Once upon a time I discussed politics with my mother. It went more or less like this:
She: - I voted for X.
Me: - Well, they are a bunch of thieves, responsible for {few known scandals here}
- But they are still better than Y!
- Relatively speaking? Yes, Y had no power, so they couldn't steal that much.
- But you have to vote for someone, right?
- Well, actually, I don't. They are all bad to some degree, and whoever gets to rule - will become the worst. Inevitably.
- You don't know it, and besides you can always, if you don't like present choices, create your own party!
- No, I can't... I thought about it once, before I realized how impossible it is and how pointless it is anyway.
- But... but... what are you, and anarchist?
- Yes. Actually that's who I am.
And then, after weeping and gnashing of teeth, she said:
- Your grandparents fought in wars, so our country can be independent and you can be free to build it with all our people! Aren't you a patriot either?
It turns out that actually no, I'm not a patriot. At least not like she meant it. And no, it's not quite true that all those wars were fought, so we can now be enslaved in subtler ways. Wars are fought for money and ideologies, usually for both. But on the level of individual soldiers - they do fight for independence. They fight the enemy who wants them to speak other language, use different flag, things like that - but when the war is over and the enemy is out, it is "our people", our leaders, who become our oppressors. And then it is kind of hard to explain that no, all that fighting was not to get us where we are, but to free us. And what we have now, representative democracy, is not freedom. Oh sure, it is advertised as such, obviously, but it is not. The only democracy that does not threaten freedom individual is a) direct and personal, b) it refrains from imposing its rules over people who wish to be excluded.
Direct democracy is possible now, with the technology we already have. I listened to a radio audition some time ago when some "experts" and politicians discussed if it is possible to have e-voting implemented in the country and their answer was "no, absolutely not" - they provided a couple of arguments to "prove" that bold statement, and each one almost made me pull over (I was driving at that moment) and call them, to inform them what a bunch of uneducated half-brained drunk idiots they were.
And the second thing - is it necessary that each law passed by democratically chosen government has to be obeyed by everyone? Like they have TV tax, which they want everyone to pay, because our national TV has a patriotic mission (yeah, they really say that). Well, when I see a national TV channel, I see commercials and Big Brother-style programs, plus some ancient national movies from time to time, and they call it a "mission". Not to mention that it currently became propaganda tube for the ruling party. But hey, everyone has to pay, because it's the law and law is to be observed with no exceptions. If they had a no-beard law I would have to shave, simple as that. But they are all human made up laws that need to be enforced by special uniformed groups of people, so they are not simply ignored. And the funny thing is that in principle it is obvious that cooperation and coexistence of individuals and groups of people needs to be structured in some way, so we have common language, common protocol we can use to live within the same space - street, city, country... We do need "law", but what we have now is not quite that. What we have are rules, meant to keep us under control and under pressure. What we have is not what our ancestors fought for, nowhere in the world.
