Parliament. A place of knowledge. A place of wisdom. A place of power. Where wisemen lead the country and do what`s best for the people.
Or so the story goes.
In Slovenia, it`d go something like this.
Parliament. A place of vulgarity. A place of stupidity. A place of power. Where assholes lead the country and tell other assholes to go check their sex organs.
Funny, how the two definitions lack similarities, isn`t it?
I guess this is one of the “Only in slovenia” types of posts. And please, don`t tell me that in Romania they beat the shit out of each other in the Parliament or that in america they curse out loud. I am not fucking interested what the other monkeys are doing. This is our Zoo. We vote for it, we are paying for it and we have to put up with it.
People of Slovenia are amazing. Really, they are. Every time I look at a place like this, I find it harder and harder to understand the mehanics that make everything move. Where did the capability of a dialogue go? Under dialogue do not see go fuck yourself et al, but a productive exchange of ideas and thoughts. It seems that the vulgar the person, the better the reputation. The bigger the power.
Telling a fellow member of the parliament to go examine her own sex organs is a little over the top. What`s even more over the top is writting down an ethic code for the members. I mean seriously, what`s their age again? They have to enfore good manners? Even in the sleaziest of pubs where they pour nothing but piss, they do not sign an agreement on how they are going to behave. They just…do it.
You know where they do sign it? In kindergarden. Well, not actually sign it, but they do have a poster which says NO this and NO that and YES this and YES that. And now, they`ll put something similar in the parliament. Holy shit, right?
I said it many times, it`s not the monkeys in the zoo that bother me, it`s those people outside the zoo that decided they want those kinds of monkeys that make me think about IQ and the of the beautiful mind of man.
Another thing that does bother me with the monkeys is their train of thought. I mean seriously, would any of you even consider to say to someone “You know, you should go and check your sex organs, cause I don`t think you got the right set to match!” What the fuck is that ladies and gentlemen? Can anybody explain that? I mean, who is the right set of mind would even utter such a thing? And even more, in a public, well documented place? Well, of course, if the guy did not know he was not supposed to pay his own private lawsuit which he lost with the state`s money, I guess we can pardon him for saying a thing or too about vaginas and penises right? And on the other hand, who votes for such a schmuck? Who goes “I think I`ll vote for the asshole who will then rob me and claim he did not know he was not suppose to do that?” And no, I am not saying he is the sole voice of idiots in our country, but others…well…they are good at hiding it. While he is…as open as goatse (google for it).
But hey…life goes on.
I personally think the problem with the people outside the zoo, the ones who vote for people like Mr. Check-your-sex-organs, is that they aren’t doing very well and nobody cares about them. There are many people in this country (stuck in miserable blue-collar jobs or, even worse, having to make ends meet by some unbelievable combination of moonlighting and unemployment support), who are quite unhappy with their situation and are at the same time aware that neither the society at large nor the politics in particular is really interested in helping them live a better life. The old social contracts are being torn apart, the country is being manoeuvred into an “every man for himself” mode, and the people I’m referring to are practically being given to understand, in no uncertain terms, that they are redundant, useless, worthless, that their lives aren’t going to get better, ever, period, and that they are for all practical purposes mere ballast existences. This of course makes them not only unhappy but frustrated and angry, and therefore desirous of being represented in the parliament by some sturdy fellow who will be able to bang his fist on the table and stand up for them; someone who won’t mince words, someone who’ll express their opinions, their anger, their rage, in a plain and forthright way, the same way they would do it in their local tavern with their regular drinking buddies; the same way they actually feel it, not tarted up with a whole lot of high-faluting words that wash away any meaning that their original sentiments might have had. We are talking about people who dislike change because it has too often meant only change for the worse; people who aren’t interested in an exchange of ideas and thoughts because it always leaves them on the losing side of the argument and because they have found that nobody listens to them anyway; people who are sick and tired of having had their way of life altered and ruined by a bunch of smooth-talking sissies whose speeches full of big words about progress have brought them nothing but misery and uncertainty.
The way out of this conundrum is not to bemoan the (real or imagined) stupidity of these voters, but to do what politics was supposed to be doing all this time anyway: listen to them and try to adjust the system so as to take their wishes into account to a greater degree than heretofore. Make it once again possible to make a decent living (complete with health care and a pension after retirement) on simple, undemanding blue-collar jobs (which is the only kind these people are capable of, or interested in, doing); allow them to recover a semblance of stability in their lives: make it possible to go on living without having to face all the loathsome and unnecessary complexity that is constantly being introduced into our lives by social and technological change. Stop telling them that it’s every man for himself. Stop telling them that they should take responsibility for their own lives and their own actions. They know just as well as you or I do that this would only bring upon them misery and yet more misery. They want somebody to care about them; to care for them. They feel that this is what the state, the government, the politicians are for. And I for one agree with them.
