Logics: who NOT to vote for on elections day?
Voting is a matter of personal choice. However, the traps for naive people are too big.This article may not solve every dilemma about how to vote and whom to vote for on various elections in future but it will surely help people to observe the surroundings with more quality and be a harder victim of human predators.
The article explains the principles of choosing candidates on elections. The principles are exclusively author's private opinion, and the article does not represent the view of every particular institution or organization.
Objective choice criteria
Every voter should aim for objective criteria when evaluating his candidate. One of the most important features of educated voter is the refusing of big number of misinformation that he is bombed with between two elections.
Even for the most educated voter however, it is impossible to cope with all misinformation. One of possible sources of information regarding techniques of misinformation is the title "Misinformation" by Vladimir Volkov. The exceptionally high level of intellect and information is needed to overcome the flood of misinformation on every question, and that level perfection is reserved for very few people.
From all these reasons, the only aim of interested voter is the maximal level of doubt in every scarce information, and their treatment as doubtful and unworthy until proven otherwise.
The objective principles explained in this text are the following:
Biased voting criteria
In a typical situation voter will not choose the candidate on elections day in objective manner if he neglects the following principles:
1) Talking principle: what a politician talks about is completely irrelevant by itself.
How many times have you been disappointed in people who talk beautifully, pleasantly, logically, nicely about something? How many times have you believed a politician who passionately and convincingly argue what you exactly believe in, just to be shown the very next day that he disappointed you deeply, or at least he was not at the level you expected him to be?
Simply put, the politician's talk is - irrelevant. The skillful politician can talk the whole day convincingly, sensibly, even logically, to shuffle the sentences, to answer briefly and quickly, and at the same time to be fully incompetent for the future positions after he is elected. The second possibility is that nicely talking politician is a potential - liar. The science knows the term pathological liar and it is not impossible for you to become a victim of such if fancy talk is your main criteria of choice in elections.
Of course this does not mean the politician that speaks well is not a good politician, but it only means that politician's talk means nothing by itself. In short: one should not vote for somebody just because of his "fancy talk".
2) Principle of critics: do not vote for someone just because you agree completely with critics he can say
If your candidate is the excellent member of the opposition who criticize the authorities just the way you think one should, and you agree with him thoroughly in everything he says, or at least you agree on his main points, this is again the very wrong reason to give him your trust on elections day. The basis for this is simple: it is extremely easy to criticize, and it is hard to find one who will not criticize convincingly everyone and everything. Even a child has often the opportunity to criticize very convincingly the phenomena in his surrounding.
3) Compromise principle: one shoud not vote for somebode just becuase the candidate is uncompromised personally
Most of people usually want the clean past for their supposed candidate. However, the clear past is not a shred of guarantee for the elected politician from three reasons at least: first, politician-beginner is a candidate for high position in future which he has not experienced jet, and it is not clear how he would behave in that position when he tastes the sweetness of power; secondly, clear past does not have any connection to the ability of particular politician to fulfill the management functions when he wins power; and thirdly, clear past does not mean the politician is honest - maybe his activities have not been discovered jet.
Consequently the clear past is surely the must for your candidate, but taken for itself, the clear past means nothing.
4) Media principle: the public media estimations of your candidate and expecially evaluations presented by public opinion research agencies should not be taken for real not even a bit.
Most voters are not fully aware of agencies and media as the property of interested parties, and being such they are completely excused from every objective consideration. How many agencies for public opinion research have given the correct estimates in uncertain circumstances? Almost in all cases these "agencies" make big "errors" in their "estimations"; interestingly enough the citizens mostly forget their (totally wrong) evaluations and every time they are confident in the next estimation of these same agencies which make catastrophic mistakes. It is must more probable to find again your lost wallet with $10.000 on a market place then you are able to find an agency for public opinion research that is objective. it is not impossible that some of those agencies correctly fulfills it's work, but to find it among others is the undertaking worth o Guinness book of records. So do not even try.
5) Principle of apperience: one should not vote for somebody just on the basis of nice apperience or posture
It is unbelievable how many people and especially women takes the appearance and poster of politicians as criteria for choosing candiate on elections. It is not necessary to emphasize that appearance of a candidate and his posture has the least important role from all the principles listed above.
Women voters often connect the appealing appearance and the supposed political carrier and imagined future reputation of a candidate with themselves, and is ready to believe that by voting for such a candidate they fulfill their dreams. This principle is the same as the mechanism that attracts the same part of population to love stories and TV soap operas.
