It's Good Not to Vote.

here

I am in an especially socialistic mood today, so I thought I would also write about Russel Brand's (relatively)recent interview on "NewsNight." Essentially, Brand calls for a egalitarian, socialist revolution by means of income redistribution, heavy corporate taxes, and a staunch defense of the environment. He also abhors the concept of profit.

For the most part, I agree will Brand. But, as his ideas are relatively extreme, I will take the role of apologist for a while.

A point was made in the interview regarding Brand's right to critique the government considering he hasn't ever voted. I want to focus on this point. I think under certain circumstances no one has more right to ridicule, criticizes, or complain about the government than those who do not vote. Voting is a activity within a democratic society to choose between a set of candidates. Voters vote for the candidate they see as acceptable, or rather most acceptable. Hence, unless everyone is acceptable for office, there is an arbitrary minimum threshold which a voter will vote for a specific candidate; at a certain point a candidate becomes unacceptable. Generally, if one candidate is unacceptable for office in a voter's eyes, they will vote for the other candidate(s). However, at a certain point the voter, or the candidates, will become so ideologically distanced between themselves that no candidate is acceptable.

So, the very fact that all candidates partake in the Capitalistic institutions of our society, for Brand, is enough to make all the candidates unacceptable. Hence, though he may want to vote, he doesn't vote because no choice is acceptable in his eyes. Since he is so far removed from the government (or the government is so far removed from him), the path the government is taking is extremely divergent from the path Brand would like to see it take. The fact that what Brand promotes and what the government promotes is of such a great difference ensures that Brand will be severely dissatisfied. His dissatisfaction allows him to critique, complain, and ridicule.

However, if the reason that the voter doesn't vote is they are apathetic towards politics, then not voting is a practice (or rather lack thereof) that is at the stem of problems in most democratic countries. It exacerbates the oligarchic tendencies of the government ruling over them. The apathy associated with not voting extends to not learning about the issues and candidates, not assembling when the desire is there, and not participating in the national dialectic that is present within all free democracies. Hence, though Brand may not vote, that doesn't necessarily mean that he is apathetic towards politics as a whole; the very fact that he is in an interview about politics shows otherwise.

I think that was the most contentious point specific to his interview that I don't cover in another post.