There seems to be a consensus among politicians, media, pundits, and callers to radio talk shows that our society would be better off if more of us voted. They don’t care who we vote for, so long as we vote. It is a notion so entrenched in our collective values that I have never heard it questioned. It is so popular, in fact, that there are many countries, including Australia, that fine their citizens if they ignore their obligation (and there are those who argue that Canada should create a similar law).

So let me be the first (that I’ve heard) to say that, while I would rather live in a society where the majority of people are interested in the goings-on of our legislatures, attempting to force that result may actually make us worse off.

I can think of two major reasons one might choose not to vote in Canada today:

(1) One is uninformed.

Being uninformed does not necessarily make one a bad citizen. I know people who work full time and spend a good portion of their leisure hours volunteering for charitable organizations. When it comes to politics, however, they don’t know much, so they don’t feel they should be involved in making the decision as to who leads us. To me, that sounds like an ethical decision from someone who does a lot of good for society. For them to take the time to learn about all the candidates might impede on the time they would normally spend on charity work.

But even if an uninformed person isn’t doing other good works with their time, why are pundits so convinced that we’d be better off if such a person were to vote? What are we gaining by having people guess at who should be elected? While that would increase our total percentage of voters (which looks good on paper) it would decrease our percentage of educated voters. Personally I would rather trust my fate to those who have spent time thinking about the issues at stake.

(2) One is too self-focussed to think about politics.

Voter-recruiters are bothered that a lot of young people don’t vote. Once again, I’m sure our world would be a better place if everyone cared about politics and voted without coercion. But if someone doesn’t vote for no other reason than that they don’t care, do they really have the maturity and greater-good considerations that we want in a voter? The sort of person who needs to be persuaded to care about their society will probably not consider any interests but their own when in the ballot box. Again, I would rather our political future be decided by those who, of their own volition, care about the result than by those who need to be berated into it.

Nevertheless, based on the unimpeachable notion that voting regardless of knowledge or motivation is always best for society, Elections BC has paid for television ads attempting to persuade everyone to vote. Does it really make sense to spend taxpayers’ money pleading with uninformed or unconcerned citizens to help us decide the identity of our government? If Elections BC were to create opportunities for those who want to be informed to have greater access to their politicians’ and party policies, then that to me would be a legitimate means of creating a more informed electorate. There is a distinction, however, between disseminating information and cheerleading participation.

While I’m sure that low voter turnout is a symptom of voter apathy, I see no evidence that it is the cause. Attempting to cure a lack of interest in politics by coercing those who don’t vote to do so (via either fines or guilt) is akin to trying to make society more environmental by encouraging people to drive in the H.O.V. lane regardless of whether their vehicle has high occupancy.

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P.S. While I don’t agree with neutral bystanders such as Elections BC and the media trying to persuade everyone to vote, I do think it is their province to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to do so. Thus, where voter suppression tactics seem to be engaged, I believe it is the duty of the media to cry foul.

I have acquired a hobby lately of watching debates (found on YouTube) between religious thinkers and atheist thinkers; I have enjoyed the eloquence of both sides in most cases. I am ever-annoyed, however, by the constantly attempted religious argument that, if there were no God(s), then we would have no morality, and therefore—since we clearly behave morally sometimes—there must be at least one god. That, to me, is not a compelling claim for the existence of God(s) (and not just because so many religious teachings seem profoundly immoral), and yet I have found the responses from the atheist side in the debates to be unsatisfying, so I would like to take a shot at it.

To my mind, proving the existence of an objective morality is a daunting task for both theists and non-theists. It is the classic philosophical challenge in logic of leaping from an understanding of what is, to a claim to what ought to be done about it. I see no evidence that religious people can answer this question any better than nonreligious people.

Consider the standard (and, I think, daunting) philosophical argument against the legitimacy of Divine Command Theory. If we imagine that we do have evidence that God(s) are telling us what to do, then moral philosophers argue that there are two ways to understand such moral prescriptions: either

(A) God(s) have discovered an objective morality, and so are interpreting it for us, or

(B) God(s) have invented morality.

