting facts from one point of view and a whole lot of an individual’s ego or image that’s presented through media.
When the votes are counted
Once the votes are in, the one with the most votes now has power over all the other people including those that didn’t vote for them.
Not just for the issue that was raised, but for all issues in that jurisdiction.
And from here this snowballs into a situation where the local “winners” ultimately do what they’re told by a party “boss”.
If they don’t and they vote against the wishes of the party “boss” they are usually ousted one way or another.
What this means, if the person you voted for wants to keep their “job”, is that they all vote for whatever the “boss” wants.
And now, all those things you pinned your hopes on them to resolve, are likely gone.
And now it’s all about what the boss wants.
What the boss wants is things that keep him “the boss”. All sorts of things can be arranged here, because he’s likely in charge of millions of dollars that aren’t his but which he has total power over.
The people whose money it actually is, have no say because they gave their power to him or his henchmen.
And that’s how it will be until the next election.
And this is how the system today “works”.
Most people are very well aware this is far from ideal. But they don’t think there’s any other way.
What if people voted on the issues?
In this alternate way, no one votes for a person at all. They vote for an issue. The issue then gets made into law for all the people since it was decided on by all the people.
This builds a country into a powerful cohesive unit with all the people involved.
The future belongs to people who participate.
They know that their game is just a game between themselves. The only thing that truly is of concern to them is if Direct Democracy forces them to give up their game.
