I did not say that.

One of the things that’s always amazed me is the way England and America treat democracy.

Apparently, we love democracy. We love it enough to go to war to protect it. However, as much as we say we love Democracy, our voter turnouts are tiny. I mean, less than 40% tiny.

Isn’t that a kick in the balls? Just from our voter turnout, we could say that the minority have the power. We can only hope that the people who actually do take the time to vote are a decent cross-section to represent the rest of us.

I was thinking about this today, and I realized why we have such a small turnout.

First of all, all we have to do is look at candidates’ campaign tactics.

Basically, rather than go to the trouble of talking about their policies and what they’d do with the power we can give them, they spend millions and millions of dollars telling us what an asshole the other guy is.

The saddest thing is, I don’t really care if one candidate smoked a little weed in college. I don’t care if the other candidate cheated on his wife in 1994. Hell, I don’t care if the candidates are weed-smoking, vodka-drinking wife-swapping ex-convicts as long as they can actually do the job well.

Secondly, what does this do to us, the voters?

We’re put in a position where we know that all the candidates are huge douchebags. Either that or all of them are lying.

No wonder our voter turnout is so low. Who do you want representing you? A douche or a liar?

Last but not least, once these people do get into power, they start (continue?) lying to us.

Just once I’d love to see a politician get asked a tough question and say:

“You know what? I fucked up. I made a mistake. My bad, people.”

You see, I could respect a guy who said that. Someone who was willing to accept responsibility for their actions and admit when they’re wrong.

Instead, what we get is a politician who will appear on TV on Monday and say:

“We have absolute, incontrovertible proof that politician A is not a pedophile. We support and trust him totally. He is not under investigation and will continue his office for the foreseeable future.”

Then, of course, a few days later, a video is released and it turns out politician A is indeed a pedophile. Then the same guy who went on TV on Monday will be interviewed:

“So, Mr. Politician, why did you say you had absolute proof of politician A’s innocence when that was obviously not the case?”

“I never said we had proof. Politician A has been under investigation since the beginning.”

“But you said in a press conference on Monday that you had ‘absolute and incontrovertible proof’ of politician A’s innocence.”

“I did not. I did not say that at all. I have never stated that Politician A is innocent. We have had Politician A under investigation since the beginning, and I definitely did not say we had proof of his innocence.”

“But last week you said Politician A was not under investigation and that your administration supported and trusted him totally.”

“I did not say that. Your statement is totally false. Next question.”

“What will happen to politician A now?”

“No more questions about Politician A please.”

That’s what I don’t get. Interviewing a politician is like catching a kid who’s covered from head to toe in chocolate, but is swearing they didn’t eat the chocolate cake you were saving for company. We have them on tape saying something. They know we have them on tape. However, when asked about it, they will insist they never said that, ever.

Basically, if you put your fingers in your ears and say “LALALALALALA”, the problem goes away.

So there you go. Basically, the average voter is going to the polls to decide which guy gets to lie to them for the next few years. We know they’re both douchebags, liars and will promise us anything to get into office…but once they’re there, they’re under no obligation to follow through on a single damn thing they said.

No wonder so few people vote.