Vote For - None Of The Above

Years ago I saw a movie - I'm not sure but I think it was Brewsters Millions. In the movie the lead character starts a campaign 'Vote For None Of The Above' which was meant to be a nonsensical way of wasting money which became a full fledged movement. Although it just seemed very funny at that time, I'm now beginning to think if there was some wisdom in it after all.

I know most of us keep talking of democracy and how we need to give it time to strengthen etc etc. But come election time and what do we do? Do we really select the best candidate for the job of representing us? Or is our choice based on opting for the lesser of the evils being offered to us? During elections we make huge ethical compromises which have massive consequences. Often we elect people who are incompetent, corrupt and thoroughly devoid of all morals just because they represent the political party which we support, and at other times we select candidates who seem a bit more benign, a bit more competent than their opponents. Sometimes we make up our minds based on who we were against in the last term or even on the basis that we haven't tried a particular candidate or party before so why not give them a chance? We choose our hairdressers with more caution than this!

Perhaps, at least for a while in our country the concept of "Vote For None Of The Above" isn't such a crazy idea after all. Think about it - if we don't vote it doesn't really make any difference to the outcome, it simply decreases the volume of total votes and even worse somebody else votes on our behalf without our even being aware of it. But if there was a space for "None Of The Above" then we could cast our votes and show our choice of rejecting the candidates on offer. If the majority votes are cast for "None Of The Above" new elections with fresh candidates must take place in that constituency.

Now I know most of you are saying 'how impratical' or even 'how can we afford to waste so much money?' Well our so called 'practical' approach hasn't worked so far so why not be a bit crazy? As for the expense, frankly I would rather that I was wasting my own tax money myself than the politicians and bureaucracy - at least I will get an immense amount of satisfaction and empowerment from it! By-the-way folks for those who take everything they read seriously and consider it their civic duty to convert people who have insane ideas - chill! This is not meant as a way of starting a movement, just my frustration manifesting itself as craziness and in this very sane world blogs are perhaps the last frontier of insane ideas.