In either case, the followers of God(s) “have a lot of their work still ahead of them” (to borrow a phrase from the the late atheist thinker, Christopher Hitchens):

Per (A) if a religious apologist wants to argue that God(s) are merely teaching us to understand the objective truth of morality, then we would now have an acknowledgement that morality could exist without God(s). That is, if morality is intrinsically true, and God(s) are simply explaining it to us, then morality would be true even if God(s) did not exist, and so therefore, since we believe that morality exists independently of God(s), we are not obligated to believe that God(s) also exist.

Per (B) if, however, a Divine Command Theory defender prefers to make the case that morality is a creation of God(s), then what reason would we have for believing such moral teaching? Perhaps the religious moralist would say that, since God(s) are all-knowing, they must be right. But what are they all-knowing about if morality does not exist independently of them? On what precept do we know that whatever God(s) feel or think is automatically right? Is it because they’re the smartest and/or the strongest? In this case, then morality is that which the smartest and/or most powerful force says is right. But that, in itself, is an objective moral claim (i.e. a claim beyond God, that we ought to follow the teachings of the smartest and the strongest). If, however, the Divine Command Theory apologist is not willing to make any such objective justification for accepting God(s)’s teachings, then he or she has no means by which to claim the legitimacy of his or her deity’s (or deities’) words.

In either case, we are back where started: on what basis can we claim something is right or wrong? If God(s) have provided us with a roadmap for morality, that’s interesting, but on what grounds do we have for trusting that guidance?

My personal nonreligious argument for morality requires only a root assumption that, all other things being equal, happiness is better than misery. I do not think that this is a foolproof argument because one can ask me what basis I have for making such a claim, and my only answer is that it is self-evident. With similar form, a Divine Command Theorist might also argue that he or she needs say no more than that God’s (or Gods’) righteousness is self-evident. Fair enough, but I believe a difference can be found in the quality of these two alleged antecedents for morality if we place them next to each other:

(1) Happiness is better than misery.

(2) God is always right.

I contend that my moral basis has meaning that we can all relate to that the religious one does not. By appealing to recognizable and identifiable human experience, my moral grounds do not depend on a fantastical assumption that there is an all-powerful transcendental force at the helm of our creation. This does not prove my moral claim to be correct, but I think it is a reasonable justification for any compassionate person to choose to behave morally. That is, if one believes that happiness is better than misery (in all sentient creatures), then one ought to aim for happiness-provoking actions, and avoid misery-yielding behaviours.

If a Divine Command Theorist is not satisfied with that argument, then that is fine; my only recourse is to point out that, while my happiness-is-better-than-misery argument does not prove morality right, it does give a credible explanation for why people might behave morally even if there weren’t God(s) supervising us. It’s patently possible that, by evolution, we have inherited a combination of compassion (that makes us want to do right by other sentient beings) and reason (that gives us the ability to extrapolate a moral code from such concern). The theory of evolution suggests that our species has derived its nature from eons of natural selection of the traits that would best ensure our survival; and it is reasonable to think that both compassion (by virtue of its ability to provoke cooperation) and reason (by virtue of its ability to sensibly assemble our best ideas) would be useful traits for our species’s success.

It is possible, of course, that God(s) created the natural world so that humanity could acquire such morality (or at least the appearance of it). However, since evolutionary theory shows it is also possible that humanity could have derived a moral compass without God(s), then the existence/appearance of morality is, I’m afraid, not evidence for the existence of God(s).

One of the things that drives me to roll my eyes at politicians in general, and my British Columbian representatives in particular, is that most of them (or at least the most successful of them) seem to live in perpetual spin. When a legitimate criticism finds its way to them, their duty to their brand seems to be to misinterpret, misdirect, and/or simply confuse the issue until the previously straightforward matter is going in circles. Or, if their mistake is too damning to spin, then they simply hold up a mirror in the direction of their opposition and point out that—when the rival brand was in power—they did something similar.

The latter is a brilliant technique for escaping the most daunting scrutiny because—for almost every level of blunder that you make—one of your enemy political brand members will undoubtably have at some point committed a similar faux pas. Indeed, when eventually the enemy retakes power, and provide their own scandals, they in turn will recall your mistakes back to the stage—and so the circle of politics will continue.