As with all other criteria, a good political candidate should surely have the acceptable and appealing appearance, but this has nothing to do with his abilities for position you are going to elect him for.
Do you want in years to come to morn because you devoted your vote to a beauty or a handsome who make you sick of their incompetence and seriously influenced you feel miserable in your own country?
6) Escape principle: never vote in the manner "Everyone but not him!"
Some features (imagined or real) of candidate A are so much repulsive to you, that your ready to vote for candidate B even without exact check of candidate B
Running away principle is very bad manner of voting. It is like you are deserting from the tropical summer heat by hiding in Arctic and die from cold there. You have to thoroughly rethink about negative features of candidate B before you vote for him. If candidate A is bad, and maybe even objectively bad, does not mean that candidate B has not even worse features that you have not discovered yet! So - do not rush in. Consider your candidate B from all sides.
7) Star principle: if you chose your candidate only for his good features without knowing any of his bed sides, you are biased (not objective)
It does not mean necessarily that you are wrong in your choice, but this principle means only that you rushed in and did not collect enough characteristics of your favorite. Namely, every candidate is only a man, with good and bad sides, and you didn't bother to hear anything about his (objectively) bad characteristics. That means you have been BIASED. Because of partiality you have been blind to evalute the candidate.
8) Majority principle: majority votes for him - but you are not ought to
Incredible susceptibility, or the need of people to be in crowd and a part of the same community, or the gregorian flock motive, is present in human's nature. People with weak character are keen to go for the best ranked candidate, so they vote for a candidate just because of his good chances to win.
Instead of taking care of community interests and their own personal interests, people are leaning towards completely biased and maliciously planted misinformation. This group of people is affected by public opinion research agencies. These people have weak character and are sometimes ashamed of the possibility their voting for minority representative would be discovered and disgraced by others, so they do not vote by their own conscience.
9) Principle of completeness: know the good and bad sides of all candidates and make sure they are maximally objective as much as possible. Doubtful news on candidates from doubtful sources should be considered just that - doubtful, remember them but occasionally check them from new sources whenever you can, but do not take them for granted.
You have to know all candidates to choose betwee, so your voting will have some sense. Otherwise, every other voting is a lottery. And lottery is very rarely ended with gain. The problem of countries with low political culture is that they do not post every voter at his home address the material with complete description of every candidate and their program as the candidate outline it for himself for that occasion. Instead, it is expected that voters gather their information as they can: throught newspapers, TV, wich is never complete and always exposed to misinformation.
This principle is very important in elections with a lot of candidates. In those cases it is impossible even for very interested voters to find all relevant data. This redicule with democracy is common with countries with low political culture.
10) Principle of character: extremely good chracter, or too bad character is not satisfactory
Politics is one of the dirtiest human activities. Often politics is connected to the prostitution in the sense of character values need by their actors. That is why the politician's character is statistically observed as very low. It could be assumed that politician's character is even much below the average (unethical, improper). By observing such statistics one can conclude that the good candidate should not have over too good character (ethical), or too flexible one (unethical).
Ethical candidate will frequently be cheated on by his political opponents, because his ethics is the obstacle for him to understand the plots around him. On the other side, unethical character is keen to deceive so his promises are worthless.
Your candidate has to have stable and ethical character, but not extremely ethical. Extremely ethical people are sometimes set aside by that virtue, behind them are connected very unethical people using the leader as shield for their dirty political and other activities. Extremely ethical people are usually weak observers of surroundings and changes because they are too much occupied by keeping their own integrity above community average.
So ethics and strong character is need for you candidate, but without exaggeration.
11) Passion principle: if you think with passion and expecially with hate about any candidate, it is very sure that you are biased not about that candidate, but with the other you have chosen and consider him appropriate!
How is that possible? It is simple realy - emotions are opposite from objectivity when talking about political choose. Negative emotions you feel are almost surely leading you to be biased (see the escape principle) voting.
12) Environment principle: refuse the candidate if you observe bad people in his immediate surrounding , or there objectively and sure are compromised people
Maybe you shall notice that this is the only principle that refuses a candidate on the basis of indirect facts. I based this principle on famous Serbian maxim: "With whome you are - are you the same".
_____________________________
Look carefully the principles above : they can make you objective when choosing the candidate by your own needs and the needs of your community&country, and to reduce the possibility to be deceived. Of course: to reduce the possibility but not to eliminate it! This is why politics is what they say about it: *****