the brilliantly leaping gazelle

Of course I’m aware of the inherent logical contradiction in yesterdays blog, in fact the same one contained in all my posts that lambast people for not exercising their right to vote. Namely, that a in a democratic society having the right to vote also means having the right not to vote. It’s like democratic ying and yang.

Except not.

Voting carries with it consequences that affect more than just the individual. They also have a social responsibility, an obligation if you will, to the society of which they are a member. They have expectation of what services of the state will provide. We may not like everything the state does for us, but there’s also a lot we do like. What if the state decided that the reward for voting was continues access to the services the state funds, but that the reward for not voting was a termination of the social contract. It doesn’t happen but it should.

Imagine if a child turned up on her first day of school and the head said ‘Sorry and all that, but your Mum saw fit to exercise her democratic right not to vote so the state is freed from all obligations it was previously legally mandated to provide..”

And imagine that scenario being played out in hospital A&E departments, ‘I can see you’re having a heart attack, but sadly you didn’t vote and we’re underfunded as it is, so we have to priories our resources on those who did.’ Or when calling 999 you got a message saying ‘Your call isn’t important to us as we can see that your calling from a ‘phone registered to someone who didn’t think voting was important. Good luck with that. Bye.’

If access to government services was contingent on people voting I think it would have a beneficial effect democracy. I can’t see any downsides.