As much as my eyes roll with this spin, I can understand its origins. Much like a product on the market, it is difficult for our democratically elected leaders (and the media that covers them) to focus too much on nuance in the 30 second soundbites that define them. Nevertheless, I often wonder if there is room for a mild case of humility amongst politicians. Perhaps if former BC Premier, Gordon Campbell, had been more humble in his imposition of the HST, the populace wouldn’t have developed such an disproportionate hatred for it.

Maybe I’m wrong: maybe we the voters see humility as a sign of weakness. Perhaps, if a politician admits imperfection too often, we will think they lack confidence. Indeed, the strange modesty-free behaviours of politicians seem to back up this notion. Whereas the rest of us are expected to speak of our own achievements with a modicum of self-deprecation, politicians must continually cheer themselves on and associate themselves with any successful enterprise whether they spawned it or not.

In a few-party system like British Columbia’s, this strategy apparently will get you elected, but it will also eventually get you hated. Indeed, most political leaders—no matter how popular they are in their arrival—will leave office under a hale of contempt. Campbell was one of the most successful politicians in BC history, but by the end, he was amongst the least popular leaders we’ve ever run out of office. The decapitated political party, though, can still survive by renouncing their own former head and admitting they need a fresh start.

Which brings me (finally) to my point. I think I see why the Occupy movement in BC (Vancouver, specifically) seemed to lose so much of their fan base so quickly. Because they are a consensus-based group, they don’t have a leader to blame for their mistakes. And so, when they received criticism that was stronger than standard spin could handle—instead of serving up a fall guy for us to swarm—they simply denied their flaws and claimed the press was not fairly covering them. (It’s never a good idea to attack the media that you rely on to promote your rhetoric.)

Using my talk radio listening experience as my blunt measuring tool, it seems to me that most Vancouverites are significantly sympathetic to the Occupy movement in the US as we perceive that their financial system has betrayed them. Given, however, that Canada, whatever its flaws, has been—my pundits tell me—a beacon of financial security during the current world economic crisis, many wondered—when Canadian Occupiers first arrived—what our self-proclaimed 99% representatives were going to be ranting against.

At first, the Vancouver version wouldn’t really say. One Vancouver representative admitted to my radio host (Bill Good) that—because they were a consensus movement—creating a coherent thesis was going to take a while. Nevertheless, the general “Down with the Man; up with the rest of us” message seemed to resonate with many in the populace who had never heard a pander they didn’t like.

To their credit, some of the Vancouver occupiers were capable of discussing with the press the things they wanted changed about the world, but understandably no two occupiers seemed to think alike, and so the general notion that they didn’t know what they wanted persisted.

In the meantime, many observers were becoming increasingly impatient with the Occupation of previously shared public space. The Occupiers seemed to feel that they were above the bylaw: not only were they ignoring the rules against tent structures, they renounced the authority of the fire department who had claimed that the impressive tent village was contrary to fire code. The movement did eventually conform to the fire department’s “recommendations,” but not without antagonizing their bylaw-abiding audience.

By the time the Vancouver Occupy Movement put forth a list of 60 demands, which itemized a coherent selection of idealistic goals, for many of us, it was too much, too late. In general, my radio friends (at least those who called in to the radio talk shows) agreed with a large percentage of the ideas within the Occupy platform, but they were tired of their anti-social methodology. (And when Vancouver had to re-route its Santa Claus parade around the Occupation, that was the last straw that broke the camel’s back!)

The trouble, I think, with the Occupy movement—in contrast with standard political parties—is that while, yes, most politicians will attempt to spin their way out of criticism, the Occupy party appears to feel that they are above it. After two drug overdoses (one leading to a death) in the Vancouver encampment, they were quick to absolve themselves of any responsibility as they blamed the government for not having better programs for the drug-afflicted; they implied, that is, that their lost comrade would have died even without their Occupation. Perhaps they were right, but their unwillingness to express a morsel of remorse or acknowledgment that they could have done anything differently, themselves, once again alienated their audience.

All of that, I supposed, could be described as standard political rhetoric, but the Occupiers stepped off script forever when a few of them tried to intimidate the press away from covering these potentially damaging stories. And, while some Occupiers tried to talk down the “Don’t broadcast our problems” wing of the movement, they did not renounce the anti-pressers.

