Fly in the ointment of democracy

As most people around the world know, there is to be a US election in the fall. Much to the relief of many, George W. has completed his two stints. So has that weasel Dick Cheney (arguably the scariest and most evil looking dude around), and a new era will begin. What it will look like is anybody’s guess at this juncture.

So, in thinking about that forthcoming election and its significance, Americans must be aware that much of what happens outside their geo-political realm will be based on what happens in the US election.

This has brought me to the realization that there is a flaw in all of this. If what happens in the US is going to impact me, as a Canadian, for example, so why don’t I get a say in the election?

There is a big fly in the ointment of world governance. That fly being that elections in democracies are restricted to the citizenry of that country. That’s just not right. It may have been right in 1850, but this is a different world; one in which we are in direct and instant touch with what is going on elsewhere. So, we should all get a say.

In that, I have a cunning plan, as Baldrick on the wonderful Blackadder was wont to say. My plan is this: everybody who lives in a democratic state gets to become an auxiliary citizen of all other democracies around the world. And, in being an auxiliary, he or she would get half a vote. So, if say 1.5 million Canadians vote for Obama, should he get the nomination, that would earn him 750,000 votes. Clever, eh?

And, think about it. Many of us travel. How nice it would be to go to a country and to know that you had a say in that country’s government of the day. Think that Gordon Brown guy in the UK is a bit of an anal jerk who became more obsessed with being rid of Tony Blair rather than doing the nation’s business? Throw the bum out. Believe that Sarkozy in France is more concerned about dallying with his hottie mistress rather than fixing that nation’s manifold problems? Have a say in replacing him. Believe that Putin in Russia is a tin-pot dictator who wants to hold sway for life? In the first place, he does. In the second place, maybe we should have a say in keeping that from happening.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. It’s a modest proposal, but one that just might have merit.