Revolution's Eve - 11/5/2012

There is no problem with the government. People vote for who they want to vote for and the contender/party with the majority will win. If there was real discontent as this video attempts to illustrate surely a third alternative would have already appeared and began to gain momentum. This seems to be once again a fringe group overhyping a problem attempting to gain support from the public. If there was a genuine issue we would already be seeing the mechanisms of change.

This Year of Youth project which you seem to be a part of has identified a cause that they feel is important to them. This is something that youth tend to do once they realize they have the power to make changes in a democratic form of government. While it's definitely noble to throw devotion and support to something you feel dearly, there are a few problems.

First and foremost is that even if the project manages to get members nominated, people will not vote for the younger generation. It's purely a matter of fact that youth do not have the experience to occupy seats in high level government. The reason being lack of experience in related issues, a lawyer of 30 years or an economist is a much more sound choice. They're also able to identify with a larger segment of the population as they have been a part of every age group under them. While I agree governments are extensively dominated by lawyers, they also need wider repsentation from groups such as economists and engineers. A government with more people other than lawyers would be a great thing, I just think that economists and engineers are a more viable choice than "youth."

Secondly, even if you were to get a member of congress, governor, or even an aide to one of these reprsentatives elected you would have as much trouble as the current representatives do. The reason that "Change We Can Believe In" has been slow is that campaigning on a promise is a lot easier than actually implementing it on a federal or state level.

In a nutshell, change is a lot harder to implement than creating a campaign based on an idea. The real world happens and can often interfere with these agendae. It's something that comes with maturity, learning that politics is really about choosing the lesser of two evils as large changes are hard to orchestrate.

PS: I believe what Creepy was talking about in regards to the fireworks is a UK holiday only and 5 Nov 2012 is the next full term US election.

Then do something about it. If you want to change government, get involved. By all means, gather support to the cause and create your own party. The problem with response to government is that too many people talk, and then don't act.

Britain is most definetly a two party system in the sense that the Liberal democrats will always be a distant 3rd and are unlikely to ever challenge the top two for a significant share of seats, at least at present. Unless for some reason Labour and the Tories gain an equal number of seats, short of a majority, and then they might come in to play as a coalition partner. And I believe the Lib Dems themselves have said they wouldn't partner either the Tories or Labour in a coalition and would only enter governement when they won a majority - which will never happen. Hasn't been a Liberal (and even that was a different party.. probably closer to Labour than todays Lib dems..) PM since Lloyd George in 1922 and that was a coalition, the Liberals haven't held a majority government for nearly 100 years.

Still, I think starting your own party or running on an independent platform to "change" politics is flawed and doomed from the start. Your best bet would probably be trying to get selected for one of the bigger parties where you have a much better chance at getting elected and trying to evoke change once you're an elected official. Otherwise its all just posturing and even more unlikely to go anywhere. All the "youthful optimism" in the world won't change that.

Now now, don't create voter apathy!