Disenfranchisement

We had a general election recently and I learned that 3.5 million people in the UK did not even register to vote. Fine because I think that is their democratic right. I do not believe, unlike Australia, that people should be forced to vote.

However, the act of not bothering to register raises deeper issues for me. If you cannot be arsed to participate in the most basic factors of a democratic state, then why should that democratic state afford you its protection and benefits? Disenfranchisement can work two ways you know although I do not expect the unregistered to recognise that.

OK so you do not wish to operate within the democratic process? Fine, then piss off and do without any benefits, the NHS and much else.

It’s like the so-called travellers, who like to consider themselves romantically as gypsies. Wander around, paying no council tax or possibly pretty much else, yet they expect to squat where they like, shit all over your lawn and get away with it. Read somewhere about one of their sites where passersby on the adjacent motorway were said to be shouting insults at them. So the local mad council built them a fence to screen them from passing cars.

It’s very simple. Do you wish to be part of this society and enjoy its benefits? Yes? OK, pay up and understand that rights only come with obligations. No? Fine then bugger off and do your own thing and expect no help from me.

It’s their kids I feel sorry for because they have no choice in all this. What is worse, those kids will be raised with the same attitude