We get the government we deserve - and I'm in despair

Chris Northover PHOTO/FILE

Well, the elections are now done and dusted, and we have a promising team in the Wanganui council, to whom I send my congratulations. We also have some worthy losers.

I did something during the election campaign that I ought to have known was wrong. It was stupid and, while I was awake at night tossing and turning with regret at my actions, I gave it some thought.

What I did wrong was to ask some people what they thought about the issues. Now, I know it is bad for democracy if fewer people vote, but this time I was secretly pleased.

Many of the older people I asked wouldn't have known an issue if they had caught it rifling through their kitchens trying to steal Saturday's Powerball ticket. The young ... oh the young! The Gen Xs and Gen Ys - so many of them thought that Michael Laws was still mayor, I wondered why he was campaigning at all.

I am in deep despair. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it think.

It's thought, Jim; but not as we know it.

Nationally there was about a 43 per cent voter turnout at the local body elections and this is getting worse each election. Some would say that is no cause for despair, because the non-voters were probably the same people who were ignorant of the issues in any case, so wasn't it best that they didn't vote?

But, taken to its inevitable conclusion, in a few years there will be only a small percentage of people who vote, the rest will feel powerless, have no ownership of the region's governance, less inclined to pay rates or taxes, and become impossible to govern.

But it gets worse. This phenomenon of apathy is being worked out nationally - for the same reasons and with the same result. If the indolent majority think at all, it is rarely on more than one or two issues and many will vote for one party or the other merely because they like the "vibe" of the party, but give no thought whatever to its policies, or their effect on the economy.

This has led to policies being reduced to slogans, with no more logic than the average bumper sticker. This appeals to the lazy-minded, non-thinking majority, because they no longer have to waste their limited energy thinking. Such luxury!

But the real effect of this is that who governs the country is decided more and more by the lazy and greedy.

The unscrupulous among our politicians can reduce their policies down to a tasty slogan. Never mind fully explaining it to an electorate too lazy to read a few lines of rationalisation or background; never mind that the slogan may well appeal to their bank accounts now, but hold the same long-term liabilities as an "emergency loan" from a back alley loan shark. What to do? You can't humiliate the lazy voters - they are already part of the growing pool of life's flotsam and jetsam.

Don't expect them to think about it - our education system has been "dumbing down" our population for decades.

When people find that they can vote for the politician who promises them wealth with no effort, and the people don't question where the wealth comes from, or for how long, we are inevitably bound for ruin.

The politician won't kill the golden goose by explaining the impossible pledge, and people's greed won't allow them to look behind the glib promises.

Other societies have failed due to loose economic policies, and found themselves subjects of a dictatorship. Yes, it's true - we do get the government we deserve.