You cannot realistically hope to have a large underclass of desperate people left behind by the societal transitions, to give these people the right to vote, and at the same time to avoid having politicians like Mr. Check-your-sex-organs in the parliament. Much though I abominate him, I am glad that he is there. His presence is a sign of much rottenness in our society. And the way to clean it up is not by complaining about the stupidity of the voters, but by enabling them to live a decent life once again.
but then again, does not the self-reproduction of elite come into play? if the voters will become educated and live a decent life, won`t that automatically mean that their preferences will change and that mister check-your-… will be found redundant and useless? I mean, if he is being voted in with the votes of the angry and anger is the thing that feeds him, why resolve that? Why give them what they want? So that they`ll stop being angry? And consequently, stop voting for him?
I do agree the situation is far from perfect and I am not saying that the system works, but that`s not the issue here. This is basic ethics and being polite and reasonable (whatever the reason might be).
And as far as social contracts, which is indeed a very delicate subject… a system cannot change without some parts left out or being made redundant. I know it sounds cruel and I am all for the people by the people, but some things are just not possible. And relying too strongly on the help from the state is also very dangerous. See slovene farmers and hail claims and stuff.
The right way in my opinion is down the middle. State can help, but it cannot save you entirely. We are not babies who cry whenever in pain and mommy runs by with a big, fat titty, full of milk. Some modifications have to be made in order to make the system work (at least partially).
What I don`t understand is that the effect of this anger-fuelled elected representative is second-to-none. And the voters are not seeing that. They are not learning from their own experiences. And that is the main problem. That is what bothers me. Fool me once, shame on you…fool me twice…
Re your first paragraph – I’m sure that many of Mr. Check-your’s voters would turn away from him and start supporting more moderate politicians if their lives genuinely changed for the better. (Consider e.g. the Weimar Germany, where the support for the NSDAP dropped to infinitesimal levels after the country recovered from the economic crisis of 1923; and it would have stayed at infinitesimal levels were it not for the economic crisis of 1929-32.) The problem, of course, is that their lives never will change for the better.
People lose interest in basic ethics, including being polite and reasonable, when they see that it won’t ever get them anywhere. Society is relegating them to some marginal position, with a status halfway between slaves and worthless parasites, and you are telling them to be polite and reasonable? No, we can’t expect those voters to be polite and reasonable until we improve their lives. As for their representative in the parliament, surely he is only an astute businessman who has found a good niche in the market and now has to market himself to that niche. This is the brave new world of democracy and the market economy! We can’t expect him to let mere ethics and civility get in the way. No, in the game of “each man for himself”, it’s always the biggest assholes that get to the top, never the polite and reasonable people.
In my opinion, relying on help from the state is only dangerous if the state at some point decides to stop providing help. There is, however, in my opinion, no good reason why it ever should stop providing help. I for one am all in favour of locally produced food, whether it takes protectionism, subsidies, or whatever else to achieve it. The matter of hail claims is surely the most trivial thing to settle. Right now the farmers are being encouraged to stop asking the state for help when hail ruins their crop, and to start paying premiums to insurance companies instead. Since the insurance companies cannot make money from thin air, this would mean that the sum total of premiums paid by farmers to insure their crops would be approximately the same (plus/minus the profits of the insurance company) as the total amount of money paid out to the farmers whose crops have been destroyed by hail. Now replace “insurance companies” by “the state”, replace “insurance premiums” by “taxes”, and replace the voluntary participation in insurance with the involuntary participation that is taxation, and hey presto! you have a system that protects all the farmers from drought, without giving them the chance to take unadvisable risks by not trying to save on the insurance premium by not insuring their crop.
The effect of the anger-fuelled electorate (and their representatives) is perhaps greater than we imagine. In my opinion there has been, in recent years, a marked shift towards greater violence in public expression, greater tolerance towards hate speech and the like, with conservative and authoritarian values coming into ever greater prominence and gaining ever more support, while numerous kinds of genuinely weak and marginalized minorities (unlike Mr. Check-your’s voters) are being oppressed with ever greater gusto. The conditions of life for the angry voters of Mr. Check-your-so-and-so’s won’t really be improved by all this, but at least they’ll be able to find a few even more marginalized sections of society and take out their anger on them. And oppressing somebody who’s even worse off than you feels very, very good, indeed the better the more miserable your own condition is. This, among other things, is why Mr. Check-your’s misogynistic comment in the parliament finds such resonance with his voters: they have such a low position in society that their women are the only ones on whom they might possibly vent their anger, provided of course that they can keep them “in their place”; hence the misogyny.