In standard politics, if you provoke a scandal (or tax) too big to spin, the party has to leave you under the bus. By the nature of their consensus design, though, Occupiers can never disown their own and so are left to feebly spin the egregious behaviour of their brethren as free speech to which they have a right. (Of course they do, but that doesn’t answer the criticism.)

Strangely, then, this is one case where critics can legitimately paint the whole organization with the same brush. The consensus movement is beholden to the actions of its least reasonable members. One caller to my radio noted that the dreadful behaviours of those aggressive Occupiers were not unlike the beasts in George Orwell’s Animal Farm whose originally righteous resistance to oppressive farmers eventually mutated into a facsimile of the very overlords they had overthrown. As intriguing as this criticism is, I don’t think it’s yet fair to this particular movement. If they continue to treat themselves as infallible, however, they may be on their way.

The 60 demands of the Vancouver Occupy movement may be wonderful goals for our society. But Utopia is not easy to create. As flawed as Canada may be in terms of social justice, it is still—as compared to all of the societies in history—approximately in the top 99th percentile. Per Winston Churchill‘s famous description, democracy, with all of its problem areas, has so far proven to be the most effective way to achieve the best in humanity

However, it is certainly not perfect. For instance, one thing democracy didn’t seem to account for in its birth is that we the people may actually destroy our earth. Unfortunately, we seem unwilling to vote for politicians who will change our habitat-destroying habits. So maybe the Occupiers are right that we need an upgrade on our “now”-obsessed political system.

At this point, though, I don’t believe the Occupy Movement in BC is the one to achieve this utopian goal. When Occupy Vancouver received (and, to their credit, obeyed) legal injunctions to remove themselves from public sites not long ago, they promised to get their message across via flash occupations of public places such as the Skytrain. But the Skytrain is something our society has gotten right, hasn’t it?! Isn’t such public transit good for the environment as it promotes people out of their gas-sipping cars into much more energy efficient trains? And more importantly, from the 99% perspective, Skytrain service helps the majority of us to get around cost-effectively.

But our self-proclaimed 99% reps apparently are so certain of their righteousness that they’re willing to disrupt the travels of often non-rich, green-abiding constituents. As with all politicians, I’m sure they’ll spin this contradiction brilliantly, but, if that doesn’t work—and the 99% is as outraged as it should be by their un-green threat—the Occupiers, sadly, don’t have the option to simply fire their leader. Consensus has no scapegoat.

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So far, thankfully, Occupy Vancouver have not lived down to their Occupy Skytrain threat. This gives me hope for their future; however, the fact that the idea was even suggested by their representatives is a discredit to their movement.

Another election two years from now, and another preemptive attack ad (this time on radio):

HE VOICE: That BC Conservative Leader sure likes everyone thinking he’s a real Conservative.

SHE VOICE: Who, John Cummins?

HE VOICE: What a joke. I mean he voted for the BC NDP in the last election.

SHE VOICE: So Cummins pretends he’s a conservative, then votes NDP. Just what we need—another unprincipled politician.

HE VOICE: That’s John Cummins.

SHE VOICE: If we split the vote, we get stuck with the NDP.

HE VOICE: What a disaster.

SHE VOICE: How can you trust a politician who says one thing and then does another?

HE VOICE: You can’t.

ANNOUNCER: Find out more at Canttrustcummins.ca. A message from the BC Liberal Party.

Yes, in 2013, the province of BC is scheduled to select its next Premier. In the last several elections, the choice has been predominantly between the incumbent right of centre Liberals and the left side NDPs, but the upcoming election promises a new mouth to feed votes, the BC Conservatives on the further right wing. They won’t win, but—as the above advertisement suggests—it’s possible that they’ll acquire sufficient starboard votes that the port-side NDP will regain power, even if a higher percentage of voters are still to the right of them.

The Liberals have lost enough popularity over the years (since the fast ferry scandal that ejected the NDPs in 2001) that they may lose their spot, anyway, but the fear of losing simply because the right-wing votes are divided has provoked them to attack their lesser rival, the Conservatives, well in advance of the election:

SHE VOICE: That John Cummins.

