Mmmm… can’t support it. I would argue that saying people who don’t vote can’t complain or are a problem is like saying that if you don’t buy cigarettes you can’t be anti smoking or that by not participating in the crack cocaine industry you are responsible because if you participated you could change the way it works through your inputs. Most democracies allocate funding and influence based on support, and democratic officials require at least an illusion of choice to maintain legitimacy. You do not get to say who gets a LIFETIME appointment to the Supreme Court and can NEVER BE FIRED, but the justices and their opinions are legitimized because a president elected by the people appoints them and representatives elected by the people can veto the appointments- but that assumes an awful lot. We know factually of entrenchment in certain political positions and of politicians serving self interest. We know that politicians lie, make promises they don’t keep, change their stances.
You can believe that you know how a certain politician will vote for a Supreme Court justice or how they will vote on a climate bill and be shocked, and often have little or no recourse. In the case of court justices for example, even if you recall or do not re elect an official after their vote, the appointment endures. A justice can serve across several generations and shape the nations laws who was elected by officials who might have only represented a momentary zeitgeist but who timing has allowed their values to carry forward even after the public has changed their own. They don’t re appoint justices when administrations change or anything like that. So of course it suits those in power when the masses support the systems that give them power. Remember that the president is NOT elected by the popular vote- so a president not chosen by the people, who does not represent their will but the will of a small group of political elites, elects justices to shape the nation, under the
authority of the people, who never actually approved of that president- but following the traditional rhetoric, would then support that president because they had won a democratic election. That sentiment right there gives retroactive legitimacy to a president that was picked by political elites and then, through dogma, convinced the public that it was their choice. Then if things go badly, we blame a president who cannot be re elected after two terms anyway, or we blame each other for who we voted for, but the people who’s votes actually counted and the systems and interests they represent largely escape intact and unscathed. the “No Vote, no complaint” mentality is just plain dumb. Ignoring completely that there are people who literally cannot vote by law and thusly under that logic what? If you commit a crime at 17 and get sentenced as an adult you can’t complain at 46 about the way the country is? I’d think that the most valid observations on a prison system might come from those
who actually had experienced it perhaps? Like maybe that guy can’t vote but when he complains about the way prisons don’t provide useful transitions to a law abiding life after release or poor medical care etc I might take his complaints more seriously than a vote by some jerkyl who’s probably never even seen an operational prison fence in real life..? But those who choose not to vote may simply be refusing to participate in a system that is deeply flawed and corrupt and draws it legitimacy from an illusion that you have direct power over government…? If you hate cigarettes and want Marlborough to go out of business do you pay yourself on the back for buying camels because by supporting their competition you’ve helped steer the world towards one without smoking by making your tiny contribution to putting Marlborough out of business…?
The way you stop cigarette companies is when no one buys the shit they are selling.
The way you stop cigarette companies is when no one buys the shit they are selling.