Why is it that the radical voices on either side of the political spectrum are granted such an inequitable amount of face time in the media? The answer is the same today as it has been since the start of the mass media phenomenon – bad news sells. In itself that is an indictment of the nature of humanity – we cannot blame the media for giving consumers what they demand.
However, in the political arena this is an intolerable situation since it alienates voters. When voters are given a choice of two terrible candidates, many of them will choose to remain silent. After all, if your choice is a rock or a hard place you have nothing to gain by choosing either. Sadly, that is precisely what has just happened in Egypt – the majority of voters decided that the choice was simply unbearable and made no choice. Unfortunately, when voters choose this path the winners are invariably the radical fringe.
Why does this matter to sensible people in more civilized countries? (Forgive me for the implication that Egypt is not a civilized country – though that is not my intent, I fear that beneath a radical religious government it will soon devolve into that.) The implication is catastrophic for sensible people everywhere. None of us are exempt simply by the good fortune of where we happen to live. Since the USA in in a presidential election year, let’s look at it as an illustration.
I have lived in the USA for twenty years, and every election I have been appalled by the blatant and transparent manipulation of the voting public by the two political parties, which invariably use emotive issues to divide the electorate. Every election has seen the hysterical voices of the Democrat and Republican parties gain volume. Every election has seen those two parties move further and further apart, ideologically.
Nonsense.
My perception of the truth is far from that sad picture. The majority of the people I know are very similar to how they were twenty years ago. If their viewpoints were extreme way back then, they are still extreme. If they were mellow, they still are.
So, if the people haven’t fundamentally changed, then where does the perception of two radically opposed political extremes originate? Listening to the media, one might be fooled into believing there is a vast divide between these two extremes – a void utterly empty of people.
One might be fooled, if one is a fool.
The mass media holds substantial blame for giving disproportionate coverage to the radical extremes present in both political parties. They are not simply giving the electorate what they desire – they are actively stirring up trouble and thereby amplifying the voices of the vocal minority. What happened to fair, impartial, and equivalent coverage? Somehow it has been washed away, the mass media has quite literally sold out – ask yourself who is funding the extremist political advertising bombarding us from all sources? I rather doubt it comes from people just like you, or I – in fact I’m pretty sure it doesn’t, and this begets the question – who then?
I am an independent. My intention is always to vote with my conscience – frankly I can’t understand how anyone can be foolish enough to vote along party lines. Do such people truly believe their political affiliation overrides their moral obligation to do what is right? As an example of this, let me quote this borderline hysterical comment from a woman who I quite like, and who is normally levelheaded, “I vote Republican and no new taxes!”
Really? That is as far as your obligation goes? So what about the fact that police and sheriff departments are being forced to retrench officers of the law because they simply don’t have adequate funding to pay their existing staff? You’re going to vote no to the tax line item that funds their departments? How about schools? How about road maintenance? How about funding the military? What about higher education? And the list goes on. Taxes pay for these things. Taxes should expire, and taxes should be renewed – if you expect to have access to the services they provide.
As to the rhetoric of privatize, privatize. Sorry, but there are some things that the private sector simply has no business in – things that are prerequisites to civilization as we know it, things that usually have a cost but no direct benefit. For example:- the military, the police, the judiciary, education, road construction and maintenance, the jail system (what morally bankrupt people allowed the fiasco of Corrections Corporation of America to come into existence?), along with various others.
To that list of the obvious, I would also add the medical system, since I don’t believe medical treatment should only be available to the wealthy. I am also inclined to add communications infrastructure, as inability to access information denies fair competition. However, those are my personal beliefs only and without majority consensus they do not deserve consideration. (I don’t mean a majority of the vocal minority)
So, after that long and circuitous route, we come back to the root of this issue. A rock, a hard place, and a silent void.
The two major political parties are doing the electorate a huge disservice by limiting our choices to candidates that hold little in common with the “void of the silent majority”.
If Obama is the hard place, then Mitt Romney is the rock. I don’t want either of them as president – and I blame the major political parties for giving me a choice so poor that I feel voting is pointless.
It is long past time for change – both political parties need to wake up and give us worthwhile candidates who might possibly have an interest in how the people in the void between their radical extremes feel. Alternatively we need a new party, one that is not even further out on the lunatic fringe. Yes, a new party that caters to the morals and value of the many occupying the silent middle ground of the “void”.
And we thought Egypt had a hard choice? The USA is no different at all.