HE VOICE: Leader of the BC Conservatives?

SHE VOICE: Yeah, he opposed Christy’s minimum wage increase, but takes a $100, 000 pension from taxpayers.

HE VOICE: Another unprincipled politician.

SHE VOICE: He says he quote “owes it to his offspring.”

HE VOICE: His offspring, what about the rest us?

SHE VOICE: Well, we aren’t good enough for a raise.

HE VOICE: So he lives off federal tax dollars…

SHE VOICE: While running in provincial politics for the BCC. How can you trust a politician like John Cummins?

HE VOICE: You can’t.

ANNOUNCER: Find out more at Canttrustcummins.ca. A message from the BC Liberal Party.

These painful advertisements astutely follow the model successfully demonstrated by the National Conservatives (well in advance of the last Federal election) whereby they undermined the character of Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff via a series of inflammatory ads that focussed on out-of-context character notes as opposed to the substance of his political argument. Pundits everywhere recoil at this style of presentation as an example of anti-intellectual advertising that caters to the worst of human biases. Even BC Liberal apologist, Alise Mills, was said she was disappointed by the ad (admitting on her weekly CKNW debate with NDP apologist, David Schreck, that it contained the same crimes against respectful discourse that she had criticized in the Premier-attacking “Christy Crunch” ads by the NDP).

Indeed, it’s hard to find someone who doesn’t say that they disdain this phony conversation style ad, flavoured with oversimplified arguments that condescendingly try to appeal to our common hearts. The argument that, because Cummins receives a powerful pension, he’s “an unprincipled politician” is particularly galling. It’s a fact of our society that politicians receive generous compensation compared to the average citizen (and so perhaps they should, given that they’re vital to our democracy, and yet will only escape character assassination if they die young). But a handsome pension does not obligate them to any particular stance on minimum wage. One could easily argue that both a lower minimum wage is best for the province (perhaps because it’s best for business and so good for the economy) while a high politician wage is also best (perhaps because it attracts the best candidates to these indispensable posts). If a politician must apply every privilege they receive to every constituent, then I look forward to the ensuing ads:

SHE VOICE: That Christy Clark.

HE VOICE: Who, the Premier?

SHE VOICE: She makes more money in a week than my 16 year-old son does in a year.

HE VOICE: So while she’s hobnobbing with her powerful BCL friends…

SHE VOICE: He’s stuck at McDonald’s.

HE VOICE: Another unprincipled politician.

SHE VOICE: I guess my son’s not good enough to eat at the same table as her.

HE VOICE: How can you trust a politician that claims to care about families, but takes money away from children?

SHE VOICE: You can’t.

ANNOUNCER: Find out more at Christyhateschildren.ca. A message from the One Society, One Salary Party of BC.

And yet, as I cringe at these ads, I wonder if it’s fair to argue that the BC Liberals shouldn’t put them out. Even though some pundits suggest that they’re increasing Cummins’ name recognition, the federal version of them worked beautifully against Michael Ignatieff even though they were equally vile. So is it wrong, then, to play irrational politics if it gives you the best chance of winning (especially if you genuinely believe you’ll do more good than your rival when elected)?

I’m not sure, but if we don’t want politicians to play such games (such as the BC NDP piling onto the popular but—most economists seem to agree—ill-informed hatred of the HST), then we need to find a way to demonstrate that we’d rather be spoken to like intelligent adults. This, I admit, is a fantastical hope, and I have no idea how it would be implemented, but I think it’s up to us to show the politicians we want such respect and will actually respond to it.

Michael Ignatieff was allegedly an intellectual (a former Harvard professor, in fact), but he didn’t present his ideas like one, probably because he was terrified to alienate an electorate who does not seem to trust academics. The late Federal NDP leader Jack Layton had a PhD, too, but he never emphasized it, not because he was modest, but I suspect because he wanted to appear like one of us—another leader with whom we could share a beer.

Attack ads are utilized because they work. Whenever a party that I’ve voted for uses one, I am embarrassed. However, in the political world, the motto seems to be “pander or perish.” Most parties do it to some degree and so shouldn’t the blame, at least in part, be placed on the society that swarms to it?