Referendum vote a difficult choice

Iwas faced with a difficult choice on the proportional representation referendum ballot: ultimately, either no or yes, and whatever system could be construed as siding with the enemy of my enemy. Since 2013, long before it was cool to be right-wing and controversial, I have been on a crusade for ideological clarity.

First past the post with centrist parties obstructs that quest but so might giving every sliver of political expression a chance to stymie necessary or annual legislation.

If you go back a couple of generations, you’ll find out that British Columbia had proportional representation, which led to all kinds of political insanity. When the Social Credit Party finally got a majority of seats through this Byzantine system, they disbanded it immediately. That might seem as partisan a move as the ballot and questions of today being offered in the midst of minority rule but clearly, first past the post stabilized our government. Will PR do so? Honestly, the question could not come at a worse time for the yes side, if voters bother to look at countries using PR. In Australia, learning the PM’s name is optional, because another will be along anytime thanks to political intrigue and in Europe, the consensus parties of yesteryear are losing out to more radical factions, both left and right, thanks to a minority of votes still granting them a legislative veto. For further reference, look up the Weimar Republic.

Indeed, PR brings up all political considerations at once: rights vs. responsibilities, order vs. liberty, the individual vs. the group, and democratic expression vs. state effectiveness.

We all want our voices to be heard, but at the same time, all citizens rely on expedient and decisive government to ensure their freedom and security. In Western civilization’s five-millenia-long struggle over these core questions, there is still room for debate. That ought to give us pause. On the other hand, I’m not exaggerating when I say “my enemy.”

I am exhausted with neoliberal centrism: the managerial state has kept me from starving, but it hasn’t managed to increase median wages for decades, and yet it charges ever more for increasingly mediocre public services. I’m not the target voter, but I’m certain the dissatisfaction I feel for our oligarchs and their apparatchiks is shared by people of different political and cultural backgrounds.

Thus, a moral choice faces us. It is unwise to make new policy based on resentment; however, with the simple stroke of a pen, we might be able to disrupt all the nefarious plans of a political class we’ve long deemed wicked and craven. Why such a near occasion of sin is being offered to us in a time of populist unrest is incomprehensible and almost beyond endurance.

Winston Churchill reminds us that “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried,” so we ought to be grateful.

And truly, we cannot assume that our political stability as a nation, province or town was inevitable or is eternally guaranteed. It must be guarded diligently, as we all just gathered to observe on Remembrance Day.

In this vein, I voted no to PR, despite my deep-seated anger at our rulers and their ineffectual policies. They are indeed the worst except for all the others that might harm us if given the chance with just a few votes. And while our current system is flawed, many of these problems could begin to be solved by properly engaging voters with clear policy choices and plain or politically incorrect talk about the serious problems that our society faces.

It is likely that this motion will fail and all our fretting will have been for nothing. But our leaders would do well to observe the world around them.

Political upheaval is the new norm, all brought on by voters who feel the social contract has fallen apart, or even become a weapon of the powerful against the weak. Whatever your politics, if you’re in charge, I’d reform before long.

We all want our voices to be heard, but at the same time, all citizens rely on expedient and decisive government to ensure their freedom and security.