I find it strange that some people would absolve voters of
responsibility in the kind of people that are elected to public office – good
or bad.
The fact is simply this: people don’t get into elected positions
unless they are voted for. That being the case, who else are you going to blame
(or, to be fair, applaud) for how the elected official turns out?
But let’s go a little deeper into that.
The responsibility of the voter for how the elected official
turns out doesn’t end at the polling place. In fact, it doesn’t even begin
there.
A voter’s responsibility starts before he even votes. This is
because, for the most part, no one goes into the polling place with his mind
being a complete vacuum, devoid of opinions or knowledge – regardless of how
uninformed those opinions are or how inaccurate that knowledge is. Especially
in this hyper-connected era – where the public is routinely regaled by what politicians
and prisoners had for breakfast – a voter goes into the polls with a great deal
of information already swirling around in his brain. How he organizes that
information and makes sense of it is a different story altogether, but the
information IS there.
Because it is there, the voter is therefore able to (a) be
content with what he thinks he knows and make his decision based on his surface
impressions; or (b) decide to dig deeper, to organize the information into
meaningful categories such as pros and cons, or perhaps to weigh what he knows
of the candidate against his personal priorities. In either case, he is
ultimately responsible for what he ends up deciding to do.
If he goes with his surface impressions, then he isn’t actually
thinking the problem through. Without question, he accepts the public persona
of the candidate and thus becomes vulnerable to misunderstanding what the
candidate actually stands for or is capable of. He might then pass up a good
candidate simply because the fellow got a bit of bad press; or he could fall
for the beguiling attractiveness of a rotten apple, simply because the douche
had a good p.r. team. Sure, he might get lucky sometimes, but the odds are
stacked against that.
If he is more critical, on the other hand, then he stands a
better chance of really arriving at the substance of the candidate. He has a
greater opportunity to see through the smoke and mirrors, and thereby arrive at
a more reasonable estimate of how good an elected official the candidate might
turn out to be.
And when he finally makes his decision – whichever of these two
routes he goes through to get there – the voter alone is entitled to the cheers
and jeers that follow.
This piece, posted by GMA News Online, however, implies that the voter is
practically powerless to make this decision.
However, the odd thing is, I have
to make sense of what is going on—perhaps for the sake of maintaining my
sanity. And voila! As always, I have my answer and it’s a convenient one. I
blame the great unwashed of voters. Period. After all, they deserve the kind of
government they voted for.
But on second thought, I asked
myself, there’s something not right about this thinking. Since, no leader is
immune to the corrupting influence of power and money, why blame the voters?
Really?
Yes, they can vote but they are
not the ones crafting malice with the aim of sucking away the people’s money to
instantly enrich themselves and their families.
Yes, they can vote but they are
not the ones sabotaging or pilfering the economy and leaving the nation’s
coffer bone-dry.
Yes, they can vote but they are
not the ones entrusted with power to manage the affairs of the government.
Near as I can puzzle out the author’s point of view, he seems to
be saying that voters are not aware that the people they vote for a capable of
“crafting malice,” or bleeding the “nation’s coffer bone-dry.” He also seems to
be implying that the voter cannot be held responsible for the choices he makes
simply because he is “not the one entrusted with power to manage the affairs of
government.”
As to the first two, I beg to differ. In my experience, voters
are fully aware that the people they vote for will gain tremendous power which
can then be used for good or ill. It’s just that most voters are hopeful that
the person they vote for will actually use that power for good – which isn’t
powerlessness so much as it is naivete.
With regard to the last, well, isn’t that the entire point of
elected representatives? To hold that one is not answerable for one’s choices
simply because one chooses to vest another with responsibility for governance
is just a cop-out,
And speaking of naivete.
Having said that, I came to the
realization that our best shot for a less corrupt society is to insist and
demand from our leaders to control or moderate their self interests. If they
can’t control or moderate themselves or if they simply refuse to do so, we can
always restrain them with the shackles of the law. That’s my hope.
I have two problems with this statement. First, in the
immediately preceding paragraph, the author makes the point that
In contrast, the privilege
positions that the few possess speak volumes as to why they are unlikely to be
blamed for the ills of our society.
So, if they are unlikely to be blames for the ills of our
society, how can we then reasonably say that we can always restrain them with
the shackles of the law? And if we cannot reasonably expect them to be hampered
by the shackles of the law, how then can we use the law to demand that they
“control or moderate their self-interests?”
I know hope springs eternal, but considering the premises laid,
perhaps the author’s hope is a bit misplaced.
The second problem I have with this statement is that, while it
scratches the surface of what I feel is the right answer (i.e., demand more
from our elected leaders), it ignores the fact that voters can do better than
just hope. They can vote.
As much as I blame voters for the quality of leaders we get, I
am also convinced that they are our one hope for good government. They just
have to know how to use their power to vote.
Related : CHOICE OF GOVERNMENT
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